Revenge of the EU Completists

[Firmus Piett]

just like in TCW and the six films, where orbital bombardment is so unknown that even when Grievous was ordered to kill all the Nightsisters, a group that lived in a single village with some small caves, he had to land an army.

Screw the cartoons, orbital bombardment IS KNOWN in the films. It was implied to be a viable option at Hoth, were it not for that blasted shield, remember? I bet orbital bombardment would have been considered at Endor too, were it not for the fact that Endor was similarly shielded (Han had to gain permission to land, which involved lowering planet-side shields).

So what we have is a ridiculous universe, technologically-speaking. On the one hand you have Rebels stories with atmospheric battles that don't disrupt clouds where missed shots puff the dirt

Why would they disrupt the clouds? This is SW where certain blaster bolts can fly uninterrupted through water as easily as air, and ships can fly at hyperspnic-speeds through planetary atmosphere without disturbance ;). And your talking about starfighters to be fair? Not building sized turbolasers or starship carried missiles.


My own conservative "firepower" only calculations (no DS scaling, acceleration scaling, ect) puts firepower in the tons - kilotons for smaller guns (depending on whether they are "lasers" or "ballistics") to megatons for the biggest guns. This might be handy when razing cities or executing a Base Delta Zero, but really it's overkill in context to this discussion. Considering the numbers of guns carried by warships, and the fact that many of these guns are larger than some of the largest vehicles ever to grace the battlefield on the ground, it should be the case that starships could wipe the floor with armies and fortifications.

Perhaps the reason planetary bombardment is so rare in TCW is due to fear of reciprocation, to avoid the war devolving into both sides using their fleets to wipe out enemy armies and cities through orbital bombardment. Resorting to using warships (which may be capable of performing Base Delta Zero) to deal with planetary armies or populations might be akin to unleashing our own nuclear arsenals here on modern Earth, making both sides hesitant to do so with any real regularity or harshness. Brian Young once proposed the rarity of orbital bombardment may be a range limitation, however this seems unlikely to me since spaceships are able to hover at any height above a planets surface and because of the potential for bombardment in ESB.

[Mike DiCenso]

Screw the cartoons, orbital bombardment IS KNOWN in the films. It was implied to be a viable option at Hoth, were it not for that blasted shield, remember? I bet orbital bombardment would have been considered at Endor too, were it not for the fact that Endor was similarly shielded (Han had to gain permission to land, which involved lowering planet-side shields).

That is actually one of the handful of times we hear of the possibility (outside of the now iffy EU that is), and note that that was with one of the largest of warships, the Super Star Destroyer, and at least five attending ISDs. The Endor shield, at least based on the novelization implications, is to protect the second Death Star from ship-based attack. The holographic diagram in the briefing even shows the shield being projected up from Endor in a bulb shape around the DS2, and in the novelization the DS2 is bombarded by the Rebel fleet. And if the firepower of SW capital ships was so awesome, then given the limited coverage of the shield and that General Veers' forces were able to land and walk under it, then a major attack right near by would seen a massive shockwave through the air and ground and destroy the Rebel base or severely damage it.

Why would they disrupt the clouds? This is SW where certain blaster bolts can fly uninterrupted through water as easily as air, and ships can fly at hyperspnic-speeds through planetary atmosphere without disturbance ;). And your talking about starfighters to be fair? Not building sized turbolasers or starship carried missiles.

You've described a phenomena seen in most sci-fi shows, and the implications are that these weapons do not work as real world weapons would of that alleged magnitude of firepower. Even still, when said weapons hit something, they seldom cause effects anywhere near what is claimed of them, and more often than not in the Versus Debates, Warsies hold to a double standard by claiming high levels of firepower while using those very same phenomena in Star Trek and other sci-fi to claim weak firepower, even when the weapons hit something (after coring through the air and not disturbing it much), and yet sometims cause effects on a target many orders of magnitude greater than similar sized Star Wars weapons.

