Fed hand weapons against any armour what so ever

[Darth Tanner]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAF3HhX0K_8

This video, combined with the other debate on Stormtroopers boarding the Ent got me thinking, could Fed armed crew even take out any stormtroopers at all?

Throughot the video & ST in general phaser hits are very low yield, leaving no damage on packing crates and only burning a small hole in bits of wood.

Compare this to Imp blaster which take out massive chunks of concrete walls.

In terms of ground conflict, how would the Fed actually stop itself being annhilated.

Oh and I'll ignore vehicles as the Fed stupidity in not having them is just too silly to make discussion worth while.

[Jedi Master Spock]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAF3HhX0K_8

This video, combined with the other debate on Stormtroopers boarding the Ent got me thinking, could Fed armed crew even take out any stormtroopers at all?

Throughot the video & ST in general phaser hits are very low yield, leaving no damage on packing crates and only burning a small hole in bits of wood.

The video is not exactly representative of the whole of ST. Very frequently, at high settings, a phaser hit leaves nothing behind where a humanoid once existed. Hand phaser accuracy exhibited in the series is nothing exceptionally bad or good. It may be considered exceptionally good in comparison to stormtroopers on the Death Star.

Compare this to Imp blaster which take out massive chunks of concrete walls.

Actually, Imperial blasters tend to do no more damage than seen here, where the blasters have put cereal-bowl like craters in the wall. As noted on that page, this puts them on par with an elephant gun or other heavy modern rifle. Impressive by modern standards, but not up to par with phaser firepower by any measurement.

Meanwhile, ST phasers very commonly vaporize humanoids, at at the high ends, can be seen to be several orders of magnitude more destructive. One single shot from a hand phaser set on maximum has more energetic effects than an AT-AT or AT-ST shot.

To summarize... blasters put smoking holes in people. Phasers turn people into smoking holes. Stormtrooper armor doesn't stop blaster fire, ergo it is highly unlikely to have any effect on phaser fire.

[Darth Tanner]

And yet these higher settings are not used unless in dire conditions against weird aliens, indicating they are likely wasteful of ammo or damaging to the emmitter.

Why exactly would you want to make some one glow orange and vanish?
Its likely incredibly wasteful of energy in comparison to simply killing someone.

ST accuracy is largely a result of the poor 'dust buster' design of their side arms

It may be considered exceptionally good in comparison to stormtroopers on the Death Star.

Who were under orders to allow them to escape.

Also a high setting blast from an ATAT is capabl of wiping out a large facility (the power generator on Hoth)

Phasers do not turn people into smoking holes, they barely damage wood, let alone what ever stormie armour is made of.

[Jedi Master Spock]

And yet these higher settings are not used unless in dire conditions against weird aliens, indicating they are likely wasteful of ammo or damaging to the emmitter.

Why exactly would you want to make some one glow orange and vanish?
Its likely incredibly wasteful of energy in comparison to simply killing someone.

Which is why we usually see someone just fly back and die, rather than vaporize. Vaporization effects are still quite common, however.

ST accuracy is largely a result of the poor 'dust buster' design of their side arms

I will repeat. Accuracy in ST is not exceptionally bad or good. Nor is the "dust buster" that bad.

Who were under orders to allow them to escape.

Justify it all you like, but the Stormtrooper Effect is well established in the mythos of Star Wars.

If you want, start counting bullets. You're not going to come up with higher accuracy for stormtroopers than redshirts.

Also a high setting blast from an ATAT is capabl of wiping out a large facility (the power generator on Hoth)

Which, in other words, makes it comparable to a hand phaser on maximum, which can knock out a building or a kilometer-long pipeline.

Phasers do not turn people into smoking holes, they barely damage wood, let alone what ever stormie armour is made of.

Darth Tanner, that is a rather dishonest and unsupported claim. Even you admit that phasers do vaporize people, as seen in every "modern" ST series from TOS to VOY as well as many of the movies.

Phasers can damage wood; phasers can damage stone; phasers can damage metal. It's simple, really.

[Praeothmin]

In DS9's first season, when trying to get to Bashir and some ambassadors who are stuck in a burning compartment, Sisko and Kira fire at a wall, and vaporize, not NDF, about a half meter circle of bulkhead, almost 2 inches thick. You can actually see the smoke coming from the bulkhead when they fire, proving not NDF, but DET effects from phasers.

Also, notice how everyone hit by phaser fire is pushed backwards?
That means that phasers also pack quite a kinetic punch.
How much kinetic energy is needed to push a 150 pounds human back 1 foot?

Then there's the episode in TNG where Rikers blows up (again, no NDF) a rock with the smaller type phaser.

And finally, I have the honor of using a Warsie claim against SW.
The shield generator's blast on Hoth was due to the energy reserves that was in it.
Look at the scene carefully:
After the order of firing at full power was given, we notice first the explosion of the laser cannons, and then the big explosion of the generator.
That's consistent with what happens when you destroys parts of a power generator: it short circuits, or it overloads, and it blows up.
In order to create a shield that was powerful enough to stop bombardment from orbit, then the generator had to manage huge amounts of energy.
Thus, the big explosion...

