The EU says SW's capships have missile/torpedo launchers...

[The Corporal]

Well, if the ICS are to be believed (in the slighest), then why would ships that can "put their entire power output in their guns" need torpedoes?
How powerful would these torpedoes be?

Mike and I were actually discussing a reason for that one page one. ;)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Anyway, proton torpedoes. I can only recall total of three instances(feel free to correct me if I am misremembering) where proton torpedoes are used over the entirety of both trilogies. The end battle of PM, assault on the first DS, and the assault on the second DS. In all of these instances the torpedoes were fired by starfighters. That would, of course, lead us to believe that the capital ships do not have proton torpedoes. However, as many have pointed out, we have not seen the full extent of any of the various space navies in the two trilogies. I don't even believe we've seen the full capacity of what we have seen. We get a very limited amount of capital ship battles in the movies, and most of those were seen from the insides of ships. Their really isn't an abundance of information that can be gleaned from these movies, especially since the emphasis was on the characters with the military actions almost after thoughts. I think more information, truly valid information, is needed before specifics like these can even be discussed, unless, of course, the EU is considered valid.

I consider that the battle in ROTJ, and even more, the battle in ROTS, are ample material to dissect and to get a good idea of what ships are capable of.
A HD version of ROTS reveals enough detail to observe any instance of combat in the background, and I'm sorry, but although I didn't check for the most suspcious dot or trail, the time I spent looking at the "noise" didn't reveal the presence of such artillery.

It's just not there.

Well, if the ICS are to be believed (in the slighest), then why would ships that can "put their entire power output in their guns" need torpedoes?

Depends what these torps do, although I assume you speak of those for orbital bombardment, right?
Mind you, it depends which source says such a thing. Is it the ICS? That would be quite a stupid statement to make since it flies in the face of the rest of data in the E2/E3:ICSes. But if it's from another source, then it's understandable.

How powerful would these torpedoes be?

I don't know, but they're certainly NEVER going to be as powerful as ships which need complex and enormous cores to get the best of the magical hypermatter, as far as the ICS is concerned.

Now, if the ship's turbolasers and cores are not capable and not working on the principles claimed by the ICSes, then it makes sense to have large warheads containing vast amounts of reactants.

Step one, of course, is why they don't use those big missiles against other ships?
The answer would be, I hope, that these missiles are just so big and hardly manoeuverable that they'd be like drifting small sized cargos, and we know that capital ships can destroy them.
Such missiles would logically lack defenses, and would therefore be easy targets.

Step two, why not make smaller missiles then? The point would be that in the end, you still have the same total mass of reactants, especially since smaller missiles would be manoeuverable, could afford not having defenses because losing one wouldn't mean wasting as much reactants as when losing a big warhead.
And you'd still have the range against vessels which, of course, have never proved to be capable of thousand of gees of acceleration (a few hundred at best).
But they don't use such missiles.

I suppose that the cost of producing the missile is important. The storage as well. You waste more room to transport missiles and have firing systems, than store fuel in massive compressed fuel silos and pump that through a core and then your guns.
In the end, it gives you more ammo, more place for energy cannons and possibly for the relatively similar yields.

I can understand why fighters would need them, because their puny weapons (when compared to Capships') might not be enough to seriously threathen a fully-shielded Capship, but the torpedoes might allow them to bridge the Fighter-Capship gap in terms of firepower, and allow them to threathen such ships.

The torpedoes would invariably be muchmore powerful then their standard energy weapons.

Oh yes, but warships seem to solely rely on interceptors, instead of being armed with their own efficient anti-fighter missile launchers.

[Praeothmin]

Mike and I were actually discussing a reason for that one page one. ;)

And why would you assume that I read the first page? ;)

But yeah, different payloads might warrant missiles of some sort, but why would the missiles not be delivered like everything else seems to be in SW, i.e., the fighters and bombers that the Empire has.

Even in fights against other Capital ships, the Empire uses bombers and fighters.
If they did have missile tubes, they wouldn't need bombers, they could just fire the missiles themsleves...

