Fanclub ~~EUC Jedi~~ The Guardians of Light

Taab and company should be arriving at sick bay soon Paddy, then Alisha will have more people to interact with. Of course two of them will be Mandalorian...

 

Being Mando has nothing to do with anything, Buckethead! I'm already interacting with a half-Mando.

 

Yeah, but none of them call your character Sith-Bait.

 

I will lose that cursed nickname very soon.

 

*unfazed* Yes, I will try. And succeed!

 

I like your confidence.

 

Do or do not...there is no try!

 

So my next shadow war post idea I have involves blowing up my ship. Can I do that?

 

...blowing up your ship?

 

That might make a mess of the hanger...

 

It may not make sense right now but trust me it will eventually

 

I would say talk to CPL about it.

 

Ok. Really the whole point of it is to show how my characters past has caught up with her

 

And I would still talk to CPL about it.

He is our GoL GM, so if you are asking a question about doing something, he is the one to ask.

 

Yep. How do you think I got permission for the Big R?

 

ok sounds good. Anyway how is everyone

 

I am fine, as always.

 

That's debatable

 

Well from an aruetiise standpoint perhaps. You all would say I am awesome. But in my own mind, at the moment I am doing fine.

 

On Space Combat.

It appears that the films may have actually 'got it right' in respect of ranges for Space Combat. What has been quoted to me from the WEG Rebellion Sourcebook (Capital Ship vs Capital Ship @ 80 km and Capital Ship vs Starfighter @ 160 km) also appears realistic; although the figures appear counter-intuitive.

The limiting factors (although a Turbolaser discharge would certainly reach much further than even 160km) appear to be (a) the speed with which a Turbolaser can be accurately trained in both axes (azimuth and elevation) and (b) Shield Capacity of the targeted ship(s).

Getting a little technical;
The current Nato standard for setting a weapon's azimuth and elevation is the 'Mil' (short for 'milliradian' - i.e. one thousandth of one sixth of the circumference of a circle; and in Nato usage, defined as 1/6400th part of a circle). An error of one 'Mil' moves the centre of the beam 1 metre away from the desired aimpoint at 1 km range. One 'Mil' is also equal to the old measurement of three minutes of arc (written as 3'; with a minute of arc being 1/60th of a degree and a second of arc, very logically, being 1/60th of a minute!).

For Planetary Bombardment purposes (assuming the Star Destroyer is in a Geostationary orbit at 42,164 km above Earth's Equator) finer laying would be possible (let's notionally define two more measurements; the 'Micro' - 1/1000th of a 'Mil' - and the 'Nan' - 1/1000th of a 'Micro') as the ship would be absolutely fixed in space relative to the planet/target and the target (Installation, Town or City) wouldn't be going anywhere!

In a space battle, however, the enemy ship(s) can (rather unsportingly) dodge! They can bob up above their previous elevation, duck down below it or even vary the output of their thrusters (the famous 'reverse throttle hop' of the X-Wing series is an example, although Capital Ships couldn't do so in such an exaggerated form); and while forced errors in azimuth (assuming the guns are being controlled by a central Director/Predictor) probably wouldn't cause a miss, due to the sheer length of Capital Ships' hulls, forced errors in elevation might very well do so!

With regard to Shields;
Very few Captains or Gunnery Officers would want to waste energy when there's zero likelihood of doing any damage to the enemy (the one possible exception being when the ship is trying to close the range to a longer-reached opponent, when a few guns firing would at least prevent morale damage to the crew - at least for that part of the crew who didn't know what was really going on!).

Therefore, a ship's Combat Range is likely to be coupled to the distance at which its guns can start hurting the enemy ship (probably when significant Shield degradation would start to take place), and is likely to vary class-by-class; e.g. 80 km for Capital Ships, 120 km (say) for Mid-sized types and 160 km for Starfighters.

Starfighters;
Generally, Starfighters are too fast for Turbolasers, so why should a range be quoted? The answer is probably that a long-range shot (preferably a volley) into the middle of a formation might catch some Starfighters in close proximity to each other.

The Battle of Trafalgar Coruscant;
The explanation for the suicidally close ranges in the opening sequence of RotS could probably be that a good many of the Republic ships had arrived from elsewhere and were trying to pin the Separatists against the planet. Under those circumstances a Republic ship could not afford to miss (as the planet would backstop any 'overs'!) and it would be better to risk the close-range fire of the enemy than the flak from the Senate! En-masse transfers to the Infantry have been heard of!

Well, that's my take on it! Thrown open for comment....

 

Coooooooooooooooooooool.

 

You know how I'm, 77.