Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

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WhiteLion
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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by WhiteLion » Thu Aug 22, 2019 3:47 am

why do these individuals enjoy complicating our lives?

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by 2046 » Fri Aug 23, 2019 2:57 pm

It was always separate, mind you. Lucas described the EU as a parallel universe many times.

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by 359 » Fri Aug 30, 2019 2:01 am

Khas wrote:And what followed, well.... here's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARR0RPrr_rg
I'd still call that one a low-ball since a capital ship turbolaser blast appears similar to that of a hand grenade in scale. Turbolaser shots of lesser size are seen earlier collapsing large rock holes on Geonosis (forgot episode name and don't care to look it up) and seen later collapsing a multi-story apartment.

As for whether or not Legends/EU is separate, it always must yield to the full canon movies and tv series anyway. Thus anything derived from it is pointless as it might conflict with information seen in the movies. Plus, I've read a handful of those books, excluding them mostly helps SW's case—save for some outliers or fan-service stories.

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by 359 » Fri Aug 30, 2019 3:09 am

As for the OP of Imperial class Star Destroyer vs Oberth-class starship. I'd give victory to the Oberth 8/10, with the remaining 2/10 times being a draw.


Details:

Specifically, if an Oberth was refitted for combat—as I would presume those poor fellows in ST: First Contact were when fighting a Borg cube—it would kick the snot out of an ISD. 24th century phasers typically are shown having WMD levels of power, they can gut an inert or battle-worn starship with a single blast. And while an Oberth is not equipped with torpedoes, they're on the same power-order as phasers and cause planet-side blasts sized on the order of a state in the USA or a country in Europe. The starship would additionally be equipped with energy shields capable of resisting those yields (if not for very long). Moving to the topic of speed and maneuvering, just on thrusters an Oberth would probably outpace and definitely out maneuver an ISD. Once we open up to include impulse drive, which is consistently demonstrated to be capable of relativistic maneuvering, it's like comparing a WWE wrestler to a F-16 fighter jet; the same goes for weapon ranges.

On the other side we have an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, a large vessel equipped with weaponry that reduce similar ships to smoking hulks through sustained fire. Turbolasers [Medium to light] are typically displayed with effects on the scale of pulverizing space or planet-side rocks sized in the 10's of meters. Additionally we see explosions sized in the 10's of meters scale against opposing ships hulls/shields. The ISD is further equipped with energy shields and armor meant to repel these weapons on the order of 10's of minutes to over an hour. Their sub-light thrusters are capable of linear accelerations reaching a pace ordered in kilometers per second in short order (seconds? 10's of seconds? Not enough specifics), but otherwise they seem very limited in their maneuvering capabilities.

In my mind this very clearly results in a victory for the Oberth-class 8/10 times. And the remaining 2/10: the Oberth is a civilian ship not equipped with tactical phasers. Perhaps they'd have some type-V or type-VI systems (the Galaxy-class is equipped with type-X), but I don't want to go into the detail needed to say if those could cut through ISD shields before it could turn away and make the jump to hyperspace.

In my opinion what really makes this situation a draw is that either ship is safe once it jumps to FTL since neither are equipped to impair each-other's mode of transit regardless of speed. One could argue that with enough study an Oberth's deflector or warp field systems could be made to generate an interdiction field, but that's neither here nor there. And on the other side, there's no way the ISD takes out the starship's shields fast enough to prevent a retreat.

Thus 10/10 and 5/10 average to around 8/10.

Again my comparison is that of a WWE wrestler to an Air Superiority fighter jet. The wrestler's no slouch, but he's out of his mind if he thinks he can take an F-16 out of the air.

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by WhiteLion » Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:28 pm

I agree on everything but I remain a little doubtful on one particular: you say that the power of the phasers is enough to destroy a nation, I just wanted to know if it is your hypothesis or if it is observable in some particular episode, I ask because I have never seen in an episode a Star Trek ship destroying a nation with phasers, besides even on the various wikia there are canon quotations about it. Mine is not a criticism, I am always thirsty for new notions of this kind, if you have read about the material I would like to "quench my thirst" :)

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by 359 » Sat Aug 31, 2019 4:43 pm

It is true we never directly see phasers used in a true orbital bombardment except in extreme low-end and high-end examples. On the high end we have DS9: "The Die is Cast" where a mixed fleet of 30 starships (Romulan and Cardassian) bombard a planet with "Thirty percent of the planetary crust destroyed on opening volley" resulting from mixed fire (torpedoes, disruptors, and phasers). Additionally we have an instance in DS9: "Broken Link" of mixed bombardment where we get this line from Garak as he tries to gain control over the torpedo launchers on the USS Defiant "I was hoping to gain control of the phasers as well. I just hadn't got around to it yet. Don't you see? We have an opportunity here. A chance to end the Dominion threat once and for all. We have enough firepower on this ship to turn that planet into a smoking cinder. Personally, I think that would be a very good thing."