[The Corporal]

And why would you assume that I read the first page? ;)

But yeah, different payloads might warrant missiles of some sort, but why would the missiles not be delivered like everything else seems to be in SW, i.e., the fighters and bombers that the Empire has.

Even in fights against other Capital ships, the Empire uses bombers and fighters.
If they did have missile tubes, they wouldn't need bombers, they could just fire the missiles themsleves...

Err...because the Acclamtor doesn't carry fighters. As for any other ships that are carrying fighters, they may be tasked with other things and a missile the size of the ones on the Acclamator carries a far larger payload than one on a fighter/bomber.

[Praeothmin]

because the Acclamtor doesn't carry fighters.

Really?
I thought it did...

As for any other ships that are carrying fighters, they may be tasked with other things and a missile the size of the ones on the Acclamator carries a far larger payload than one on a fighter/bomber.

Makes sense...

[Praeothmin]

because the Acclamtor doesn't carry fighters.

Really?
I thought it did...

As for any other ships that are carrying fighters, they may be tasked with other things and a missile the size of the ones on the Acclamator carries a far larger payload than one on a fighter/bomber.

Makes sense...

[ILikeDeathNote]

I consider that the battle in ROTJ, and even more, the battle in ROTS, are ample material to dissect and to get a good idea of what ships are capable of.
A HD version of ROTS reveals enough detail to observe any instance of combat in the background, and I'm sorry, but although I didn't check for the most suspcious dot or trail, the time I spent looking at the "noise" didn't reveal the presence of such artillery.

It's just not there.

I was thinking about the ROTJ battle and what Airlocke_Jedi_Knight said.


Let's take for example the Battle of Midway and apply the same observational logic you used.

If we used the Battle of Midway as a completely illustrative example of the complete weapon systems deployed during that battle, we would learn that "fighters" (for the sake of argument all aircraft will be referred to as such) were capable of carrying bombs and torpedoes and were capable of engaging like craft. We would reasonably guess that the battleships accompanying the aircraft carriers had large artillery, but would not be able to make accurate judgements on their firepower or range save that the engagement distance of the battle was too great for their use, based on the absence of their use. We would observe that all vessels carried anti-aircraft armament anywhere from identical in size and firepower to that carried by the fighters themselves up to what would be (and indeed was) classified as medium artillery, but that would be the largest artillery we would see in action, and we would only see it in the anti-aircraft role.

What we would not see was the fact that practically all destroyers, many cruisers and even some battleships had torpedo tubes (some of the later so-called "super dreadnought" battleships built during the 1915-1921 had infact bow-mounted torpedo tubes).

[The Corporal]

because the Acclamtor doesn't carry fighters.

Really?
I thought it did...

They carry the Republic Gunships, maybe they carry fighters in the Clone Wars cartoon but I haven't seen it.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I consider that the battle in ROTJ, and even more, the battle in ROTS, are ample material to dissect and to get a good idea of what ships are capable of.
A HD version of ROTS reveals enough detail to observe any instance of combat in the background, and I'm sorry, but although I didn't check for the most suspcious dot or trail, the time I spent looking at the "noise" didn't reveal the presence of such artillery.

It's just not there.

I was thinking about the ROTJ battle and what Airlocke_Jedi_Knight said.


Let's take for example the Battle of Midway and apply the same observational logic you used.

If we used the Battle of Midway as a completely illustrative example of the complete weapon systems deployed during that battle, we would learn that "fighters" (for the sake of argument all aircraft will be referred to as such) were capable of carrying bombs and torpedoes and were capable of engaging like craft. We would reasonably guess that the battleships accompanying the aircraft carriers had large artillery, but would not be able to make accurate judgements on their firepower or range save that the engagement distance of the battle was too great for their use, based on the absence of their use. We would observe that all vessels carried anti-aircraft armament anywhere from identical in size and firepower to that carried by the fighters themselves up to what would be (and indeed was) classified as medium artillery, but that would be the largest artillery we would see in action, and we would only see it in the anti-aircraft role.

What we would not see was the fact that practically all destroyers, many cruisers and even some battleships had torpedo tubes (some of the later so-called "super dreadnought" battleships built during the 1915-1921 had infact bow-mounted torpedo tubes).

