Sensor Domes/shield generators/fighter effetctiveness

[Trinoya]

Okay, I was looking over RoTJ the other day actually in the hopes of finding some more detailed shots of Home One to aid me... when a general debate issue crossed the screen.

The domes on the SSD.

Now most people conclude that these are in fact the sensors of the ships... in fact I myself have no problem with this conclusion, but as I thought on it I reliazed that many people claim that the shields were brought down by Ackbars order to focus all fire on that ship...

Which was litterally about 5-6 seconds EARLIER.

So, Ackbar says to intensify, fighters do their run, the shields suddenly go down, and A-wing crashes into the window...

The entire scene takes about 25 seconds! And only about 10 seconds for the shields to be brought down...

So... apparently all this 'concentrated' firepower consisted of a few fighters targeting a 'dome' of some sort, shields going down and someone crashing into the SSD... I say this because we can see at least some section of the SSD through out the ENTIRE thing and, in general, we don't see ANYONE lobbing a single TL bolt at it.

So... anyone want to draw some conclusions in regards to fighter effectiveness and what that dome really is?

[GStone]

I would say that certain points on larger classes vessels, such as the SD and SSD are better attacked with fighters. But, since there were the SDs, as well as fighters, the lower number of fighters and cap ships of the rebels had them all over the place, especially with the TIEs. Perhaps with such a barage, the sensors of the rebels picked up that solid blocking shields were not up on many of the SDs and Ackbar thought it'd be good to take out the largest one they could.

But, the A-wing that crashes into the bridge tower I thought somehow got its controls screwed up, since he was spinning around, as he flew. It could have happened from the x-wing he was with blowing up and shrapnel hit part of him. A damn good lucky shot, while you're spinning.

I stil think the dome is a shield generator.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Well, the novelisation may have a few extra lines about the real bombardment that went on against the Executor.

I think the cutting is quite misleading.

The oddity is how the missiles manage to hit the domes and destroy them before the bridge's shields are down.

So, the domes have their own shields, right?

Much like during the overall battle, the lack of capital fire smashing against the Executor is unfortunate. We're left assuming many rebel capships fired at the Executor "behind the scenes", but couldn't destroy the domes on their own, and so when two A-wings decided to fire at a dome, luckily, there's no TL hitting the same dome at roughly the same time.
The consequences would have been sad for the fighters, really: they'd be toasted.

The other idea would be to suggest that somehow, the bridge's shield also covered the domes, which means that the fighters either fired when the shields momentarily dropped (a frequency related thingy) or that the missiles can penetrate shields.

Or that the shields weren't meant to stop solid projectiles (???).

I'd rather go with the idea that the globes have their own auto-shield, their own patch of shields proecting them, and that the capital ships aimed for them.

EU aside, the bridge loosing its shield could simply be related to a chain reaction. Considering how close the domes are to the bridge, it's quite possible that the bridge's shield emitters were damaged during the explosion.
This would suggest that the rebels could have concentrated their fire on any other part of the ship, like the rear of the bridge tower for example, and obtained relatively similar results, with the ship loosing her bridge's shields. But that, again, would require the idea that the back of the bridge's tower had its own shield surface.

It's not that far fetched. Rear/front shields is not uncommon in Wars.
The idea of a patchwork of shields is handy here.

Frankly, unless the book or radio drama have something meaningful to say about this, if you exclude the EU, nothing's fixed yet about the final role of these domes.

However, looking at the absurdity of the design of a ship such as the Invisible Hand, both when it comes to cannons and shield emitters, it shouldn't come as surprising that other capical ships, in Star Wars, suffer from similar odd flaws.
Not because they're from the same industrial conglomerate, which they'd logically not be (well, that can be disputed as well), but because it's the same guy who's behind all those films.

There's however an interesting thing to notice.
Those missiles fired by the A-wings are quite similar to those fired by the rebels who entered the Death Star II.
What we can notice is that after the missiles hit the different parts of the power core, there are those sorts of blue walls of energy that quickly fizzle around the structures, just like if there were energy shields around those parts.
Could it be that those shields were not meant to stop missiles, since chances that such things would get a chance to reach the core were near to none.
This would bring us to the idea that the whole bridge tower is protected by the domes, and the shield projected there was not meant to stop missiles.

If you believe that the domes are shield emitters, please notice that once destroyed, apparently only the bridge's shields were down.
So technically, there should be more globes all around the Executor.
Well, there are more of them, but they're all located in the vicinity of the tower, which does not explain the lack of such emitters on other parts of the ship, if they were such good shield emitters.
Which kinda makes the whole dome=shield emitter idea a bit absurd.

Sorry if it comes as a bit messy btw.

[Trinoya]

Not messy at all.

