SW: Laser/TLaser weapon nomenclature
Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:12 pm
I've come to a point where I wonder if we should not simply ditch the EU's nomenclature regarding energy weapons for spaceships, at least as far as it relates to use and firepower.
While EUphiles would argue that one kind of caliber strictly corresponds to one kind of target, there is just an awful lot of evidence that this is just not the case at all.
We have TL turrets on the Death Star's surface which are not that big in fact, yet can supposedly repel, when used in mass, any attack from a capital ship. Of course, if the rather small turbolasers were relevant to their firepower, they'd have no chance to threaten a fleet of ships, no matter their true number.
Also, this topic is quite important in light of the asteroid destruction scene in TESB. I've been growing tired of pointing out that there's no evidence that the asteroids busted by an ISD Mk-II were shot at by light TLs.
This is even more complicated when you consider the width of the green beams, and clearly do not seem to fit with anything that would be called "light", but actually pretty much fits with the width of beams fired from the heavy turbolaser turrets found on the surface of the Death Star or on worlds, for defense.
And more amusingly, we have rather very large turrets, the extremely huge quad-laser batteries on Trade Federation battleships, yet... they're only laser weapons, not turbolaser weapons, and therefore, should not be considered powerful enough to really engage a capital ship.
The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology says that a turbolaser's "two-stage design creates blasts with triple the power of standard laser cannons." (p.71)
Obviously, it compares weapon types of similar volumes. We know that turbolasers in the EU can be reduced to such a size that some starfighters mounted some.
More interesting was the sort of turret Mike pointed to in the trench notch of an ISD Mk-II.
I actually grew a will to defend the existence of this bit of structure as a true turret (although I recognize it's not an elegant design by any mean).
I'll copy and paste what I said to Leo, with the help of images to make my point clear, picked from Star wars vs star trek: Movies & TV only, from page 11:
This one is picked from the end of page 4 of the following thread, in an argument with Point 45:
NOTE: broken picture links edited.
While EUphiles would argue that one kind of caliber strictly corresponds to one kind of target, there is just an awful lot of evidence that this is just not the case at all.
We have TL turrets on the Death Star's surface which are not that big in fact, yet can supposedly repel, when used in mass, any attack from a capital ship. Of course, if the rather small turbolasers were relevant to their firepower, they'd have no chance to threaten a fleet of ships, no matter their true number.
Also, this topic is quite important in light of the asteroid destruction scene in TESB. I've been growing tired of pointing out that there's no evidence that the asteroids busted by an ISD Mk-II were shot at by light TLs.
This is even more complicated when you consider the width of the green beams, and clearly do not seem to fit with anything that would be called "light", but actually pretty much fits with the width of beams fired from the heavy turbolaser turrets found on the surface of the Death Star or on worlds, for defense.
And more amusingly, we have rather very large turrets, the extremely huge quad-laser batteries on Trade Federation battleships, yet... they're only laser weapons, not turbolaser weapons, and therefore, should not be considered powerful enough to really engage a capital ship.
The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology says that a turbolaser's "two-stage design creates blasts with triple the power of standard laser cannons." (p.71)
Obviously, it compares weapon types of similar volumes. We know that turbolasers in the EU can be reduced to such a size that some starfighters mounted some.
More interesting was the sort of turret Mike pointed to in the trench notch of an ISD Mk-II.
I actually grew a will to defend the existence of this bit of structure as a true turret (although I recognize it's not an elegant design by any mean).
I'll copy and paste what I said to Leo, with the help of images to make my point clear, picked from Star wars vs star trek: Movies & TV only, from page 11:
I'd later on correct the number of raws I counted.When Olie flies the ship close to a standard Lucrehulk ship, we see those guns are placed on the top of the terrace, not on the slope that faces the sphere core, the only guns which are drawn in the TPM:ICS.Vympel/Leo wrote: I don't recall seeing four rows of three equally huge gun positions at any time in the film. And the TPM ICS cross-section is of the TF Droid Control Ship, not the standard TF Battleship.
Secondly, the ICS does show the standard lucrehulk, and does show the gun pieces on the side of the terrace that's facing the core. But it completely miss the obvious and equally huge pieces all over the terrace and behind.
