How do you destroy a Star Destroyer exactly?

I never exactly understood how the Super Star Destroyer gets destroyed in ROTJ. In TPM, when the Gungans activate their plasma shielding at the Battle of Naboo, it protected the Gungans from laser fire, so the battle droids advanced through the shield itself and fought the Gungans within it. I kind of figured something similar happened at the Battle of Endor, as Lando orders the Rebel Fleet to engage the Star Destroyers at point-blank range; I assumed they were flying through the shielding and attacking the unprotected hull, allowing the shield towers to be destroyed.

But what I don't understand is why the attack on the Death Star had to be called off, because the shields were still up. The death star had to be engaged "at point-blank range" too, so why did it matter? Similarly, in ROTS, the docking bay shields of Grievous' flag ship need to be taken down before they can land.

How exactly was the Executor destroyed? Did they fly through the shielding? Were the shield towers themselves not protected by the shields for some reason? Why couldn't they attack the Death Star like that?

 

How exactly was the Executor destroyed?

Ackbar: "Concentrate all firepower on that Super Star Destroyer."

The Rebel Fleet basically pounded the Executor until its forward shields collapsed (ROTJ novel), the A-wings zipped under and destroyed the sensor dome and the local-area shield projector vanes as reported by the Imperial officer. "Sir, we lost our bridge deflector shields." (ROTJ; SW: Complete Locations).

Then basically all that happened was that Crynyd's A-wing collided with the bridge, exploded, destroyed the Executor's main navigation complex sending it out of control (SW: CL), and before the auxiliary bridge could straighten it out, it collided with the Death Star.

Why couldn't they attack the Death Star like that?

A ground-based deflector shield, well, if The Empire Strikes Back is anything to go by, the "shield is strong enough to deflect any bombardment."

 

Shields of the caliber that protected the Death Star were impenetrable by anything, including ships. That's why the shuttles had to request clearance through the shield in order to land.

 

Square cubed law. Things hitting at a greater distance will have less 'oomph' than when hitting at a closer distance. Also they skimmed in close so the DS might be less likely to fire to take out its own ships, or wind up taking out their own ships to get at the Rebels as Lando points out.

 

I understand that, I was just confused as to why they couldn't pass through the shields like the battledroids had in TPM. I thought they had flown through the shields, but apparently I was wrong.

Apparently I was confused about the shield generators themselves. I thought the big bulbous structure that was destroyed by the A-wings was a shield generator, but I guess it's a sensor array, with shield generators located atop of it. I thought those generated the shields around the whole ship, but they were just local shields around the bridge. What was said by Spike2002 makes sense, but that's nothing I would have (and didn't) gathered simply by watching the film. I could be mistaken but AFAIK, nobody says anything regarding the forward shields being down (at least in the films), and the only comment regarding shields being down is when the sensor array was destroyed.

 

No, the domes atop the Star Destroyer's bridge are in fact shield generators. They are erroneously called sensor domes in a couple sources, which doesn't however preclude the domes from housing both functions, but they are indeed shield generators.

 

The b-wings were also designed to attack cap ships as well.

 

I think a Gunstar w/the death blossom would do nicely.

 

That would be sweet.

 

Well, in a few sources, I think the Movie Novel and Cross Sections, i'm not sure, the Gungan Shield protected them from the huge vehicles such as the Troop Transports and the Armored Assault Tanks, because they were huge and they moved at a somewhat fast speed. Battle Droids on the other hand, were much smaller and moved at a walking pace, and were able to pass right through the shield with no problem.

As for why the Executor was destroyed, let me see if I can take a crack at it. Firstly, the shield generator on moon endor was destroyed, rendering the DS II's shield useless. Secondly, I assume that the A-Wings and X-Wings did some considerable damage to the Executor off screen, until we came to the part where the A-Wings blew up the bridge deflector shield. Piett ordered the forward batteries to intensify, but of course, the lone A-Wing that was shot managed to get through. It crashed into the bridge, killing Piett and most of the crew, and creating a vacuum that could have ripped vital equipment out of the bridge. With no one to control the ship, the Death Star 2's gravatational pull pulled the Executor into itself, destroying it.

