SSD versus Borg Cube

[GStone]

The cube doesn't have to worry about getting hit by anything substantial by staying behind the engines.

Problem is, we've never seen the Borg use efficient tactics before.
They would simply move forward, spout the "Resistance if futile!" line, and then try to assimilate the SSD.
I think they would get demolished by the amount of fire power thrown their way (doesn't an SSD have like 250 Heavy Turbolasers in addition to all the smaller ones?).

Now, If there was a second cube that was coming in later, and had had time to analyse and assimilate the sensor data from the first cube, that one could probably survive long enough to beam many thousand drones on the SSD.
Now that could prove problematic for the poor stormtroopers.
They had trouble hitting black-clad kneeling rebel soldiers in white corridors on the Tantive IV, imagine them trying to hit walking targets... :)

We have known them to do things, like whatever it was called that they did with the shields to counter a species' weapon when attempting assimilation, while 7 had volunteered to return to the collective to save her crewmates. The queen asked 7 what they should do to adapt to them. We have also seen cubes run, like when species 8472 blew up the planet. Most just didn't get away in time and blew up, too.

If they saw all guns firing on the cube, that same cube could analyze the current data, just like they would when adapting to things. Besides, not all the guns are gonna be able to aim for the cube. Based on SDs of the republic and the empire, not all weapon turrets can cover the same arcs.

[Mike DiCenso]

Praeothmin wrote:
Even adapted Borg shields will still take damage from really powerful weapons.

Yes, until they find a way to adapt to it. Remember the example of the E-D deflector dish? In the case of S8472, the Borg initially had no way to assimilate them because of their unique biology. I see no such impediment should the Borg assimilate individual human Storm Troopers, Imperial Navy officers, ect. Once that happens, the Borg will possess the knowledge they need about Imperial weapons, in the same way Picard's assimilation did for Federation weapons.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Yes, until they find a way to adapt to it. Remember the example of the E-D deflector dish? In the case of S8472, the Borg initially had no way to assimilate them because of their unique biology. I see no such impediment should the Borg assimilate individual human Storm Troopers, Imperial Navy officers, ect. Once that happens, the Borg will possess the knowledge they need about Imperial weapons, in the same way Picard's assimilation did for Federation weapons.

I agree that once the Borg adapt, you need way more powerful weapons to hurt them (quantum torpedoes instead of photons for example).
And I also agree that they will not have the same problem while assimilating Stormtroopers as when they tried to assimilate Species 8472.
I'm just saying that, even when they adapt to a weapon, if you pour enough power in your attack, you may still damage the Borg.
And the first time they encounter the SSD, since they will not have adapted to it, they will suffer heavy damage even though not all the SSD's guns can fire at the Cube.
The second Cube might or might not survive depending on the speed with which they adapt to the SSD's weapons.

We have known them to do things, like whatever it was called that they did with the shields to counter a species' weapon when attempting assimilation, while 7 had volunteered to return to the collective to save her crewmates. The queen asked 7 what they should do to adapt to them. We have also seen cubes run, like when species 8472 blew up the planet. Most just didn't get away in time and blew up, too.

Yes, when they know an enemy is too powerful, we have seen them run. But when encountering a new "prey", they never run, and will let the Cube get pounded to death (probably in order to gather data, we don't really know) before they do anything like run, or retreat.

[Mike DiCenso]

Praeothmin wrote:
I agree that once the Borg adapt, you need way more powerful weapons to hurt them (quantum torpedoes instead of photons for example).
And I also agree that they will not have the same problem while assimilating Stormtroopers as when they tried to assimilate Species 8472.
I'm just saying that, even when they adapt to a weapon, if you pour enough power in your attack, you may still damage the Borg.
And the first time they encounter the SSD, since they will not have adapted to it, they will suffer heavy damage even though not all the SSD's guns can fire at the Cube.
The second Cube might or might not survive depending on the speed with which they adapt to the SSD's weapons.

Or the cube does what was done in "Q Who?" by first beaming several drone scouts into the SSD engineering section. The Borg were able to do this dispite the E-D being at red alert and with shields up.

Praeothmin wrote:
Yes, when they know an enemy is too powerful, we have seen them run. But when encountering a new "prey", they never run, and will let the Cube get pounded to death (probably in order to gather data, we don't really know) before they do anything like run, or retreat.