You didn't look close enough then. I never spotted it because even if Saxton sort of points to it but is not sure, his pictures are not good enough to verify this.Vympel/Leo wrote:There's no double barreled turret at the rear of the minor notch that I've ever been able to conclusively spot. Heck, I've seen the model myself at the Power House Museum when it came here a few years ago. I explicitly looked for it in vain. As it is, the TESB blasts came from the major notch, not the minor.
But these are:
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer038.jpg
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer035.jpg
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer039.jpg
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer040.jpg
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer034.jpg
You know, guns which can't even turn properly, the last time we saw this, it was when a Venator and the Invisible Hand exchanged glowing solid projectiles.I see a single nodule with two tubes sticking it out of it at an absurd angle. If that's a turret, it's a pretty stupid turret. In this:-
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer034.jpg
We see that if it's a turret, it can't actually turn. At all. It's restricted in the place we see it in. We also see in that picture and this one:-
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/SWst ... yer039.jpg
That it can't even point it's gun barrels straight forward, since they'd strike the lip of the structure that restricts the turret from ever turning.
But, in any event, like I said - the TL blasts in the TESB sequence came from the major notch - not the minor. This so-called gun's totally irrelevant.
This is not to say, of course, that it's only a model, and not necessarily as detailed as a real battleship would you know. There are obvious limitations, and I doubt one would start to consider all those holes drilled here and there for the optic lights to be even meant to be missile tubes or else.
I suppose it would matter to anyone convinced that asteroids were shot down by point defenses, light turbolasers, when size and label don't seem to mean so much, when we see how TF ships use large quad cannons to fire at fighters, how we see the Malevolence's larger pieces of artillery fire at fighters and bombers.
It really blurs the picture about what types of guns are capable of and used for.
And said fighters is not utterly flash vapourized, proving that the cannons can be dialed very low.Vympel wrote:No, not really. TF ships use large quad cannons to fire at fighters - and hit what, one fighter flying directly at them?
Considering the batteries' outreageous size, it's normal that their best hit ratios occured when they fired at the targets when they were far away, and obviously had more success with the yatch when it was a megametre away from the blockade front.
And you'll notice that when said fighters were hit by the cannons, they were not flash vapourized, proving that the massive towers, meant to repel large ships at greater ranges, could dial their firepower very low.Vympel/Leo wrote:How is this any different from the Death Star battle - a warship specifically designed with weapons too large to reliably track fighters, because they didn't see small one man fighters to be a significant threat to justify a tighter defence? They still attempted to use them.
And thank you for entirely ignoring the Malevolence case, with another example of a large turret firing, hitting an Y-wing, and even failing to completely destroy it despite a direct hit.
On the famous mysterious turret:First, I don't say they used heavy TLs to shoot down asteroids.Vympel/Leo wrote:It doesn't matter at all whether what the ISD used with a point defence laser cannon for killing fighters, a point defence laser cannon for killing gunboats, or even a full on turbolaser of some sort. It's still invisibly small and nowhere near the size of the main weaponry, or even a lot of the secondary weaponry we see in the movies.
Secondly, there's no "secondary weaponry" aside from the single mini-gun we see tracking the escape pod.
We only see plenty of green bolts coming from locations on the hull, trenches and terraces that sport batteries of undefined size.
Hell, even the Executor's guns firing at the Nebulon-B can't be seen, yet they were used.
Pretending that guns we don't see have the lowest possible yields and are only good to track small objects is rather obtuse, and there's more and more evidence in fact that the gap between all the batteries on a battleship of any class, safe for the heavy TLs, is not so vast, and they're more versatile than the rigid L/M/H model for TLs so many people seem to go with.
This, again, within the context of telling you that there's no reason to argue, contrary to what Saxton did, that these asteroids could have only been destroyed with point defense lasers which would only have enough firepower to damage fighters.
When the structure furiously looks like this...This is not to say, of course, that it's only a model, and not necessarily as detailed as a real battleship would you know. There are obvious limitations, and I doubt one would start to consider all those holes drilled here and there for the optic lights to be even meant to be missile tubes or else.
Obviously when the shooting model is actually used for filming, it's lighted up. I don't see why that would result in structures on the model becoming turrets.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...
