Two scenes which are demonstrating hull strength

[Mike DiCenso]

Globally, both low end and high end would sit in the one digit megaton range, once doubled or even tripled (the highest vapourization energy for the biggest asteroid measured, for the hardest composition, returns 2 megatons, so that's between 4 and 6 in the end).

In each case, we also have to add in the fact that the beam and bolt traveled across hundreds of thousands of km to reach their respective targets, and likely have lost energy along the way.
-Mike

[Cocytus]

I am inclined to believe, especially when taking the above posts into consideration, that most of the "vanished" material of the second asteroid is simply vaporized, and that none of it was "transferred" to any other sort of continuum or alternate dimension or any of that nonsense. What appears to be the outer layer of the asteroid vanishing may have simply been vaporized into minuscule particles, an illusion caused by flash from the blast or, hell, just messed up visual effects.


Why can't we just act rational and admit that sometimes, the visual effects were just slightly screwed up due to technical difficulty or sheer laziness on the production staff's part, instead of trying to come up with all these insane and downright retarded theories of magically morphing BoPs or matter disappearing into another dimension?

No one is acting irrational here, DeathNote. They're having a civil discussion. Alternate dimensions and wildly variable BoP's are all canonical occurrences.

As far as yields go, high kiloton to low megaton is certainly acceptable for the Groumall, considering the distance the beams had to cover. Wong's asteroid calculator is for monolithic asteroids, which works fine with the second example. Dukat's intention was to go after the BoP, so he would have conducted a test against a suitably resilient target. Besides, modern science is cataloguing more and more possible impactors of the rocky variety, which is the second most abundant type of asteroid after carbon asteroids. Even in light of Dukat's timetable for intercepting the BoP, for a warp-capable ship with ST sensors, finding a suitable asteroid to test the disruptor shouldn't have been terribly time-consuming.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Globally, both low end and high end would sit in the one digit megaton range, once doubled or even tripled (the highest vapourization energy for the biggest asteroid measured, for the hardest composition, returns 2 megatons, so that's between 4 and 6 in the end).

In each case, we also have to add in the fact that the beam and bolt traveled across hundreds of thousands of km to reach their respective targets, and likely have lost energy along the way.
-Mike

We don't exactly know if the bolt looses much energy, right?

What I notice is that those weapons are supposedly planet bound defense systems, System-5 disruptors.
And yes, disruptors are weapons with associated NDF effects, it's hard to say if all that happened was the sheer result of DET.
Besides, one would be right to argue that NDF acted upon the asteroid by looking at the edge vanishing.

[Mike DiCenso]

Globally, both low end and high end would sit in the one digit megaton range, once doubled or even tripled (the highest vapourization energy for the biggest asteroid measured, for the hardest composition, returns 2 megatons, so that's between 4 and 6 in the end).

In each case, we also have to add in the fact that the beam and bolt traveled across hundreds of thousands of km to reach their respective targets, and likely have lost energy along the way.
-Mike

We don't exactly know if the bolt looses much energy, right?

What I notice is that those weapons are supposedly planet bound defense systems, System-5 disruptors.
And yes, disruptors are weapons with associated NDF effects, it's hard to say if all that happened was the sheer result of DET.
Besides, one would be right to argue that NDF acted upon the asteroid by looking at the edge vanishing.

One woudl presume that at least some energy is lost over longer distances, otherwise these weapons would have truely unlimited range, which they clearly do not given statements about effective range limits.

NDF isn't really an established ability. As I noted previously, the only canonical statements on that in Trek is the direct reference made to disintegration on the highest settings made by Mirror Archer in IaMD. Otherwise in many cases we have seen phasers act as DET weapons, and we know that a rifle barely a fraction of the size of the phasers on the Gromall could output a little over a megawatt, while a Breen rifle could cut through shields rated at 4.6 gigajoules. So there is a certain, relatively large amount of power that goes into phasers regardless of any sort of magical "NDF" effects.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

One woudl presume that at least some energy is lost over longer distances, otherwise these weapons would have truely unlimited range, which they clearly do not given statements about effective range limits.

Effective range and lifespan of whatever holds the projectile as a ball are two other valid limits.

