Can A Fighter Go Through A Star Destroyer's Shields?

My friends and I were debating this today, and I was the only one who said it couldn't happen.

And to be more specific, could the fighter travel through the shields, and manage to crash into the bridge in one piece?

I say no.

 

It's been done. Iron Fist...Death Star...

 

Crap! And my friends haven't even read the novels...

*crawls into hole and weeps*

 

Your both wrong. Or both right...depends. Projectile shields = no.
Ray shields = yes.

 

I agree with KN. Part. shields, no. Energy shields, yes.

Also, I think the DS was different. They penetrated its defensive "screens" not shields. It appears that the rest of the station has shield generators for each smaller section.

Also, on Iron Fist, the Wraiths put down prior to the shields being activated. Therefore, they were inside the bubble of protection before they came up.

 

It depends on how particle shields work. If they're anything like the ones in Dune, were it to fly slow enough, a starfighter could get through. If you notice, the X-Wings that went up against the death star were flying relatively slow until they got past the defense screen. Only then did they "accelerate to attack speed." Of course, that kind of tactic makes more sense against a battlestation the size of a moon whose defenses were built around a large, cap ship attack. Flying at minimal speeds against a well-defended ISD wouldn't be such a good idea.

 

So in RotJ at Endor when those fighters blow up the shield generator domes on a Star Destroyer how did they do that. Perhaps the sheilds where down? Crap was that the SSD, I don't believe I can't remember.

Mind you now, I'm not a uber-fan on such issues, so don't stab to deep. J/K

 

I don't think those domes were actually shield generators. It wouldn't make much sense for a warship, that was otherwise built strategically sound, to have such a glaring weakness. They're probably comm. units or some kind of navigational sensor. Taking those out, along with "parking" an A-Wing in the main bridge, contributed to the Executer's crash into the death star ii

 

The Executor's shields were partially down; salvos from the Rebel capital ships opened up enough of a hole for some fighters to slip through and destroy various targets on the hull.

 

Yeah, as others have said, it wouldn't go through unless the shields were at least partially down. The ship would explode at the shields just like missiles do, etc.

 

Actually 90% of all ship types have external shield systems, in varying sizes, shapes and designs. It has to deal with a reason that internal shield systems effect the internal electrical components, thus making sensors and even the shields less reliable. Having said that I hope this helps:

The Ins and Outs of Shield Generators and Projectors, v. 6.2: by darthseti and tears of palpatine.

I. Shield Operation:

i. Energy from the main reactor core enters the shield generators, where it is increased by a large factor and converted into a form of energy (?purified energy? able to be used by the projectors.

ii. Purified energy is routed from the generators to the shield projectors; there, the energy is converted into a ?deflector shield,? which is then projected around the ship, typically in a hull-hugging fashion.

II. Shield Failure:

i. Projector capacitors allow a safe power-down in the event of a failure of the shield generators until another energy source is procured. Although very uncommon, at times small amounts of shield energy residue remain in the capacitors, sometimes allowing 7.5 per cent or less shield energy to exist for a short time. There are some documented cases of shield residue higher than 7.5 per cent, sometimes as high as fifteen per cent, but this is extremely uncommon.

ii. In the event of a failure of the shield generators, technicians will attempt to reroute ?crude energy? directly from the main reactor core to the shield projectors in order to reëstablish shield functions. Because the crude energy has not been refined into purified energy, the projectors are only able to function at approximately 25 per cent of maximum capacity; performance levels in excess of 25 per cent are documented, and are typically found on older ships with more experienced crews.

iii. Deflector shields remain up when generators are overloaded, but cannot be replenished and are therefore easily brought down by salvoes from enemy vessels.

iv. Deflector shields drop completely when projectors are overloaded, and this constitutes a serious threat as projectors are not as easily replaced as generators.