The only reason that I can see for the Borg cube retreat when the planet was blown up was to prevent Voyager from being destroyed. In fact, it's rather interesting to note that the two cubeships destroyed by the planet's explosion were only a few tens of kilometers behind the one towing Voyager. Why should such a relatively small distance lead to such a drastic difference outcome between the three cubeships? Could it be that the other two were acting in some way to protect the Voyager cubeship so that it could escape?
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Or the cube does what was done in "Q Who?" by first beaming several drone scouts into the SSD engineering section. The Borg were able to do this dispite the E-D being at red alert and with shields up.

Forgot about that, it's been too long since I last saw that episode (in fact I believe the only time I saw it was on its first airing), and us old geezers don't have that good of a memory... :)

[GStone]

Yes, when they know an enemy is too powerful, we have seen them run. But when encountering a new "prey", they never run, and will let the Cube get pounded to death (probably in order to gather data, we don't really know) before they do anything like run, or retreat.

We saw in real time an example of how long it can take to analyze an opponent. Take their first meeting with the Federation in TNG. They were curious about their technology and the Enterprise took no hostile action until after they beamed aboard. After that, they got info on their technical capabilities. The SSD is likely not gonna just start firing on the cube when it comes into range.

Based on what we see of the 7/Queen interaction, they can make technical assesmites pretty quick. Out of all the species we've known them to react to, most of them make the cube not run. Most of their ship can be destroyed and they could function pretty decently. But, most of the guns are not gonna be aimed at the cube itself, so it'll be even longer before the shields would come down. On an SSD, there's probably a combination of heavy, medium and light TLs. The heavies would probably be along the sides, with the medium and light closer towards the top, since capital ships come along side each other and fire, like ships at sea. If they really were wanting to get out of the way of the weapons fire, they could moved out of the range and/or arc of the turrets.

They might let their shields get beaten down, but it'd also take a while to get through the armor and destroy enough of the hull to make them inoperable, especially with their ships regenerating/repairing. We also saw in real time the first TNG era ship regeneration/repair happen, which gives us a good indication of how long they could last, even when getting hit with blasts of at least 10 megatons. The shield generators themselves could repair themselves and bring the shields back up and the SSD is gonn have less fuel to deal with.

[Mike DiCenso]

I suppose if your memory needs to be refreshed, you could always rent or borrow the episode. :-)
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

I suppose if your memory needs to be refreshed, you could always rent or borrow the episode. :-)

Nah, already on my way to bying it... I have DS9 seasons 1 and 5, and TNG season 6. Will eventually buy them all, and then... THEN THE WORLD WILL BE MINE... MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ahem... yeah, move along folks, nothing to see here, not even the cackling maniac... :)

On an SSD, there's probably a combination of heavy, medium and light TLs. The heavies would probably be along the sides, with the medium and light closer towards the top, since capital ships come along side each other and fire, like ships at sea. If they really were wanting to get out of the way of the weapons fire, they could moved out of the range and/or arc of the turrets.

Except that on an ISD, according to the original ICS, all the heavy guns are on top, and the guns in the trenches are the light ones, and with a few med Turbolasers.
So I don't see why it should be different on the SSD.
Still, I have to agree not all the guns will be able to fire at once, but really, how many 200 Gigaton shots do they need to destroy a Cube?

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

200 GT firepower is contradicted by almost every other example of SW firepower. I think 60 MT is a much more reasonable figure and more consistant with the rest of the EU and the films. Also, we almost never see HTLs (even in big battles) so their firing rate must be pretty slow.

[sonofccn]

how many 200 Gigaton shots do they need to destroy a Cube?

Well it varies depending on federation weapon calcs and whatnot but offhand I would guess one to obliterate the shields and another to obliterate the cube, so two. :)


The cube wins all scenarios. IMO the SSD doesn't have enough firepower to outmuscle the borg ship. During first contact it's stands a chance since the Borg will simply sit there and take it(Borgs tatics leave a lot to be desired) but as previously mentioned the SSD will most likely shoot to cripple and try to board giving the ship time to adapt and repair. Then the borg can simply wear the ship down ala "Q who"

Now if the SSD has a exborg on board who can tell them where the vunerable spots are then yes the SSD would stand a good chance of doing some damage.

