Discussion History Main / SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is. So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds and the damage precedes the bolt by a substantial margin, then the visible part of my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the visible part of my anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it, for a single asteroid. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater. Also, if by \\\"secondary\\\", you mean \\\"weaker\\\", where\\\'s your proof for that?

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is. So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds and the damage precedes the bolt by a substantial margin, then the visible part of my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the visible part of my anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater. Also, if by \\\"secondary\\\", you mean \\\"weaker\\\", where\\\'s your proof for that?

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick for the aftermath). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds and the damage precedes the bolt by a substantial margin, then the visible part of my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the visible part of my anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater. Also, if by \\\"secondary\\\", you mean \\\"weaker\\\", where\\\'s your proof for that?

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick for the aftermath). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds and the damage precedes the bolt by a substantial margin, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater. Also, if by \\\"secondary\\\", you mean \\\"weaker\\\", where\\\'s your proof for that?

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds and the damage precedes the bolt by a substantial margin, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater. Also, if by \\\"secondary\\\", you mean \\\"weaker\\\", where\\\'s your proof for that?

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds and the damage precedes the bolt by a substantial margin, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater.

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater.

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I having to do it by itself because they\\\'re not sending any support ships), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater.

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize (read: disable)]] the target, not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater.

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize the target (read: disable)]], not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=12m11s blowing it the hell up]]), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on

\\\'\\\'above-mentioned secondary batteries of Inivisible Hand tear hundred-meter craters in the heavily armored hull of a Republican star destroyer\\\'\\\'

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=4m11s Funny]], I see some clones not getting instantly mulched by those shots, and those don\\\'t exactly look like hundred meter craters, seeing as that would represent almost \\\'\\\'a tenth\\\'\\\' of the ship\\\'s length per crater.

\\\'\\\' (and hulls of SW ships are made from tougher materials than any we can imagine, as not only the fore half of Inivisible Hand survived a barely controllable atmosphere reentry, various apparenrly unarmored protrusions on it - including the bridge where the characters were - survived as well), \\\'\\\'

True they can take decent punishment, but the underside of the Invisible Hand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2Brs6DmzI&feature#t=11m47s got crushed under its own weight and needed fireships to not get completely screwed over]], so it seems they aren\\\'t made of the indestructanium that some people like to throw around.

\\\'\\\'and so on. Heck, even SW ground artillery managed to carve up a landing pod over a kilometer in diameter, far bigger than any warship or arificial structure on Earth, like a watermelon. There are \\\'\\\'ample\\\'\\\' examples of firepower in kilotons and megatons range on screen and it is not possible to ignore them.\\\'\\\'

[=S-PHATs=] are some of the \\\'\\\'heaviest guns in Star Wars\\\'\\\'. You\\\'ll notice one of them [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=1m05s breaking a ship in two in a single shot in ROTS]], something no other weapon in Star Wars managed to accomplish, short of a Death Star. That\\\'s like saying \\\"Heck, even ground based weapons were able to take out a Star Destroyer\\\", when talking about the massive planetary Ion Cannon at Hoth. Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sudKOTcMIU#t=12m28s that\\\'s not carving it like a melon]]. That\\\'s more like Julius Caesar getting ganged up by his former allies (yeah the ship got brought down, but it\\\'s not exactly the kind of dismemberment that you\\\'re describing).

\\\'\\\' If at times demonstrated firepower is lower, this means weapons in question were not firing on their maximum settings or generally were of inferior quality. \\\'\\\'

There\\\'s a difference between inferior quality and sending stuff against something that outclasses you by \\\'\\\'several orders of magnitude\\\'\\\'. What exactly was the point in lowering their shields and weapons in the Hoth asteroid belt to the point that they would feel threatened and suffer damage? The Imperials were feeling nice and wanted to give the asteroids a fighting chance? Or Anakin turning down his weapons (including his torpedoes) inside the TF Battleship? That would have been a golden opportunity to do as much damage as possible (unless we\\\'re subscribing to the \\\"send things millions of times less effective than the enemy and not do anything approach\\\").

\\\'\\\'If there not much waste heat, then the local AppliedPhlebotinum can efficiently deal with it now (and by the way, IIRC 4.8 megatons is the \\\'\\\'yield\\\'\\\' of the Invisible Hand\\\'s ion cannons). \\\'\\\'

It says \\\"Point-defence ion cannon delivers as much heat per shot as a 4.8 megaton bomb\\\". Considering that an ion weapon is supposed to [[AppliedPhlebotinum ionize the target (read: disable)]], not \\\'\\\'melt\\\'\\\' it, I would assume that was waste heat. And 4.8 Megatons is about a thousand times as potent as the ships they\\\'re meant to disable. What\\\'s the point in having point defence weapons that are meant to disable ships, if all they\\\'re going to do is vaporize them?