On the other end we have things like TNG: "Redemption, Part II" where orbital bombardment is visually depicted with some fires in a city. Or we have, in a different era, DIS: "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry" where Klingon fighters strike a Federation colony. After the shields fall we see disruptor blasts strike buildings resulting in simple fireballs.

But aside from the the high and low end material, we know both phasers and photon torpedoes should be of similar yield since they are both similarly effective against starship shields. But I would also assert that a directed energy/particle weapon like a phaser is not ideal for bombardment since it has a narrow focus. Where we do see phasers used effectively planet side is in TNG: "A Matter of Time" and TNG: "Inheritance"; in these instances we have orbital starship phasers being used to drill deep into a planet. In "A Matter of Time" this is used to release subterranean CO2 pockets on Penthara Four, the drilling is substantial enough to result in tectonic instability at the drill sites. And in "Inheritance" we have the Enterprise's phasers being used to drill into Atrea Four's "magma layer" to access "pockets" [caves] near the planet's core.

Additionally one could add TNG: "Masks" to the list as the phasers are used to burn away the comet formed around a traveling space station, but this is what jumps to mind as confirmable events of planet-side phaser fire.

---Edit:

Oh, and I almost forgot TOS: "A Taste of Armageddon" wherein the Enterprise threatens a planet with total animation (lol, I meant to type anhilation), more precisely: "All cities and installations on Eminiar Seven have been located, identified, and fed into our fire-control system. In one hour and forty five minutes the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed" according to Scotty.

And ENT: "Silent Enemy" we see 22nd century Phase Cannons "blow something up the size of Mount McKinley." That something being a mountain on an asteroid, but this may be slight hyperbole and the cannons were overloaded in achieving such a yield. However the fact that they didn't burn out completely demonstrates they are designed to channel levels of power on a similar scale to what occurred.

I tend to put more weight on these types of conceptual capabilities and limitations rather than statements of numerical power since they are less prone to the writers not understanding units of energy.

And I am fully open to (polite) criticism, discussion, or comment—this is all just my hypothesis. Although I try to base it on what I've observed.

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by WhiteLion » Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:39 pm

Thank you so much, you provided me with a lot of canon material about the power of star trek weapons that I didn't know. I frankly remembered only some of the examples you posted, in fact if it is specifically mentioned in a canon episode that can destroy on a large scale then it is so, furthermore this puts the phasers in a different light, they are commonly relegated to a purely precision use and in the long and medium range, instead we can affirm by reading the material you posted that is not so.
Also at this point, even as firepower, I believe that among the various series the one that comes closest in terms of power to light ships of 40k is its star trek. If the writers made the power jump by destroying a nation to destroy a continent then we could compare the ships of star trek to a cruiser as a dominator class as firepower.
There would still be a large gap but only with the Battleships like the Retribution or Apocalypse classes, the Gloriana and the continental ships like the Abyss and the Hope Ark. but I would say that separate shields would be comparable with 50% of the fleet of the imperium (still excluding the ships I have listed above)

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by 359 » Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:06 pm

I'm not that familiar or interested in WH 40k, but Star Gate also also demonstrates similar levels of potential energy (both on the high-end and on the low end) to what I listed above. The BC-304 naquadah-enhanced nukes are described as gigaton scale. And you can see a weapon platform carrying mk9 warheads striking a planet in this video. But it's very inconsistent (like Star Trek) when it comes to their Plasma Beam Weapons.

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Re: Oberth-class Starship vs. Disney-canon ISD

Post by Sideswipe » Wed Jan 20, 2021 7:00 pm

This seems kind of like a ridiculous match up to me. What happened with the Disney canon that makes people think an Oberth class could defeat it?

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