Zombie Inflationism III: Other Weapons

[2046]

Preface and Pt. I: http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... f=8&t=6592
Pt. II: http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... f=8&t=6593

As always, feel free to add details or examples if I'm missing anything. I'm just trying to get a handle on the state of the debate from the minds of the inflationists, so feel free to summarize any argument you've come across.

III. Other Weapons

A. The Holy Grate

I have a whole thing going about this to be published at some point in the future, but suffice it to say that blaster firepower is being inflated out the wazoo by pretending an object was vaporized and making up its composition.

Verdict: Rotting, but still walking because it doesn't know its DOA yet.

B. Docking Bay 94

Han's wild shots against the wall of Docking Bay 94 are still used to try to claim massive firepower for Han's blaster, and by extension those of Imperials. The usual maneuver is to try to make the walls sound awesomely resilient by claiming they had to withstand the thrust of the engines without melting/fracturing/vaporizing/whatever.

1. As indicated, it's a packed dirt wall. You can see my posts from 2003 on the topic here: http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ ... 354/page-2

2. The wall resilience argument makes no sense given that HOTH ICE was unaffected by even the largest engines seen to be running inside the cavern/hangar.

Verdict: Old and smelling bad, but puppeteers keep trying to give it the appearance of movement.

C. Frying Greedo

Han's shot against Greedo, which no doubt meant he had absolutely no right to complain about the smell *anywhere*, is used to claim massive firepower for Han's blaster, and by extension those of Imperials.

Verdict: Other than a massive pall of smoke, there's not much of interest here that I can recall off the top of my head. The material of his clothing gets partially burned off and he dies . . . what of it? But I suppose it demands a retort.

[359]

D. Large Creatures:

There are several individuals who use the ease with which blasters dispose of large creatures to be indicative of their great power.

However, most of the time such creatures are shown to be unaffected by blaster fire without a hit to either the head or eye depending on the animal. This is directly implied in TCW: "Innocents of Ryloth" when some clone, being charged by creatures unaffected by blasters shouts "Aim for their eyes!"

Verdict: Walking dead, seems to think it is immune to head shots, should be tested.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Preface and Pt. I: http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... f=8&t=6592
Pt. II: http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... f=8&t=6593

As always, feel free to add details or examples if I'm missing anything. I'm just trying to get a handle on the state of the debate from the minds of the inflationists, so feel free to summarize any argument you've come across.

III. Other Weapons

A. The Holy Grate

I have a whole thing going about this to be published at some point in the future, but suffice it to say that blaster firepower is being inflated out the wazoo by pretending an object was vaporized and making up its composition.

Verdict: Rotting, but still walking because it doesn't know its DOA yet.

Yeah, that one is unnerving.

- The amount of energy claimed would have torched Luke and friends. Generally, you could stop right there. This alone refutes the silly claim of grate vaporization. Sure, the tips of what remains of the bars is molten, but then where is the huge splash of molten bits?
- They always assume it's metal and not some kind of cheapo plastic.
- They assume it's plain when the bars could be empty.
- The explosion doesn't even happen on the grate but behind it and we even see the light shine through the cloud and through the bars.
Once the explosion grows large enough, it happens to only engulf a small part of the grate down there on the left of it, and then some frames later, the grate sort of fades quickly.

There is no reason to accept the idea that because of imperfect VFX we should agree that the intent was to have the grate vaporized. Not only because as said above, it would also require us to believe that normal people can survive that kind of megajoulish blast while standing within less than three meters away from the blast (lol), but also because a far more likely solution requires the grate simply being kicked down the duct by the blast, and makes more sense.
Perhaps a magnetic suction system also pulled the grate down?
Anyway, it's downright silly.

C. Frying Greedo

Han's shot against Greedo, which no doubt meant he had absolutely no right to complain about the smell *anywhere*, is used to claim massive firepower for Han's blaster, and by extension those of Imperials.

Verdict: Other than a massive pall of smoke, there's not much of interest here that I can recall off the top of my head. The material of his clothing gets partially burned off and he dies . . . what of it? But I suppose it demands a retort.

Should someone calculate how much energy it takes to set some tissue on fire from firing a sort of sort of hot plasma bolt into a target?


I'm much more impressed by the holes left by Fett's gun in Cloud City's walls.
Or the ability for Qui Gon Jinn's lightsabre to somehow melt through a very thick door (while I'm sure he uses his best Force abilities to deal with the heat).
Another somewhat interesting weapon being that sort of heavy blaster a grunt quickly clamps to the handrail on Jabba's barge, and which makes nice explosions and produces blasts that even slam both Chewie and Han down. No little feat here.

[2046]

359 . . . I think your D. refers most notably to the wampa "vaporization" in the TESB novelization, which I've discussed here:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWprobedroid.html#6B

That also brings me to:

E. Blaster-fire Structure Collapse

In TCW we see a couple of occasions where shooting a rocky looking structure like a bridge (on Ryloth) or support beam (under the surface of Geonosis) produces structural collapse of the structure in question.

There's also the rocket launch in "Ambush" that takes out a rocky outcropping, causing it to fall on droidekas.

Thanks to the incompleteness of NoLettersHome I haven't really gotten to those examples, but I feel confident in stating that they do not represent biggajoules as is commonly claimed.

(Truth be told, I have no problem with multiple kilojoules, even perhaps dozens, which could put the weapons up into .50 caliber range. Of course, they'll act differently being a bolt of radioactive gas instead of a bullet, but still, that seems a usable guesstimate a priori.

That said, however, we need to pay attention to what the canon actually shows, rather than what we want or expect them to have, keeping in mind some sense of consistency. Certain people pay lip service to such ideas then toss it as soon as it becomes inconvenient.)