\\\'\\\'Oh, and in movies fighters never manage as much as scratch a capital ship, unless its shields are taken down by other capital ships before. The Naboo squadron explicitly failed to dent the deflector shield on the Trade Federation\\\'s carrier, and the humongous wave of the imperial fighters in Ep.VI was entirely ineffectual. \\\'\\\'

Yes, two dozen fighters from an undermilitarized world facing off against a carrier with about 1500 escort fighters fail to do anything (except, you know, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQk5pBMhwM&feature#t=3m55s do some surface damage by crashing the enemy fighters into the ship]], and Anakin blowing it the hell up), that\\\'s not exactly a resounding declaration that fighters are completely and utterly pointless against capital ships. Maybe if the Naboo had a few hundred ships they might have been able to do something). Meanwhile, in ROTJ, \\\'\\\'just about the first thing\\\'\\\' Lando ordered when facing the fighters was to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=2m06s \\\"draw their fire away from the cruisers]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LI_vo2Fh_4#t=7m27s a few TIE fighters harassing the Medical Frigate]] was enough that they immediately dispatched Lando after them (please note, Lando expressly states right afterwards \\\"only the fighters are attacking, I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for\\\", so it\\\'s not like they had capital ship support). This at the very least implies that fighters pose a decent threat when dispatched in sufficient numbers and don\\\'t have anything trying to stop them (like \\\'\\\'other fighters\\\'\\\'). Also, what\\\'s the logic in sending fighters to destroy enemy capital ships if they can\\\'t possibly take down the shields and do several million times less damage than just shooting it with a turbolaser? If the goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship, why wouldn\\\'t they just shoot it again with the capital ship guns, if the turbolasers are millions of times more powerful, and they\\\'ve already shot it enough times that the shields are now breached? Don\\\'t give me any comment about disabling the ship. That\\\'s not what they were doing at Endor.

I remember Gary Sarli\\\'s take down of the sourcebooks in question. It was polite, and yet brutal, noting that the weapons (and consequently, the fuel requirements and the defences required to withstand said weapons) were at least 5 orders of magnitude greater than they needed to be, because the author in question made assumptions about the Base Delta Zero operation (which he apparently based the majority of his calculations on) that failed to take into account that it would be like 20 times as long (Caamas was rendered uninhabitable in about a day, not an hour), would have nearly 200 times as many ships (a 90 ship Force Superiority to clear out any opposition before the 100 ship System Bombard would completely destroy the planet from orbit, not a single, unsupported ISD Mark I), and would require about 2000 times less energy (Assets of production like cities, mines, factories, arable land, droids, and people only need to be targeted, instead of the entire surface of the planet to a depth of one meter).

We\\\'ve seen \\\'\\\'much\\\'\\\' higher rates of fire on Star Destroyers, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGBT_EG0eY#t=0m42s including prequel era ships]], suggesting those \\\'\\\'weren\\\'t\\\'\\\' the point defence weapons (especially [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7Hn45l4h4#t=3m19s since an asteroid managed to get through]]), and considering the yields stated, the fact that at least \\\'\\\'three\\\'\\\' Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer) couldn\\\'t shoot down one measly asteroid before it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryiBLkFtwk#t=11m40s blew off the con tower of an ISD]] suggests more than simple self-imposed limitations. Also, what proof do you have that those were the Point Defence weapons? They have pretty bad rates of fire, bad spread, and if we\\\'re using the size of the bolt as a measuring stick, I\\\'d like to remind you that author that proposes these figures also argues for invisible lightspeed Turbolasers, and the bolts we see are merely the equivalent of tracer rounds. If that\\\'s the case, then the size of the bolt is irrelevant to determining the kind of bolt it is (except maybe as a measuring stick). So if the bolts we see are merely tracer rounds, then my anti-fighter bolt could be three times the size of my capital ship, and the anti-capital ship bolt could be smaller than my fist, it makes no difference because the visible bolt has no destructive yield (at least compared to the actual weapon). Also, he based these \\\"invisible light speed Turbolasers\\\" on exactly one scene (see where the Star Destroyer is blasting the asteroids), where the destruction is a few frames before the bolt hits it. He uses this to deduce that \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' bolts are like that. It\\\'s that kind of \\\"the exception is actually the rule and the rule is actually the exception\\\" that he seems to base all his movie-based calculations on