And yes, I know the A-Wing was out of control *points to post above*


Moving on: Perhaps the domes are specifically designed to protect the bridge tower... after all, it does stick far out from the rest of the ship.

My biggest issue is that I see many people claiming that the fleet firepower is what brings down the shields and then I thought to myself: "But we see the fighters take down the globe before the shields are actually down..." It kinda makes the idea that fighters can't be effective against capital ships useless and, as you said, heavily supported the idea of different levels/areas/patchwork of shields.

[SailorSaturn13]

Maybe shield WAS down before, it just took a dome hit for the crew of the SSD to know that. Maybe they cannot estimate when shields are exhausted.

[Mike DiCenso]

Whatever the flaws of SW ship design, I cannot buy that they would have no means to detect the failure of such a critical system as their deflector shields. But then again, Han for some reason did not notice, or was given warning of the Millenium Falcon hyperdrive motivator burnout by any kind of warning system...

On the other hand, in ANH, the Falcon cockpit did have a shield loss warning light, and a similar system was in place in TESB to allow Threepio to know that the the rear deflector was gone.
-Mike

[Knife1138]

However, looking at the absurdity of the design of a ship such as the Invisible Hand, both when it comes to cannons and shield emitters, it shouldn't come as surprising that other capical ships, in Star Wars, suffer from similar odd flaws.
Not because they're from the same industrial conglomerate, which they'd logically not be (well, that can be disputed as well), but because it's the same guy who's behind all those films.

I'd like to comment on this little bit and I hope it's not too much of a tangent for the topic.

That shield was obviously for the landingbay, since a physical shield slammed shut upon the bay when the shield went down. No other sort of Voyager-esque armor slid across the rest of the ship, just the exposed bay.

[Who is like God arbour]

Maybe shield WAS down before, it just took a dome hit for the crew of the SSD to know that. Maybe they cannot estimate when shields are exhausted.

As I have seen the video the first, second [...] and last time, I have had always the impression, that the fighters attack the dome and through this attack, the bridge shields have collapsed and the dome could be destroyed. Immediate thereafter, the officer on the bridge of the Executor reports the lost bridge shield.

The only question, I would have had, would be, if the bridge shield was already weak before the concentrated attack on this dome.

I haven't seen, that the bridge of the Executor was attacked before.
But that could have happened off screen. And Ackbar could have known, that the bridge shields was weakend and would have orderd the intensified attack on the Executore therefore.

But my impression (I have never known ICS or EU) was always, that the fighter attack has overstressed the bridge shields and it has collapsed.

[Jedi Master Spock]

If it's any help, the EU isn't very consistent in its treatment of the globes either. IIRC, the official EU line is that they're both sensor globes and shield generator globes - generating local shielding at least, although perhaps not global.

While that shield was indeed probably for the landing bay, the question naturally then arises: Why is the generator for the landing bay shields not protected by the ship's main shields?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Whatever the flaws of SW ship design, I cannot buy that they would have no means to detect the failure of such a critical system as their deflector shields. But then again, Han for some reason did not notice, or was given warning of the Millenium Falcon hyperdrive motivator burnout by any kind of warning system...

He and Chewie made modifications, and we saw that they didn't always worked properly. Duct taped and all that, most of the stuff went right, but sometimes it just went wrong in the worst moment.

On the other hand, in ANH, the Falcon cockpit did have a shield loss warning light, and a similar system was in place in TESB to allow Threepio to know that the the rear deflector was gone.
-Mike

I believe the quality of equipment for the military should actually grade highly above the level of reliability of a smuggler's cargo.

While that shield was indeed probably for the landing bay, the question naturally then arises: Why is the generator for the landing bay shields not protected by the ship's main shields?

You're talking about the Invisible Hand?

It seemed to me that the main shields were lost since a while, for the bolts fired by the Venator directly hit the armor and blew chunks away.

However, the design is still particularily stupid. Having the generator sit outside, even if it had only been an atmospheric shield, is super absurd.

There was that long argument at strek swars I think about how the shield emittter was supposedly armored. Which ended showing that the hull around was not anyway, which was enough to destroy the device.

[Knife1138]

While that shield was indeed probably for the landing bay, the question naturally then arises: Why is the generator for the landing bay shields not protected by the ship's main shields?

Didn't look to me that anything was armored right there at the bay, so it's not unreasonable that fighter grade weapons tore it up. As to the actual target? I don't have the novel right here with me, but it's entirely possible he didn't hit the 'generator' rather the emitter or even the power cable supplying power to the device. IIRC, there was a quad gun right there too. Wouldn't surprise me if they feed off the same line.

As for the main shields, they had been duking it out for a couple hours if I remember the novel right.

[SailorSaturn13]

Yet druid fighters on surface were undamaged...

[GStone]

Yet druid fighters on surface were undamaged...

That's because they use magic. ;-)