The SSD is likely not gonna just start firing on the cube when it comes into range.

The empire is a lot more aggressive then the federation. If the ship didn't immeditly respound to hails I could believe an Imperial captian opening fire. It would be an unkown alien ship and therefore a pontienal threat.

[Mike DiCenso]

Just rough back of the envelope numbers based on a moderately conservative (Mars' atmosphere and escape velocity used here instead of Earth's) blasting of Dankayo's atmosphere away. I roughly estimate 6.55x10e23 J are required. That's several orders of magnitude less than the energy required to blast away Earth's atmosphere, but still a rather impressive amount of energy nonetheless. Now the question comes down to how fast did it take the three ISDs to accomplish this task, and how many guns was it divided amongst. The first part is easy: 6.55x10e23 J divided by 3 = 2.18x10e23 J (500,000 gigatons). The rest we have to guess at really. Did it take an hour, as some BDZ sources claim it takes? Did it take about a day? If an hour, then 3,600 seconds divided by the last figure gives us about 6.06x10e19 J (138 gigatons). That's about 1.38 gigatons for an ISD firing ALL guns simultaneously. If there are 100 turbolasers on an ISD and the firepower is evenly distributed, then 1.38 gigatons per TL battery averaged. If the task took all three ISDs 24 hours, then 86,400 seconds divided by 6.06x10e19 J should equal about 6.9x10e14 J per ISD, or 5.78 gigatons for an ISD broadside. That means each TL averages only 57.87 megatons per shot, which is in line with what AnonymousRedShirtEnsign is talking about with 60 MT per shot TLs.

Anyway, that's if I did the numbers right. I'am really way too tired to be doing this sort of thing...
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

I can see a few problems with those calcs:

First, it assumes all their guns were firing continously at Dankayo, one shot each second per gun.

Secondly, it assumes Dankayo was within the firing arc of al the guns on the three ISDs.

Thirdly, it assumes all the Turbolasers arethe same size and power. Heavy Turbolasers will be more powerful then Med Turbolasers, who in turn are more powerful than Light Turbolasers.

But as far as the energy required calc, I'm not the one who'll be finding the faults in it.
BTW, where did you find the figures used for the blasting of an atmosphere away?
Was it ever calculated by scientists, for real? Or only by SW fans?
I'm curious where those numbers come from.

[GStone]

I suppose if your memory needs to be refreshed, you could always rent or borrow the episode. :-)

Nah, already on my way to bying it... I have DS9 seasons 1 and 5, and TNG season 6. Will eventually buy them all, and then... THEN THE WORLD WILL BE MINE... MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ahem... yeah, move along folks, nothing to see here, not even the cackling maniac... :)

On an SSD, there's probably a combination of heavy, medium and light TLs. The heavies would probably be along the sides, with the medium and light closer towards the top, since capital ships come along side each other and fire, like ships at sea. If they really were wanting to get out of the way of the weapons fire, they could moved out of the range and/or arc of the turrets.

Except that on an ISD, according to the original ICS, all the heavy guns are on top, and the guns in the trenches are the light ones, and with a few med Turbolasers.
So I don't see why it should be different on the SSD.
Still, I have to agree not all the guns will be able to fire at once, but really, how many 200 Gigaton shots do they need to destroy a Cube?

Capital ships come along side each other and fire, so it'd make sense that the heavy installations are along the sides. The smaller ships will be flying all around where light and medium guns would be better placed on the top and bottom, but that's how I'd design them.

[Praeothmin]

Capital ships come along side each other and fire, so it'd make sense that the heavy installations are along the sides. The smaller ships will be flying all around where light and medium guns would be better placed on the top and bottom,

Well, Half the Heavy Turbolasers are placed on the right dorsal part, and the other half on the left, so ships (big capital ships) doing side-by-side flybys will definitly be in the line of fire of those big guns.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

If the HTL turrets can rotate so they are pointing up, then the ISD could turn upside-down and use all of its HTLs at once. I think the light and medium guns are pretty evenly dispersed across the rest of the ship so you could at most get 1/2 of them, though in actuality it would probably be more like 35 or 40% assuming there are a lot of trench guns.