NDF isn't really an established ability. As I noted previously, the only canonical statements on that in Trek is the direct reference made to disintegration on the highest settings made by Mirror Archer in IaMD. Otherwise in many cases we have seen phasers act as DET weapons, and we know that a rifle barely a fraction of the size of the phasers on the Gromall could output a little over a megawatt, while a Breen rifle could cut through shields rated at 4.6 gigajoules. So there is a certain, relatively large amount of power that goes into phasers regardless of any sort of magical "NDF" effects.
-Mike

Yes, but just saying that one shouldn't be surprised if nitpick about the fading asteroid becomes insistent.

Still, Taking low MT to the hull, one in the wing, and one in a defined weakspot, without exploding in a fiery ball of particles and plasma is rather very impressive. I don't know if it sticks with what we've seen, and I don't know how many torps it usually takes to destroy ships, nor how superior shields are to armour when it comes to cases which can be studied...

[Jedi Master Spock]

Well, it's worth recognizing that the hulls are thick and tritanium is very tough indeed. Generations and The Wrath of Khan have the two major unshielded combats, although there's also the incident in "Q Who?" introducing the Borg.

In general, tritanium is something like 10-100 times as tough as steel, and we expect hull armor thicknesses even on small ships to be something like 10-100 cm. Meaning we would expect a BOP to have the equivalent of 1-100m of steel armor.

The low end of that is like hiding vulnerable parts behind a RL battleship's hull. The high end of that is like hiding vulnerable parts behind a pile of RL battleships.

Considering structural integrity fields, we have even MORE room to fudge in. So, yes, we could consider the higher end of the apparent phaser yield in this case as being not terribly far from what we might expect from other hull incidents, but that says next to nothing.

Shields are generally superior to armor in Trek (hits almost always penetrate armor and start causing internal damage, while the E-E could burn through its entire torpedo load without wiping the Scimitar's shields), but you have occasional odd cases where shields seem to have failed with little energy applied to them.

Now, other Treknobabble substances are less tough than tritanium. A ~2 cm layer of duratanium (22nd century hull material) will resist something like 30 GJ/m^2 ("Minefield") in a very brief timescale quite easily. So if we had a meter of duratanium, and a square meter beam (honestly, that's not far off) then it could easily resist a terajoule blast. So the low end isn't unreasonable either.

[Mike DiCenso]

One woudl presume that at least some energy is lost over longer distances, otherwise these weapons would have truely unlimited range, which they clearly do not given statements about effective range limits.

Effective range and lifespan of whatever holds the projectile as a ball are two other valid limits

.

Assuming that the disruptor is held together by anything at all. In the case of the Romulan plasma weapon seen in "Balance of Terror" [TOS, Season 2], the weapon dissipated over a few minutes time, as well as chased the Enterprise into warp, which implies an actual mechanism that could guide and provide energy for the weapon until whatever power source was exhausted. Phaser range has never been exactly pinned down, except in perhaps "The Wounded" [TNG, Season 4], or if any kind of field is required to maintain the beam's coherence. If it is like any particle weapon, it will likely just spread out over the distance it travels until it becomes so diffuse that it will be relatively harmless.

NDF isn't really an established ability. As I noted previously, the only canonical statements on that in Trek is the direct reference made to disintegration on the highest settings made by Mirror Archer in IaMD. Otherwise in many cases we have seen phasers act as DET weapons, and we know that a rifle barely a fraction of the size of the phasers on the Gromall could output a little over a megawatt, while a Breen rifle could cut through shields rated at 4.6 gigajoules. So there is a certain, relatively large amount of power that goes into phasers regardless of any sort of magical "NDF" effects.
-Mike

Yes, but just saying that one shouldn't be surprised if nitpick about the fading asteroid becomes insistent.

I wouldn't be since it would be all that certain people have left to cling to after they desperately tried in their secret little email club to reduce Star Trek phaser firepower and over-inflate SW firepower.

Still, Taking low MT to the hull, one in the wing, and one in a defined weakspot, without exploding in a fiery ball of particles and plasma is rather very impressive. I don't know if it sticks with what we've seen, and I don't know how many torps it usually takes to destroy ships, nor how superior shields are to armour when it comes to cases which can be studied...

Shields generally appear to be superior to armor. It falls in line neatly with episodes like "Balance of Terror" where the Enterprise of the 23rd century was able to survive the blast of a nuclear weapon at a range of 100 meters, or in TNG's "Descent, Part II", the E-D's hull withstands 12,000 degrees K without so much even glowing.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Let's just put it this way:
If shields weren't superior to armor, the the Defiant, having the heaviest armor of all, wouldn't even need shields, or would rarely use them, allowing them to put more power in weapons.
Yet every battle the Defiant's in, they start by raising shields...