My own conservative "firepower" only calculations (no DS scaling, acceleration scaling, ect) puts firepower in the tons - kilotons for smaller guns (depending on whether they are "lasers" or "ballistics") to megatons for the biggest guns. This might be handy when razing cities or executing a Base Delta Zero, but really it's overkill in context to this discussion. Considering the numbers of guns carried by warships, and the fact that many of these guns are larger than some of the largest vehicles ever to grace the battlefield on the ground, it should be the case that starships could wipe the floor with armies and fortifications.

By what? The asteroid in TESB which have many variables involved that have seldom been answered by SW debaters, like the colliding asteroids that burn blue. And those are hardly the most conservative calcs you can come up with in any instance for Star Wars ship-mounted weapons. For example, by using the width of the turbolaser bolts instead of the questionable length, and then comparing them to the asteroids, you wind up with very much smaller rocks than the 20-40 meters of Brian Young and Mike Wong (which were based on bad assumptions, like the non-existent asteroids of the Falcon-Avenger chase scene).

You instead wind up with asteroids of less than 5 meters, and it is still generous to assume vaporization in those instances, and that all the energy was from the TL, not this strange explosive phenomena of the Hoth asteroids.

Perhaps the reason planetary bombardment is so rare in TCW is due to fear of reciprocation, to avoid the war devolving into both sides using their fleets to wipe out enemy armies and cities through orbital bombardment. Resorting to using warships (which may be capable of performing Base Delta Zero) to deal with planetary armies or populations might be akin to unleashing our own nuclear arsenals here on modern Earth, making both sides hesitant to do so with any real regularity or harshness. Brian Young once proposed the rarity of orbital bombardment may be a range limitation, however this seems unlikely to me since spaceships are able to hover at any height above a planets surface and because of the potential for bombardment in ESB.

Fear of retaliation or Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), is a valid point. But later on in TESB, part of RoTS and TCW, is there no reason to hold back like that, especially Hoth which is a desolate world and politically wouldn't be a liability to the Empire to go full out on and hit the Rebels indirectly by disrupting the planetary crust.

I don't believe range is an issue, either given we have seen SW ships open fire from greater than 60 km in TPM, and in TCW over 200 km.
-Mike

[2046]

To be consistent with the rest of the canon, we must assume that "any bombardment" pondered at Hoth may very well have been intra-atmospheric. That would agree with Young's claim of a range limitation, though I'd be mighty surprised to hear him suggest such such a thing.

And no, blaster and especially turbolaser bolts ought not disrupt clouds as they pass (much), but they should certainly do so when they explode in the air near a cloud if they are as powerful as some claim.

I am in general agreement with your up-to-megatons figures for heavy weapons, that being based on the town-killing bit from the RotS novelization, though common fire is rather lower.

[2046]

Thought more on this:

Perhaps the reason planetary bombardment is so rare in TCW is due to fear of reciprocation

And sorry, it makes no sense. I mean, I see what you were going for, and agree that widespread firebombing-esque bombardment against cities a la Coventry can lead to reprisal, a la Dresden.

However:

1. There was no reason not to hit the Nightsisters from orbit. They were non-aligned, no friend to the Republic, and the whole gaggle could've been taken out with a single nuke.
2. Precision orbital strikes are not indiscriminate.
3. Wat Tambor wanted to destroy everything on Ryloth, using an aerial "firebombing campaign". This proves nothing of orbital bombardment either way given that the Separatist fleet was gone, but it does point to a willingness to engage in total war against populations.
3. Per the RotS novel, Grievous "is a slaughterer of billions. Whole planets have burned at his command. He is the evil genius of the Confederacy. The architect of their victories. The author of their atrocities."

I'm not clear on how orbital bombardment would be worse than a scorched earth tactic (as believed by the Republic citizenry on Coruscant) above, or the firebombing of Ryloth villages, et cetera.

