Starfleet Jedi

I was watching the CW cartoon the other night, and it suddenly dawned on me:
Isn't the Munificient's bridge a tad obvious, being atop this tall structure and all?
Doesn't it make an inviting target?
Then I looked at the Venators, and they too had a similar design.
And then, I thought of all the SW Capital ships I'd ever seen or read about, and realized that they all shared this design flaw (except perhaps the Nebulon-B):
The main Bridges are all atop large, easily identified, towers...

This is funny, because I seem to remember some time ago Warsies claiming that the Federation were stupid ship designers, because they placed the ship's Bridges on the top of their saucer section, where any enemy could easily shoot at it...

And yet, what is easier to target and shoot at:
A Bridge located atop a large structure, like a neck (which Warsies also criticized on ST ships), that can be easily seen and targeted, even by strafing shots?

Or

A Bridge integrated in a saucer section, with no clear boundaries, no true parts of it jutting out, that would be a lot harder to target and which strafing shots might miss?

OK, I'll admit, being a Lefty Creationist automatically made believe that ST's Bridges were better protected, and that the design was better then SW's, but I wanted to know what truly "enlightened" (i.e., not Creationists) people would think... :)

Praeothmin wrote:I was watching the CW cartoon the other night, and it suddenly dawned on me:
Isn't the Munificient's bridge a tad obvious, being atop this tall structure and all?
Doesn't it make an inviting target?
Then I looked at the Venators, and they too had a similar design.
And then, I thought of all the SW Capital ships I'd ever seen or read about, and realized that they all shared this design flaw (except perhaps the Nebulon-B):
The main Bridges are all atop large, easily identified, towers...

The Nebulon-B has this atrocious long thin mid section going on for it that largely compensates the obvious main bridge thing, and makes Trek's warp nacelles a minor annoyance in comparison.
Wars does have bad designs. The old Y-wings never totally convinced me in the way the engines were attached to the main trunk.

This is funny, because I seem to remember some time ago Warsies claiming that the Federation were stupid ship designers, because they placed the ship's Bridges on the top of their saucer section, where any enemy could easily shoot at it...

And yet, what is easier to target and shoot at:
A Bridge located atop a large structure, like a neck (which Warsies also criticized on ST ships), that can be easily seen and targeted, even by strafing shots?

Or

A Bridge integrated in a saucer section, with no clear boundaries, no true parts of it jutting out, that would be a lot harder to target and which strafing shots might miss?

OK, I'll admit, being a Lefty Creationist automatically made believe that ST's Bridges were better protected, and that the design was better then SW's, but I wanted to know what truly "enlightened" (i.e., not Creationists) people would think... :)

Of course, any enclosed bridge is better. But I think the EU does say that some ships, notably the Executor, have secondary bridges, deep inside. That said, it obviously didn't work well either, as far as the SSD was concerned.

Praeothmin wrote:OK, I'll admit, being a Lefty Creationist automatically made believe that ST's Bridges were better protected, and that the design was better then SW's, but I wanted to know what truly "enlightened" (i.e., not Creationists) people would think... :)

You are a left of center Creationist? I'm a rightwing evolutionist , assuming that is a word, so I think I can appreciat your position.

As to the point of the artical I think the large tower bridges, which easy to shatter viewscreens/windows is more vunerable then a Fed bridge but as a trekkie I am of course biased so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Many ships in Star Wars share this same common flaw. In fact, I have no idea why, there are not more attempts to exploit it, especially when some of the bridges, when attacked from directly above, don't have much in the way of turbolaser defenses in those parts of the ship. When we do see attacks dedicated to taking out the bridge of a ship, such as Anakin's attempt on the Malevolence in TCW or the Rebel starfighter attacks on the Executor in RoTJ, the pilots seem to have a bizarre predilection for choosing the most dangerous path they can in order to get at it.
-Mike

Praeothmin wrote: A Bridge integrated in a saucer section, with no clear boundaries, no true parts of it jutting out, that would be a lot harder to target and which strafing shots might miss?