...and the ISD-II's piece...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
...there's no reason to object, especially when the former class variant had a large gun there as well. Otherwise, fuck the quadguns and octotube batteries, right?
And said fighters is not utterly flash vapourized, proving that the cannons can be dialed very low.
And you'll notice that when said fighters were hit by the cannons, they were not flash vapourized, proving that the massive towers, meant to repel large ships at greater ranges, could dial their firepower very low.
Jack shit? It proves that even massive cannons, all the time considered among the heaviest pieces, if not THE heaviest pieces of standard artillery (Trade Federation battleship, Death Star surface, Malevolence and possible even the Munificents' multiple batteries) can be dialed so down that when they directly hit starfighters, the damage only ranges from partial damage to slow destruction, no flash vapourization.So what? It's still not proving jack about the ISD-IIs cannons.
So proof there is, that the heaviest cannons can lower their firepower... very low if needed.
But you're completely neglecting a simple fact: the heavy pieces, the heaviest, and considerably huge. There's no intermediary size between the behemoth guns and the small ones like the one tracking the escape pod. Yet, if an ISD is a good descendant of a Venator, since Venators do have bigger guns in their trenches, so should the ISDs.
Yet those guns are hard to spot, but by their muzzle flash alone, they clearly appear more voluminous than anything like one of those small guns we saw in ANH.
So, is there any evidence that such "medium" TLs couldn't be the one used to fire at asteroids? None.
Is there any evidence that such "medium" TLs are useless against capital ships, as a complement to the heavier cannons? None.
The heavier cannons could be ten times more powerful and that would be about it.
Because now those point defense laser cannons are also good against medium sized capital ships?Vympel/Leo wrote:That doesn't follow - if the ISD-II is the successor of the ISD-1 and the Venator (obviously true) yet it doesn't have the large visible trench guns, then they've obviously abandoned them as not being worthwhile. The fact that the ISD-II has abandoned the visible trench guns of both its direct predecessor and the Venator class, and has beefed up the barrels of its main guns by 75% (i.e. 16 barrels going up to 64 barrels) is support for that. It doesn't follow that the guns the ISD-II is using to blast the asteroid are the placeholders for the predecessor guns even though they're the tiniest fraction of the size.
Remember ANH. An ISD-I, and the Tantive IV, and all bolts coming from regions with no visible turret.
Obviously, either the models for the films didn't have enough details to show the more or less medium TLs, or the point defense lasers can be dialed so up that they're also largely used against shielded ships like Blockade Runners!
Ships for all we know, already existed decades ago, which were of the same size of a Republic cruiser which needed many shots from the Munificents' large cannons, in order to go down (which we didn't even see happen!).
And didn't a Munificent use those same cannons to destroy a Venator?
Didn't Venators use their cannons on the tip of their bows to destroy Munificents? (remember)
I could also go on as to say that there is no proof that ISD-IIs have point defense laser cannons. We never saw them after all.
Let's explore in detail one of your claims:
"The fact that the ISD-II has abandoned the visible trench guns of both its direct predecessor and the Venator class, and has beefed up the barrels of its main guns by 75% (i.e. 16 barrels going up to 64 barrels) is support for that. It doesn't follow that the guns the ISD-II is using to blast the asteroid are the placeholders for the predecessor guns even though they're the tiniest fraction of the size."
The only dinstinctly visible cannons in the trenches, as far as ISD-Is are concerned, are the enormous quadcannons turrets, in the small notches on either side.
If size was of any indication, as we can see there, those turrets are, in volume, 1/4 to 1/5 the size of the big ones near the bridge tower's base. By the sheer importance of their volume, they have all right to be considered heavy turbolaser batteries as well. Aside from these quadguns, there is no visible turret in the trenches. As I explained in my former post, ISD-IIs have not entirely ditched the notch turret, they simply put a smaller type in there, but which is still big enough to be worth the details on the model.
Besides, it does not matter much if the ISD's main cannons were given more bores. Notice that the turrets themselves are even smaller on an ISD-II than on an ISD-I:
Devastator (mark I)
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbarbi ... r14isd.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbarbi ... r06isd.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbarbi ... r17isd.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbradford/ISD_Guns.jpg
Avenger (mark II)
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbrooklyn/Isd07.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbrooklyn/Isd09.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbrooklyn/Isd23.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbrooklyn/Isd29.jpg
At best, one could assert that they traded off firepower per tube for better ROF and better barrages, which in light of the small ships the Rebels would use, would make sense.
