The United Federation of Planets have quantum torpedoes, which can literally vaporize 100km wide asteroids while the most powerful Imperial turbolasers can only fragment a 25m wide asteroid.
No. No. No. Galactic Empire curbstomps them. Also, don't make threads in which you (think) you know the answer, and try to use fauly information to sway us.
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First off:
1)A single ISD can glass a planet.
2) The Galactic Empire can destroy galaxies (galaxy gun), planets (death star), and has force users. What does the UFP have that is anywhere NEAR that? Even if it did, would they use it?
__________________ Proud Member of the New Jawa Order.
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-In memory of USH.
BTW:
In both cases, the filmed live-action material is the absolute canon. This means that Star Trek has four complete series worth of canon, with a fifth series (Star Trek: Enterprise) in production. There are also the ten motion pictures. Paramount has also stated that the Star Trek novels of Jeri Taylor are canon.
That is it. Thus, no FASA, no novels, no Technical Manuals, no Chronology, no unlicensed fan materials . . . no nothing.
Star Wars canon is a little different. The movies are absolute canon, but the scripts and novelisations of the movies are also considered a lesser part of the canon. Also considered are the Star Wars radio plays broadcast on National Public Radio, but to a far lesser degree.
That is it. Thus, no WEG, no novels, no tech manuals, no games . . . no nothing. The Expanded Universe is, as per Lucas, part of a "parallel universe", with a separate history and a divergent future from what is seen in his films.
DIRECT QUOTE
__________________ Proud Member of the New Jawa Order.
http://ecosyn.us/Bush-Hitler/Blogspot/Gay_Holocaust/Queer_Nazis.html
-In memory of USH.
In that case, your looking at maybe just a single fleet, not even that probably, and without the ISD's using their full potential. If you want a full powered (aka REAL) debate about this, then the EU MUST be considered.
__________________ Proud Member of the New Jawa Order.
http://ecosyn.us/Bush-Hitler/Blogspot/Gay_Holocaust/Queer_Nazis.html
-In memory of USH.
Are you some type of ****ing retard? That's not a UFP weapon. BTW, that wouldn't even have an effect on ISD's, as they are not organic tissue. ISD's are made of metal. Metal isn't organic.
__________________ Proud Member of the New Jawa Order.
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-In memory of USH.
Registered: Feb 2005
Location: Hiding from zombies
Actually, it would take the entire payload of the USS Enterprise to destroy an asteroid, the same of which would be vaporized in under a second by the medium sized guns (omitting the larger ones)of a Star Destroyer, which can fire at a sustained a rate of plus thirty a minute.
The Death Star, the first one (Which is the weakest of the Superweapon class) can destroy a shielded planet in about 1/16th of a second. This begs for firepower beyond your wildest dreams. Nothing in Star Trek compares with this.
Registered: Feb 2005
Location: Hiding from zombies
My god. More of this crap.
No, Riker said that to Picard. That's not old Star Trek... the Enterprise E can't hang with a Stra Destroyer.
And about those asteroids?
While pursuing the Millenium Falcon through the Hoth system asteroid field, Star Destroyers were seen casually vaporizing ~40m wide asteroids with their trench-mounted turbolaser batteries. Some Federation cultists have been claiming that these asteroids were not actually being vapourized, but they apparently lack an understanding of Occam's Razor. The visual effects in TESB were completely consistent with vapourization, therefore the simplest theory that fits the facts is the theory that these asteroids were indeed vapourized. The rapidly dispersing gas cloud would quickly become invisible, as do most gases in space (except for those which are kept in a continual state of excitation by outside sources such as enclosed stars or black holes, eg. in a nebula).
Some Federation cultists have attempted to claim that Imperial turbolasers use an NDF reaction similar to the phaser reaction, but again they betray an ignorance of Occam's Razor. The NDF theory is a highly complex theory which is only necessary for phasers because of their extremely anomalous behaviour (see the phaser page). That anomalous behaviour renders conventional energy-transfer mechanisms useless as an explanation for phaser operation. However, blasters and turbolasers do not behave in this way; there are no incidents of turbolaser or blaster operation which are inconsistent with direct energy-transfer mechanisms. The Gra Ploven incident proves that turbolasers do vapourize matter, and there are no discussions of chain reactions or NDF in any of the official literature. Since Occam's Razor demands that we always look for the simplest theory that fits the facts, we are left with the conclusion that Federation phasers work on the NDF principle and turbolasers work on the conventional energy-transfer principle. Anyone who attacks the above distinction as "one-sided" is simply betraying an ignorance of Occam's Razor, and scientific methodology in general.
Now, since we can see the asteroids being vapourized in TESB, we can analyze the weapon layout on a Star Destroyer to see which weapons were used in this scene. The official cutaway diagrams and descriptions in SWICS demonstrate that their trench-mount batteries are actually small point-defense turbolasers, and that a Star Destroyer's heavy weapons are mounted in huge turrets flanking the dorsal superstructure. This incident can therefore be used to determine a conservative lower limit for the firepower of a Star Destroyer's light point-defense turbolasers.
A 40m diameter asteroid has a volume of 33,510 m³, assuming a generally spherical shape. In order to determine the energy required to melt the sphere, we must first know the density, melting point, initial temperature, specific heat, and latent heat of fusion for the asteroid.
Deep inside a typical asteroid field, typical asteroid compositions tend to be silicaceous and stony-iron rather than carbonaceous. Therefore, a reasonable estimate can be made of the energy requirement for vaporizing a typical asteroid by averaging silicon and iron.