If you look closely at the MSDs cutaways for the E-D and E-E, their bridges are actually partially submerged into the main dorsal superstructure, affording them a slightly greater amount of protection, and unlike the earlier NX-01 and E-1701 bridges which were clearly sitting fully above the saucer dorsal superstructures. It was probably being slightly submerged into the main hull superstructure that saved the E-E's bridge from being completely destroyed by the Scimitar in ST:Nemesis.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:Many ships in Star Wars share this same common flaw. In fact, I have no idea why it there are not more attempts to exploit it, especially when some of the bridges, when attacked from directly above don't have much in the way of turbolaser defenses in those parts of the ship. When we do see attacks dedicated to taking out the bridge of a ship, such as Anakin's attempt on the Malevolence in TCW or the Rebel starfighter attacks on the Executor in RoTJ, the pilots seem to have a bizarre predilection for choosing the most dangerous path they can in order to get at it.
-Mike

Star Wars Pilots ALWAYS take the most dangerous path attacking anything.

for instance cruising along the surface of the death star for like 50 miles instead of going straight to the exhaust port.

Separable starship classes have Battle Bridges, and starships can also be controlled from Engineering if the situation warrants. ("Starship Down," "Bliss" etc.) Knocking out the main bridge won't incapacitate a Federation starship.

And it's not just the bridge. The engines on Star Wars vessels have got to be the most poorly defended components on the ships. Star Wars vessels, from the X-Wings and TIE fighters all the way through to the Star Destroyers, Calamari Cruisers and beyond, have gaping blind spots in their laser/turbolaser coverage right where the engines are. You attack the warp nacelles on a Federation starship from behind, you're right in the fire arc of aft torpedo launchers and some phaser arrays. Even shuttlecraft have rear phasers ("Raven," "Good Shepherd") What's to stop you from just camping out behind a Star Destroyer? The port and starboard HTL batteries couldn't turn that far off axis, and I don't see any major emplacements which could defend the area. Even the Bird of Prey, which is almost analagous to an SW fighter in terms of intent (designed for frontal assault) has a rear-facing disruptor we saw fire in "Way of the Warrior."

Maybe the engines put out so much turbulence and radiation that SW designers don't consider the blind spot a weakness.

The only SW vessels I can think of with appreciable converage of that area are the Millenium Falcon, thanks to its dorsal and ventral rotary turrets, Slave 1, since it drops seismic charges from a port above the engines, and the Lambda class shuttle, since the model sports a laser turret above the engines as well. Anybody else think of any please share.

As far as Star Trek ships go, a casual observer would consider the nacelle struts a poor design feature, but considering what we've seen Trek ships go through without having the nacelles sheared off, they're probably the single strongest components of the ship. The connecting neck on earlier ship classes was also a problematic feature, (since the E1701 sustained a phaser hit to the area in TWOK which knocked out the port torpedo tube) which appears to have been eliminated in most newer starships. In any event, when it comes to fire arcs, ST ships are unquestionably superior.

sonofccn wrote:You are a left of center Creationist? I'm a rightwing evolutionist , assuming that is a word, so I think I can appreciat your position.

I was just kidding.
I was referring to a certain person's POV that anyone arguing in favor of ST in any field vs SW is probably a creationist - i.e, a person who believes what he does because it suits him, rather then because logical observations led him to his conclusion.
Sorry if I mislead you...

Cocytus wrote:Separable starship classes have Battle Bridges, and starships can also be controlled from Engineering if the situation warrants. ("Starship Down," "Bliss" etc.) Knocking out the main bridge won't incapacitate a Federation starship.

And it's not just the bridge. The engines on Star Wars vessels have got to be the most poorly defended components on the ships. Star Wars vessels, from the X-Wings and TIE fighters all the way through to the Star Destroyers, Calamari Cruisers and beyond, have gaping blind spots in their laser/turbolaser coverage right where the engines are. You attack the warp nacelles on a Federation starship from behind, you're right in the fire arc of aft torpedo launchers and some phaser arrays. Even shuttlecraft have rear phasers ("Raven," "Good Shepherd") What's to stop you from just camping out behind a Star Destroyer? The port and starboard HTL batteries couldn't turn that far off axis, and I don't see any major emplacements which could defend the area. Even the Bird of Prey, which is almost analagous to an SW fighter in terms of intent (designed for frontal assault) has a rear-facing disruptor we saw fire in "Way of the Warrior."

Maybe the engines put out so much turbulence and radiation that SW designers don't consider the blind spot a weakness.