III. Shield Types

i. Particle deflector shields, which are closely hull-hugging in most warships, function as a sort of invisible and mass-less wall surrounding the ship. Solid materials, such as asteroids and starfighters, are vapourised on contact with the particle deflector shields. These are operating at all times in order to protect the ship from micrometeorites, and are only lowered in order to make repairs, receive or send HoloNet transmissions, and (in localised regions) to receive or launch smaller vessels. The absorption of kinetic energy and vapourisation of solid matter depletes the shields, thus necessitating constant replenishment.

ii. Ray deflector shields, which tend to hull hugging (but not as closely as particle deflector shields) in order to prevent damage from ?bleed-through,? function as a sort of invisible and mass-less wall which absorbs incoming rays and re-transmits them over a greater area, thereby reducing the destructive effects immensely. The re-transmission of the rays does permit a certain amount of ray energy to ?bleed through,? and the process gradually depletes the shields, thus necessitating constant replenishment. Ray deflector shields are only raised in combat situations due to the considerable energy requirements.

iii. Cloaking shields, which are spherical in shape, function by creating immense warps in space-time in order to cause matter and energy to flow around the shield rather than actually striking it. This causes the ship to be completely invisible, but also has the side effect of blinding the ship generating the shield. In addition, exhaust must be vented through the shield, which might conceivably be detected by enemy vessels. Sufficiently sensitive gravitic sensors can detect cloaking shields.

IV. Dangerous Warheads

i. Warheads include concussion missiles, 1.5-kiloton proton torpedoes, advanced concussion missiles and advanced p

 

I think the sheild generators were on the out side for a reason. Maby since the sheilds draw alot of power they put them up their so it would be easier to route power into the systems

 

Actually, most shields in the GFFA are spherical, not hull-hugging. As far as the movies are concerned, only N-1s, the Falcon and the Trade Federation ships use hull-hugging shields of any variety. Other ships seen in the movies have spherical shields.

 

Yeah, but if they truly were the shield generators, why would no other warship seen have these? Yes, they are more powerful than your typical GFFA warship, but they're not exactly a new design. One would think that Home One would at least carry a similar type of shield generator to compete with the Empire.

Also, the engine systems of most ships are the real power-mongers, and in a lot of the larger designs, the majority of it's components are within the outer hull. If power-draw were more efficient with external structures, then engine systems using nacelles (like the Naboo Royal Cruiser) would be more common.

 

Go through your copy of EG to VV if you have one and go over every ship you will see that 90% of the ships in that book have external shield systems. Most of them are ovoid or domelike external bulging structures.

 

Indeed.

I remember that time in ESB when the Falcon took a direct hit from a turbolaser(atleast I think it was, that was a BIG Laser blast). The Falcon's shields do seem Hull Hugging.

 

There is also the TIE Fighter attack scene in ANH when the first TIE strafes the Falcon; its lasers hit hull-hugging shields.

 

What I was going to say has already been said. Two types of shields, one ray and one praticle. You'll recall the resaon they couldn't use their lasers in ANH to take out the Death Star was because the shaft that lead to the main reactor was ray shielded. Although they would proably have not been able to take out the main reactor with lasers anyway unless they dived on the shaft or it were to suck in the lasers. This is because the lasers would seem to fly straight were as the proton torpedoes actually appeared to change course to enter the shaft.

In Wraith Squadron we see that at least some ships need to drop shields in order to launch fighters. The corevette the Wraiths captured did have bay doors for it's hangar bay. However, it was pointed out that the bow of the ship was most vulnerable when the bay doors were open, particulary to a projectile weapon. If fighters could pass through praticle shields, then there would probably have been little to worry about unless the bow shields were lost. But it appears that they had to be lowered to let objects through.

 

Thank you for the help.

 

Which Iron Fist? In Courtship of Princess Leia it appeared that Warlord Zninj had renamed one of his ISD's with that name. The Falcon took advantage when the SD lowered its shields to engage the tractor beam, then swooped under the shields.

That same trick might have been used at the Executor in the Battle of Endor, thought I doubt it was used at the Death Star in the Battle of Yavin. In any case the SSD was already suffering from a heavy barrage. So, technically, the Executor was not destroyed by ONLY one A-wing. It was destroyed by the entire Rebel Fleet, not to mention, of course, the Death Star.

As for passing through ray shields, I heard somewhere that you have to do it slow, and the fighters in the various battles were NOT going slow.

Oh, did the Avenger have its particle shields up in ESB? You'd think they would since the Falcon carries concussion missiles, plus it's near an asteroid field. But if they had how would Han have clung to the bridge?

 

I thought that the main reason that the Exacutor died was when the A-wing went through the bridge it killed the command crews and Nav. systems. And before the secondary bridges took over, the Death Stars gravity took the ship and plowed it into it.

And about the Avenger, I think that it's shealds where down at the time, because i think that the Needa order the sheild up.

 

Yeah I do believe that it was the gravity of the DS that helped the SSD die a quicker death by pulling towards the surface. Least, that is what i read.