PT (NOT TROLLING) Why are the ARC-170's guns so far apart?

NOT TROLLING

Hi, I'm a huge fan of the prequels, but I was wondering, why are the ARC-170's guns so far apart? Wouldn't it make it almost impossible to hit enemy ships that are smaller than them, like a vulture droid?

ARC-170: ( http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111112062600/starwars/images/3/32/Starfigher.jpg )

Vulture Droid: ( http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090311015235/starwars/images/e/e3/CIS_Vulture_droid.jpg )

I couldn't find an answer anywhere on the internet, even on Wookiepedia. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

 

Please stop trolling.

 

Are you joking, or are you being serious?

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm sure someone, somewhere has an actual, technical answer for that question, I'll give the shorter and more likely one: the designers thought it looked cool that way. In Star Wars, form trumps plausibility of function almost every time.

I've always wondered how a massive, obtuse construct like the Death Star could travel at any speed greater than 20mph with any hint of structural stability, let alone go into hyperspace.

 

I'm sure Han Burgundy's reply ^ is the true answer. But if you want real world examples, look no further than WW2 fighter planes. Most of them avoided the problem of shooting off their own propellers by putting the guns in the wings. GL looked to WW2 air combat for inspiration in his space dogfights, so it's no surprise that his ships share elements with classic fighter planes.

 

I would imagine you could put the guns anywhere on the wings as long as they were calibrated correctly to fire on a single point in front of the ship. I say that with the admission that I am not a pilot, with absolutely no piloting skills let alone combat pilot skills. Just seems like a common sense look at it.

 

That works, but it's not ideal. The problem is, unless your target stays right at that perfect range, most likely your bullets won't be concentrated into one spot. It's best to put as many hits into one spot as possible for maximum damage, as opposed to spreading out the hits all over the target. And there's also a good chance that half your guns won't hit at all.

IIRC, American planes usually had their guns set to converge on a point 800 yards away, but many experienced pilots decided that was too far and recalibrated at about 250 yards. Most American fighters had six .50 caliber machine guns, three in each wing, while the P-47 had eight. The P-38 only had for .50s and a 20 mm cannon, but it had a reputation for very heavy firepower because it was a twin-engine plane with all the guns packed in tight in the nose. If a P-38 hit something, it hit with all its guns at the same point.

 

Your shortest answer is that they needed a grandfather with family resemblance to the X-Wing. The X-Wing takes pride of place as the central icon, so the newcomer had to be configured to look marginal, out-of-place, familiar yet strange, eccentric.

 

TCW's Z-95 Headhunter is probably closer to a grandfather - the ARC-170 is more of a cousin

 

They are both vehicles whose designs get refined into the x-wing, but the z95 is the closer of the two.