True, blasters, and thus presumably turbolasers, are said to leave a radioactive fog when the galvening fades, so perhaps we could conjecture that a proper orbital bombardment leaves radioactive fallout and particles that signal a war crime. But then, atmospheric combat should be just as naughty, one would think, inasmuch as radioactive particle showers are concerned.

But even then, when it came to a single shot against the Nightsisters, who would care?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Screw the cartoons, orbital bombardment IS KNOWN in the films. It was implied to be a viable option at Hoth, were it not for that blasted shield, remember? I bet orbital bombardment would have been considered at Endor too, were it not for the fact that Endor was similarly shielded (Han had to gain permission to land, which involved lowering planet-side shields).

That is actually one of the handful of times we hear of the possibility (outside of the now iffy EU that is), and note that that was with one of the largest of warships, the Super Star Destroyer, and at least five attending ISDs. The Endor shield, at least based on the novelization implications, is to protect the second Death Star from ship-based attack. The holographic diagram in the briefing even shows the shield being projected up from Endor in a bulb shape around the DS2, and in the novelization the DS2 is bombarded by the Rebel fleet. And if the firepower of SW capital ships was so awesome, then given the limited coverage of the shield and that General Veers' forces were able to land and walk under it, then a major attack right near by would seen a massive shockwave through the air and ground and destroy the Rebel base or severely damage it.

That really depends on the radius of Echo Base's shield and if you're arguing for kiloton or gigatons.

Like, 100 KT big guns fired outside of a shield, every once a while, at the ground at a distance of 50 km for example, would be very annoying but not definitive in toppling the Rebels' assets. And that would hardly cover the problem that the ion cannon represents.

My own conservative "firepower" only calculations (no DS scaling, acceleration scaling, ect) puts firepower in the tons - kilotons for smaller guns (depending on whether they are "lasers" or "ballistics") to megatons for the biggest guns. This might be handy when razing cities or executing a Base Delta Zero, but really it's overkill in context to this discussion. Considering the numbers of guns carried by warships, and the fact that many of these guns are larger than some of the largest vehicles ever to grace the battlefield on the ground, it should be the case that starships could wipe the floor with armies and fortifications.

By what? The asteroid in TESB which have many variables involved that have seldom been answered by SW debaters, like the colliding asteroids that burn blue. And those are hardly the most conservative calcs you can come up with in any instance for Star Wars ship-mounted weapons. For example, by using the width of the turbolaser bolts instead of the questionable length, and then comparing them to the asteroids, you wind up with very much smaller rocks than the 20-40 meters of Brian Young and Mike Wong (which were based on bad assumptions, like the non-existent asteroids of the Falcon-Avenger chase scene).

You instead wind up with asteroids of less than 5 meters, and it is still generous to assume vaporization in those instances, and that all the energy was from the TL, not this strange explosive phenomena of the Hoth asteroids.

Yes, one would still be measuring the firepower of those bolts against rocks of a demonstrated odd and unique nature.

Really, what one can safely do is scale up the firepower observed from starfighters.
Anything demonstrates a firepower dialed down to kilojoules, up to megajoules in the best case (I'd say beefy hand grenade level or perhaps ten times that), by looking at the ground explosions on the sand dunes of Geonosis, the best explosion from a snowspeeder against Hoth's frozen landscape, and perhaps plenty of not so impressive shots coming from both sides at the battle of Kashyyk.
I think remembering that when you scale that up, you still end getting very low kilotons.
Of course, scaling up is a limited method with its own caveats, because there are technologies that can't easily be miniaturized, so simply put, past a certain size, some guns might have access to a notably more potent tech.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Well, orbital bombings are not always necessary. For all sorts of reasons, such as demonstration, testing, training and resources shortage, you could use more ground-hugging tactics like raids by bombers.
This, however, hardly explains the lack of any quick and accurate assault of any sort, part infantry-level action of course.
This implies the presence of a shield and plenty of ground-to-air/orbit weapon platforms.
But I guess none of that is even remotely implied in the episode, rite?