[2046]

Good job, O . . .

F. Lightsabers through the Trade Federation Bridge Door

This has actually been discussed recently.

http://dsg2k.blogspot.com/2014/02/steel ... doors.html

http://dsg2k.blogspot.com/2014/02/permacrete.html

[2046]

Also, that post about permacrete really vaporizes the Quest for the Holy Grate.

Remember that these cats are always talking about the grate like it's iron or similar, because it's ... uh . . . it's like, black, and stuff, and iron is abundant in the universe.

Y'know, 'cause that's logical.

But as we know from the canon, Star Wars ship designers aren't just slapping in whatever enormously heavy bits of scrap metal they can find. They're actually designing things to be reasonably strong and light, much as we might do today, and in complete contrast to Federation shipbuilding techniques where the bloody hallway panels are made of tritanium.

So chances are, that's a bit of hydrofoamy whatever that is strong enough to probably be fairly kick-proof (maybe ... there are supposed to be guards, after all) but otherwise as light as they could make it. Might as well be balsa wood, really.

Edit: The only bad thing about this series of threads is that it's stealing my own thunder from the vast take-down of the New Inflationism that I've been working on. But that's slow-going, so whatever.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I think tritanium is the most boring alloy ever.

[theta_pinch]

I think tritanium is the most boring alloy ever.

Why?

[359]

C. Frying Greedo

Han's shot against Greedo, which no doubt meant he had absolutely no right to complain about the smell *anywhere*, is used to claim massive firepower for Han's blaster, and by extension those of Imperials.

Verdict: Other than a massive pall of smoke, there's not much of interest here that I can recall off the top of my head. The material of his clothing gets partially burned off and he dies . . . what of it? But I suppose it demands a retort.

On a similar note I recall an earlier discussing regarding the shooting of Greedo. The question was whether or not the bolt went all the way through him. And that is quite possible as we have seen such occurrences in TCW, namely with the death of general Krell in TCW: "Carnage of Krell".

[theta_pinch]

Also, that post about permacrete really vaporizes the Quest for the Holy Grate.

Remember that these cats are always talking about the grate like it's iron or similar, because it's ... uh . . . it's like, black, and stuff, and iron is abundant in the universe.

Y'know, 'cause that's logical.

But as we know from the canon, Star Wars ship designers aren't just slapping in whatever enormously heavy bits of scrap metal they can find. They're actually designing things to be reasonably strong and light, much as we might do today, and in complete contrast to Federation shipbuilding techniques where the bloody hallway panels are made of tritanium.

So chances are, that's a bit of hydrofoamy whatever that is strong enough to probably be fairly kick-proof (maybe ... there are supposed to be guards, after all) but otherwise as light as they could make it. Might as well be balsa wood, really.

Edit: The only bad thing about this series of threads is that it's stealing my own thunder from the vast take-down of the New Inflationism that I've been working on. But that's slow-going, so whatever.

I think Federation ships have tritanium on the walls so an intruder can't cut through the wall and mess with the ship's systems and in case they have to confiscate someone with forcefields; they don't want the person to cut through the wall and turn off the forcefield.

[Picard]

That, and it might also have to do with compartmenilizing damage during ship-to-ship combat. Tritanium hallways actually make sense in view of visuals and known Star Trek yields... if they used simple aluminum for everything inside the hull, one torpedo detonating inside would be enough to literally vaporize most of the inner structure.

[2046]

Having visited old battleships, the concrete floors and steel walls reinforce the notion that the ship is not gooey chocolate with a hard candy shell, but is in fact a toothbreaker. Sure, it is thinner steel and whatnot, but still.

Federation ships are built the same way. Star Wars warships are seemingly not.

[Picard]

True, though Trek ships don't seem to have anything like armored "citadel" as seen on post-Jutland warships, or anything like a dedicated armor once you're past the outer hull.



So they seemingly rely on hull absorbing most of it, and possibly dispersing the energy so that bulkheads behind have easier time dealing with it; something similar to effect of spaced armor in tanks.

[2046]

Well, it's rather easier to up-armor a surface-going ship that will be fired upon from within a few degrees of "the side". That's why air attacks on warships were quite awesome.

A space vessel can be fired upon from any angle, which makes it more complicated. And in theory the only fragmentation would be from your ship itself given most of the weapons involved . . . that's a slightly different thought process from normal kinetic penetrators.

I'm no internexpert, but if we were designing a space battleship Iowa today that needed to resist cannon shells, it might look more like a sub with double-hull action and Kevlar. But if we were trying to resist a beam weapon or nuke, it might be better to go ahead and have all the hull and structure we can on the exterior rather than a weaker outer shell and weaker outer structure that is more likely to become shrapnel shooting into the rest of the ship.

[Picard]

Actually, battleships of WWII were designed with plunging fire in mind... angle at which a projectile might arrive was from just above 0* to just below 90*, but there was a "zone of immunity" in which ship was supposed to be capable of resisting its own weapons. This zone changed through time as fire control improved (and eventually doomed the Hood as she wasn't designed for long-range engagements) but battleships were well-armored at the sides and somewhat less well at the top.

Regarding spaceships, it depends. Since space battles are 3D, hull shape will play a lesser role, but limiting armor to the "citadel" containing essential systems and leaving everything else unarmored could still be a good idea as it would allow better armored protection for weight. On the other hand, as you said, preventing a penetration alltogether might be a better idea. And question could be structural too... modern aircraft typically have a monocoque design in which skin is stressed (load-bearing). If starships are built that way, then external hull will be armored by default, while internal structure could be paper-thin. On the other hand, if both hull and internal bulkheads are stressed, then bulkheads may have to be strong enough to automatically act as armor.