The only SW vessels I can think of with appreciable converage of that area are the Millenium Falcon, thanks to its dorsal and ventral rotary turrets, Slave 1, since it drops seismic charges from a port above the engines, and the Lambda class shuttle, since the model sports a laser turret above the engines as well. Anybody else think of any please share.

As far as Star Trek ships go, a casual observer would consider the nacelle struts a poor design feature, but considering what we've seen Trek ships go through without having the nacelles sheared off, they're probably the single strongest components of the ship. The connecting neck on earlier ship classes was also a problematic feature, (since the E1701 sustained a phaser hit to the area in TWOK which knocked out the port torpedo tube) which appears to have been eliminated in most newer starships. In any event, when it comes to fire arcs, ST ships are unquestionably superior.

The EU puts turrets down the bridge neck, and some pieces, around the lozenge edge I think, but they're surely no big pieces at all.

Cocytus wrote:
The only SW vessels I can think of with appreciable converage of that area are the Millenium Falcon, thanks to its dorsal and ventral rotary turrets, Slave 1, since it drops seismic charges from a port above the engines, and the Lambda class shuttle, since the model sports a laser turret above the engines as well. Anybody else think of any please share.

The Y-wing has an aft-facing gun, which has only been demonstrated being used in TCW. For some strange reason the Rebels couldn't be bothered to use it to defend their Y-wings when TIEs come zooming up their rear during the highly critical Death Star trench run. Of course the Rebels carried out that whole attack very poorly. Only the Imperial incompetence was worse enough to actually allow the Rebels to succeed.
-Mike

Flectarn wrote:

Mike DiCenso wrote:Many ships in Star Wars share this same common flaw. In fact, I have no idea why it there are not more attempts to exploit it, especially when some of the bridges, when attacked from directly above don't have much in the way of turbolaser defenses in those parts of the ship. When we do see attacks dedicated to taking out the bridge of a ship, such as Anakin's attempt on the Malevolence in TCW or the Rebel starfighter attacks on the Executor in RoTJ, the pilots seem to have a bizarre predilection for choosing the most dangerous path they can in order to get at it.
-Mike

Star Wars Pilots ALWAYS take the most dangerous path attacking anything.

for instance cruising along the surface of the death star for like 50 miles instead of going straight to the exhaust port.

That's another subject that requires a whole different thread. The Rebel's carried out the attack on the Death Star in a very haphazard way. The X-wing pilots just wasted time zooming around over the surface of the battle station attacking random targets instead of systematically eliminating the TL emplacements in the trench and around it to clear the way for the Y-wings on their bombing run, then flying cover for the Y-wings during their run and preventing any fighters from dropping in behind them as Vader and his wingmen so easily did without interference.
-Mike

Mike's right, that does require another thread, and of course it ultimately stems from not a desire to realistically depict logic or even storytelling but for strictly cinematic purposes. It is just a movie, after all :)

BTW, the Nebulon-B also has an exposed bridge. Supposedly Admiral Ackbar complained about the MC90 because its bridge was more exposed than older Mon Calamari designs.

ILikeDeathNote wrote: Mike's right, that does require another thread, and of course it ultimately stems from not a desire to realistically depict logic or even storytelling but for strictly cinematic purposes. It is just a movie, after all :)

Gasp! No! Really? You mean we haven't been watching historical archival footage all this time....

ILikeDeathNote wrote: BTW, the Nebulon-B also has an exposed bridge. Supposedly Admiral Ackbar complained about the MC90 because its bridge was more exposed than older Mon Calamari designs.

GR-75 medium transport ships also have a similar exposed cockpit/bridge.
-Mike

Cocytus wrote:Separable starship classes have Battle Bridges, and starships can also be controlled from Engineering if the situation warrants. ("Starship Down," "Bliss" etc.) Knocking out the main bridge won't incapacitate a Federation starship.

In the older ST:ENT and TOS-era ships designs, it is clear that not only can you control the ships from main engineering, but there are also dedicated auxiliary control rooms as well (Most notable uses in "The Doomsday Machine" and "Impulse"). It is less clearly if there are still auxiliary control rooms on the TNG-era starships.
-Mike

Mike D wrote:It is less clearly if there are still auxiliary control rooms on the TNG-era starships.

Except for the GCS battle bridge, and all the times a hostile force blocked out the Bridge controls and took control of the entire ship in TNG and Voyager... :)