Did the battle of Midway involve "capital ships" shooting at other capital ships, or having the intent to do so, and if yes, were they even in ranges required to use these torpedoes?

[ILikeDeathNote]

Did the battle of Midway involve "capital ships" shooting at other capital ships, or having the intent to do so, and if yes, were they even in ranges required to use these torpedoes?

Can all of that be applied to the Battle of Endor?

We only saw a little bit of the Battle of Endor, and it was almost exclusively focused on the starfighter battle. In fact to my knowledge we have only a single screen grab of what is unconfirmed to be heavy turbolaser fire. So I think the analogy still stands, because the amount of actual observable capital ship to capital ship combat works out to be about the same.

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

The only other capital ship to capital ship battle in the entire series, that I recall, is, of course, the opening scene of ROTS witch, just like in ROTJ focuses almost exclusively on the Starfighters. The only actual cap on cap exchange we see is the point blank turbolaser volleys while Anakin and Obi-wan are "rescuing" the Supreme Chancellor. It would have been ludicrous to use the torpedoes in this situation because of the possible splash damage. I truly do find this conversation to be pointless because there is no way for me to prove that capital ships carry torpedoes, and their isn't enough capital ship battles in the two trilogies to confirm that they don't. In all of these battles there are viable explanations as to why the capital ships do not use their supposed torpedoes. Without including the EU, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to decide this argument. The EU says that capital ships carry proton torpedoes and this cannot be proven wrong by evidence taken from the movies. By Lucas cannon policy, that is the second highest cannon grade possible.

That is all I have to say for now. Of course, I fully expect someone to be stubborn and to tell me that I am completely wrong and to bring up a point that, again, can't be proven wrong with G-cannon evidence, but also cannot be proven right by G-cannon evidence, thus creating another completely pointless debate. In other words, I shall certainly be returning to this thread. Se you later.

[The Corporal]

Psst! It is canon, a cannon is a large vehicle mounted weapon.

[Praeothmin]

I fully expect someone to be stubborn and to tell me that I am completely wrong

Well, you are stubborn, but I don't think you're completely wrong... :)

As Mike and The Corporal have stated, and I now agree with them, they could have torpedo launchers that they mainly use to deliver other kinds of payloads.
And as you said, it is 2impossible" to disprove using G-canon exclusively, because there's nothing to indicate that they don't have launchers, but I do not believe that they use these launchers to fire at other Capships, because we would have seen them.
Look at ST, they have torpedo launchers, and they have mentioned a few times that at point blank range, firing torpedoes would be dangerous because of "the possible splash damage".
But we also see them use those torpedoes on ships that are a bit farther away, while we never see them used by Capships against other ships in any visual incarnation of SW, whether it's the movies or the series.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Did the battle of Midway involve "capital ships" shooting at other capital ships, or having the intent to do so, and if yes, were they even in ranges required to use these torpedoes?

Can all of that be applied to the Battle of Endor?

We only saw a little bit of the Battle of Endor, and it was almost exclusively focused on the starfighter battle. In fact to my knowledge we have only a single screen grab of what is unconfirmed to be heavy turbolaser fire. So I think the analogy still stands, because the amount of actual observable capital ship to capital ship combat works out to be about the same.

I find the analogy not only passable for ROTJ since it hinges on the ignorance of what we couldn't observe, and yet for all we could see, no missiles were used, but is also completely out of place when it comes to the ROTS battle, where ships had a gazillion occasions to use missiles if they had any, unless again you can tell me that capital ships which had all reasons and possibilities to use torps at Midway did not.

[The Corporal]

I find the analogy not only passable for ROTJ since it hinges on the ignorance of what we couldn't observe, and yet for all we could see, no missiles were used, but is also completely out of place when it comes to the ROTS battle, where ships had a gazillion occasions to use missiles if they had any, unless again you can tell me that capital ships which had all reasons and possibilities to use torps at Midway did not.

It doesn't really help that of the two times we see fighter missiles used they look and sound almost identical to the vessels guns.