[Darth Tanner]

Which, in other words, makes it comparable to a hand phaser on maximum, which can knock out a building or a kilometer-long pipeline.

Oh yes, I forgot all those time entire battalions of Dominion troops were killed at once instead of firing single shots like fools.

Darth Tanner, that is a rather dishonest and unsupported claim. Even you admit that phasers do vaporize people, as seen in every "modern" ST series from TOS to VOY as well as many of the movies.

Phasers can damage wood; phasers can damage stone; phasers can damage metal. It's simple, really.

Phasers can do it, but fail to do it when combat situations call for it, there are too many incidents to count when ST villans took cover behind rocks, trees planks of wood from phaser fire, why if phasers are actualy hand held WMDs do they not turn the power setting up for combat? Could it be that doing so removes any range/longevity.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Which, in other words, makes it comparable to a hand phaser on maximum, which can knock out a building or a kilometer-long pipeline.

Oh yes, I forgot all those time entire battalions of Dominion troops were killed at once instead of firing single shots like fools.

It's very rare that we see Dominion troops in the open field on the screen. The one time I can recall, they all died fairly quickly in any event.

Typically, phasers are set to stun outside of very hostile situations. Does this mean phasers can't kill? No. We've seen what they can do, and when compared with this, stormtrooper armor's track record fails to impress.

Phasers can do it, but fail to do it when combat situations call for it, there are too many incidents to count when ST villans took cover behind rocks, trees planks of wood from phaser fire, why if phasers are actualy hand held WMDs do they not turn the power setting up for combat? Could it be that doing so removes any range/longevity.

Actually, it's quite rare that cover provides more than temporary protection. Typically, cover involves very solid metal or stone, and sparking explosions are quite typical of misses, as demonstrated on the video you linked to. Indeed, at 1:45 on that video, you'll see a shot where a giant explosion of sparks and white light covers an area several meters across.

It is not atypical for phaser bolts in combat to go straight through cover, as Quark's narrow miss in "Who Mourns for Morn?" demonstrates quite clearly. The claim that any old packing crate will protect you against phaser fire is not a very well-founded one, and is based out of ignorance.

Wooden planks I can't think of a single instance of. Darth Tanner, can you really think of any examples of actual wooden planks stopping phaser fire outside of examples where the phasers were set on stun?

Combat situations rarely call for phasers on sustained maximum power.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

The two ground combat instances I can think of where we see a substantial number (a squad or more) of Jem Hadar are "The Seige of AR-558" (DS9-7) and "Rocks and Shoals" (DS9-6). In R&S the 10 Jem Hadar are killed in about 5 seconds of slow motion and manage to kill 1 UFP security officer.

[Mike DiCenso]

It's "Hide and Q" [TNG1] where Riker tests a small phaser by shooting at a rock and blowing it up:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWground-newphas1.html

We have other examples of vaporization and burning with phasers:


http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWground-newphas2.html


An example of phaser burns on a human:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Phaser_damage.jpg


...And the infamous Remmick's head going *SPLAT!* scene:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Remmick_death.jpg

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:R ... ermath.jpg

Note the steam as his head explodes, and smoke from the ruined corpse.


The inital stage of a phaser weapon beam's explosion from "The Man Trap" [TOS1]:

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 22&pos=216

So plenty of examples available here.
-Mike

[SailorSaturn13]

O'Brien: "The phaser was on maximum. The Cardassian just ... incinerated"

- from "the Wounded"

[Nonamer]

This is well covered by everyone by now but:

Nearly all examples shown in the vid are on stun and other low powered hits. You can easily turn on a higher setting, as seen in TNG: Suspicions

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/ ... n_shot.jpg

First he gets shot a hole in the chest, and then vaporized when it was not enough to kill him.

[GStone]

Does anyone know the idea behind the expanding circle effect on impact from early TNG phasers that was later tossed out?

[Mike DiCenso]

Here's another sequence from TNG:


http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 11&pos=167

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 11&pos=168

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 11&pos=169

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 11&pos=170

In about 10 seconds, Worf and Tasha use their phasers to cut through a wall in an attempt to reach hostages held deep in tunnels on Mordan IV. Note the very DET-like effects here, and the carbon scoring on the hole's edges.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Praeothmin wrote:
In DS9's first season, when trying to get to Bashir and some ambassadors who are stuck in a bruning compartment, Sisko and Kira fire at a wall, and vaporize, not NDF, about a half meter circle of bulkhead, almost 2 inches thick. You can actually see the smoke coming from the bulkhead when they fire, proving not NDF, but DET effects from phasers.

That's from "The Forsaken" [DS91]:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 16&pos=137


Yup, more DET-like effects from the phaser beams here as they cut through the metal.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Here's another interesting phaser use, Geordi melting little crystaline rocks to create a tool so he can climb out of a pit with:


http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... =54&pos=43


Again, phasers can heat up rocks to melting point, it's pretty likely they can burn a hole through a person, too.

In fact, they can. From DS9's "What You Leave Behind":


http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... =73&pos=86

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=275

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=392

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=393

Anyway, I think that settles that issue.
-Mike