So I don't think there's is any "support for that", as you put it.
One could also easily consider that these bits we see hanging from the eaves on the ISD-I model, around the trenches, are meant to represent the intermediary cannons.
It's either that or the Tantive IV lost her shields from "anti-fighter" turrets.
There's an equal amount of chances that in the mess of details of an ISD-II's trench, there are those medium cannons, which are not visible because the model is not detailed enough (as we know, there are obvious limitations to how detailed stuff can be, and a certain degree of SOD has to be dealt with, notably when it comes to those numerous holes).
Evidence keeps piling up that there's no such a firm range for a given type of cannon, but that on the contrary, many of them are very versatile in yields and even in purpose, and there's equal logic for the existence of medium TLs on both ISD marks.
Again, there is no reason to insist that the asteroids were destroyed by the smallest cannons, which are often considered to be used against starfighters and other small crafts of similar tonnages.
What doesn't really follow is how you seem to say that you agree medium TLs could have been destroying those asteroids, yet when I provide all the evidence for this, you say dispute it.
I think my evidence is quite solid, so where is the issue?
You know, guns which can't even turn properly, the last time we saw this, it was when a Venator and the Invisible Hand exchanged glowing solid projectiles.
That they have to fire through windows hardly makes them any better. Now, you could always keep in mind the restrictions of the model's level of detail, and the possibility that the arm it's resting on is capable of rotation, and even moving up and down, a bit like the two forward bigger globes on the LAATs.That's different - they're not on an external turret mounting.
Just as much as having fixed weapon mounts being needlessly underefficient, as having communication globes being only on one side of an ISD being needlessly absurd, as having your heaviest weapons all on the upper side (ISDs) not being very wise either, as having the balls on LAATs hanging from articulated arms needlessly complicated as well, or like having hangar shield projectors sitting outside of the hangars not being so smart either, etc.Maybe, but it seems quite needlessly complicated, don't you think?
What I see is what clearly looks like a turret, with two barrels and two vertical trenches to allow the barrels to move up and down. Allow the arm to place the cannon at a given angle and that's good for you.
I could even suggest that the turret actually rises from its base when it's going to be used, and sits into that thick walled extended base when at rest.
And finally, with nice animations:
...there's no reason to object, especially when the former class variant had a large gun there as well. Otherwise, fuck the quadguns and octotube batteries, right?
Because the Empire is prone to needlessly complicated designs? AT-ATs and AT-STs? Completely awkward, you could get the same from hovering heavy vehicles.That you're inventing a needlessly complicated mechanism for this supposed 'turret' to be effective should tell you that you're on shaky ground. And why fuck the octotube batteries?
The Death Star? Needlessly complicated as well, a huge amount of the superstructure is, for all we can see on schematics, not related to the weapon or the reactor. Just cram the thing into a cylinder and it still could blast planets.
We could look at the precursors. Venators? have two towers with no way to move from one to the other aside from going down, moving across the ship's width, and up again. Obviously they ditched that and went with a simpler large tower for the ISDs.
Acclamators? All pictures show no sign of weapons at all. So they're supposedly concealed. Why the fuck. It's a big fucking military warship, obviously, there's no need to play poker and lose time sticking out guns.
I didn't only argue with Leo about this whole L/M/HTL thing, though.
No, because if you'd check the ICS, the quadguns which have been drawn are easily spotted, even on the standard battleships. The absence of the others is a mistake, not a question of distance or level of detail.
No, the LOD has little to do with that. If we can see those on the forward slope, we should see the others. They're not there, it's a mistake.Those battleships are obviously less detailed than the main cross section of the DCS. However, I'm not dead set against there being a mistake. I'd still like to see a screencap of what you mean though. I'm sure there's quad guns present where you say they are, I just don't see the rows.
As for the evidence, there:
The rearmost turrets on the stern terrace, above the thrusters. They fire in non-synchronous volleys. We can see the muzzle flashes (the dots):
The Yatch flies close to a turret that is part of a battery placed on the thruster side of the highest terrace, then nearly gets hit by a glancing volley fired from a turret on the core side of the same terrace:
The Yatch moves past the battleship's core. We can see that the turrets on the highest terrace still pointing towards Naboo, while the trio of turrets on the forward slope (the only ones drawn for standard battleships) are facing the core, which is logical considering their position:
Everytime, there are three pieces per row/battery.