 

Uhm, no. The domes are sensor domes. The vines around the rim of the domes are the local area shield projectors. Complete Locations and Incredible Cross Sections were written to fix the errors of calling the domes shield generators.

 

The confusion here comes in the film when the one sphere is blasted apart and someone yells that the shields are down a moment or two later, at which point the A-Wing hits the bridge.

 

yeah, which is totally why the domes should still be the shield generators
"thing blows up, guy yells 'shields down', clearly those things must be sensors!"

this is like the "they're not actually really called Super Star Destroyers" nonsense (because clearly Ackbar doesn't know a thing about starships, he's only the freaking fleet admiral)

 

Well, if they were considered sensor domes back in 1983 by a SFX guy, then I'd imagine they were always meant to be sensor arrays. And to be fair, the local deflector shield generators were located a top the sensor globe, so the shield generators were destroyed when they guy says "we've lost our bridge deflector shields," they just weren't the big conspicuous object.

Though, given that ships could "slip" under the shields because the forward shields were previously taken down, what was to stop the bridge from being destroyed by one of these ships coming in from the front? The Imperial officers seem suddenly alarmed that they're vulnerable, when they were just as vunerable to the A-wings before losing the bridge deflector shields.

 

Though, given that ships could "slip" under the shields because the forward shields were previously taken down, what was to stop the bridge from being destroyed by one of these ships coming in from the front? The Imperial officers seem suddenly alarmed that they're vulnerable, when they were just as vunerable to the A-wings before losing the bridge deflector shields.

I'd say that they wouldn't be as worried that their forward shields were down as opposed to their local bridge shields. When you have a warship that's nearly 12 miles long, it's going to be able to take a lot of hits and still be able to fight, even with the main shields down (I'd say the forward shields were the outer shields, while the local area shields were shields within a shield). Also, it looks like the A-wings came from behind when they blew up the sensor dome. I'd surmise that the local-area shields only protected the front of the bridge tower against enemy fire.

Take down the bridge shields and you have a problem, because if something does get through, the nerve centre of the ship is disabled (and I'm assuming Admiral Piett had some thoughts of self-preservation too )

 

8 miles

*ducks*

 

YOU DON'T KNOW THE CANONZ!!!!111!!

 

I'm sorta making this up, but it could have been that the Gungans used a different method of local shielding. Also, droids move pretty slowly and can probably tolerate passing through the shield....not to mention the Trade Federation probably found out they could send droids through Gungan shields in earlier battles.

Planetary shields I'm pretty sure do not extend all the way to the ground and simply provide a huge umbrella so to speak against orbital weapons, or else the AT-AT's would not have been able to get in.

 

Fire propane tank at the left wing

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

TOO LATE!

 

I remember in the days of X-Wing, you could take out the shield generators on top - then you'd have the SHIELD DWN show up on your radar, then eventually, after lots of hammering on the thing, HULL DMG would appear... then you'd just keep at it until the thing exploded. Get your medal and/or promotion, then, if the mission didn't call for said Star Destroyer being destroyed - it would show up again as if it never happened. Good times.

 

1. Take out shields and pummel it with turbolasers

2. Send fighter on suicide mission to take it out.

I think Arvel would agree that the first option would have been in his best interest.

 

The bridge and its 2 shield generators above the bridge is the best way to bring it down. Also destroying its engines. Watch out for those turbolasers though

 

For a job like that you'd definitely need a Star Destroyer Destroyer.

 

Ah, yes. "The slow blade penetrates the shield."

Sorry, wrong movie.

 

It fits though and is pretty much what happened. Slow moving droids push their way the shield and started fighting.