Slight correction to what I said, the Droid Control ship lacks the core side batteries on the higher terrace, since there are towers, antenna and other dishes there instead, but still has the two trios on the back. Having checked the stills, it would appear the DCS also lacked the lowest trios normally located above the thrusters (some black stripes and a poor resolution made me think there were black tubes there). See here and here.
This one is picked from the end of page 4 of the following thread, in an argument with Point 45:
And so the post finally comes to an end. Sorry for the length, but you'll surely understand that it does cover quite a lot already, and obviously raises some critical questions regarding the caliber of energy weapons used in SW.What the hell. Yes, I know where guns are, and there's plenty of opportunities and room left for MTLs to be present in the trenches.
You got to understand that by MTL, we see any gun that's above the effective point defense range, but below the firepower of the heavier turrets (HTLs) which can be identified from a great distance, and this is more a nomenclature nonsense inherited from the EU than anything.45 wrote:The only MTL are in the trench notch way in the back and no shots were ever fired or could fire. So yes you’re a *****.
As I demonstrated during a not so old discussion with Leo, TPM and TCWS feature plenty of observable cases where massive turrets are used against starfighters, represent the only defenses ships have, and do managed to strike starfighters from time to time.
Take TPM. The Trade Federation cruisers have those big quad cannons. They are truly huge, and huge doesn't make them any justice.
As I demonstrated, the cannons could fire either in quad salvos, or one cannon at a time, on in pair. What we saw is that those cannons can dial their yield so low (assuming they have very high yields to boot) that when hitting N-1s or droids, they don't even flash vapourize them.
Yet those quad cannons are never described as turbolasers. They are described as laser cannons.
The Malevolence's massive cannons can fire in flak mode as well, and are, beyond the droids, the only mean of possible retaliation against an offensive wing of fighters.
I have also shown that the HTLs on Venators were seen having the same destructive ability on the hull of the Invisible Hand as any other smaller turret or mass driver, again proving the ability to fire very weak shots.
Then I went to the length of showing how in TCWS, Venators were firing all their cannons at the Malevolence. Countless bolts were coming from various points in the trenches. At that time, they were deemed good enough, putting out a saturation-barrage of fire.
But Obi-Wan's crew realized that only the heaviest batteries could make a difference, after failing to deal any kind of severe damage to the ship. So only the heaviest batteries were left to fire.
It highlighted that in the traditional naval engagements, all batteries are deemed worth the use. This is again examplified when a Nebulon-B frigate cruises close to the Executor, and both exchange fire from batteries which are not easily seen.
Another very important point, which I didn't mention yet, is the case of the ISD destruction in ROTJ. Prior its destruction, the ISD fires three lengthy green beams in the rough direction of the Mon-Calamari cruiser, the third one coming later on.
Guess what? The third beam, as long and luminous as the first two ones, does not come from the large starboard side dorsal turrets.
Even the origin of the first bolt is not absolutely clear.
Even if this ISD was a Mark-I and used its quad-cannons, it would just prove what I said some time ago to Leo, in that these quad cannons, not being small at all since terrace HTLs are around four or five times their volume, could easily be heavy TLs just as well.
If this is a Mk-II, it gives even more credence to the existence of a two barreled turret in the trench notch.
Then, we can conclude with the Devastator firing at the Tantive IV, using absolutely NONE of the heavy turrets. Yet, we know that according to the ICS, the Tantive IV would have a shield dissipation rate which could only be defeated with the firepower of the heavy batteries, certainly not those multiple unseen cannons which, according to your logic, would absolutely need to be point defense guns.
As we can see, when we pay more attention to the higher canon, and less attention to the strict and incumbering nomenclature of the EU, we realize that the nomenclature of naval energy weapons on ships is worth a large topic, and that our preconceptions of L/M/HTLs need to be reconsidered.
This, in the end, to demonstrate that claming these asteroids were shot at with LTLs and nothing else is baseless.
NOTE: broken picture links edited.