It is reasonable to assume (in deep space, in the remote Hoth asteroid belt which was even farther from its sun than Hoth) that the starting temperature is roughly 150K. Therefore, we can derive a formula for melting energy in terms of the following material-specific quantities: density (r), melting temperature (Tmelt), specific heat (Cp), and latent heat of fusion (Hf). The formula follows:
Emelt = 33510·r·[(Tmelt-150)(Cp) + Hf]
Although pressure-shock functions will affect such a rapid phase-change and expansion (the entire process occurs in 1/15 second), they are neglected for the purpose of this analysis simply to be conservative. Therefore, there should be no significant temperature change between melting and boiling because the process occurs in deep space; the vapour pressure is near-zero, so ice will boil at 273.16K, iron will boil at 1810K, etc. (this has been experimentally verified with water in laboratory vacuum conditions, which DOES boil at 0.01 degrees Celsius). Therefore, the vaporization energy can be calculated solely on the basis of the material's latent heat of evaporation:
Density is 2330 kg/m³, melting point is 1683K, and high-temp specific heat is roughly 650 J/(kg·K). Latent heat of fusion is roughly 1.65 MJ/kg. Latent heat of evaporation is roughly 10.58 MJ/kg. Figures taken from CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 50th Edition and Fundamentals of Heat Transfer 3rd Edition by Incropera and Dewitt. Note that specific heat is not constant, and in fact rises with increasing temperature. The specific heat figures here are an average of the various values at differing temperatures.
Asteroid melt energy = 207 TJ
Asteroid vaporization energy = 826 TJ
Asteroid total energy = 1033 TJ
Iron
Density is 7870 kg/m³, melting point is 1808K, and high-temp specific heat is roughly 600 J/(kg·K). Latent heat of fusion is roughly 289 kJ/kg, and latent heat of evaporation is roughly 6.34 MJ/kg. Figures taken from CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 50th Edition and Fundamentals of Heat Transfer 3rd Edition by Incropera and Dewitt.
Asteroid melt energy = 325 TJ
Asteroid vaporization energy = 1672 TJ
Asteroid total energy = 1997 TJ
Ice
Density is 900 kg/m³, melting point is 273.16K, specific heat is 2.1 kJ/(kg·K). Latent heat of fusion is roughly 335 kJ/kg. Latent heat of evaporation is roughly 2.25 MJ/kg. All figures taken from Machinery's Handbook 19th Edition.
Asteroid melt energy = 24 TJ
Asteroid vaporization energy = 68 TJ
Asteroid total energy = 92 TJ
By averaging the silicon and iron-based estimates, we can derive a 1500 TJ figure for the minimum energy requirements of vaporizing 40m asteroids which may be either silicaceous or stony-iron. This leads to a lower limit of 22,500 TW for a Star Destroyer's small point-defense trench-mount turbolasers. If size is proportional to power (an unsubstantiated but not unreasonable assumption), then the heavy dorsal turbolasers must therefore output at least 2.8 million TW.
Figures for ice are included only to inform and amuse. The TESB asteroids were clearly not ice. These figures are highly conservative for three reasons:
The fact that the asteroids were vaporized so quickly and completely is indicative of energy input greatly in excess of the minimum. The equations of state for the liquid-gas phase transition mean that significant kinetic energy was added to the mass as well as the aforementioned thermal energy. The fact that the entire energy input occurred in a mere 1/15-second, and that the energy propagated through the asteroid's body in 1/3 to 1/4-second, indicate that this quantity of energy should definitely be significant.
In reality there are a huge variety of process inefficiencies which would raise the energy requirement further. Heat transfer inside the asteroid body is negatively impacted by the non-homogeneous nature of the asteroid's chemical composition (which sets up countless heat transfer boundary conditions). Heat conduction through real-world substances is not instantaneous or even relativistic. The facing side of the asteroid will vaporize first, thus deflecting incoming energy and most likely causing the back half of the asteroid to vaporize through convective heating via contact with the superheated vaporized matter from the front side. All of these factors will tend to increase the actual energy requirement.
In nature, both iron and silicon tend to exist as ceramic compounds (hematite and silicon dioxide) rather than pure elemental metals. These ceramic compounds have much higher specific heats and much lower thermal conductivity than their pure-metal forms. For example, the specific heat for silicon dioxide is more than 60% larger than the specific heat for elemental silicon, and the thermal conductivity for silicon dioxide is 0.9% of the thermal conductivity for elemental silicon. Furthermore, these compounds decompose at high temperatures into their constituent elements, thus the equations governing elemental iron and silicon will still control the latent heats of evaporation.
Since fragmentation and vaporization would make no visual difference, I'd go for the fragmentation of said asteroid. Because an ISD's shields are usually for 450,000 TJ capacity (one shot of dorsal turbolasers per second during 30 minutes brought the shields down in ROTJ). If the 3,000 TJ figure is taken, etc.
Registered: Feb 2005
Location: Hiding from zombies
lol! Nice... opt for the lowest possible result and than bank evidence on it.
And about those shields? Star Destroyers were able to survive half an hour of ship to ship battle with Mon Calamari battlecruisers in the Battle of Endor before they started to lose shielding. If we assume roughly one Star Destroyer per Mon Calamari cruiser and ignore fighters (in spite of the fact that they were carrying thermonuclear weapons), we can estimate that a Star Destroyer can survive many thousands of shots before shield failure. In the opening scene of ANH a Star Destroyer is seen firing roughly 25 shots in 5 seconds, for a time-averaged refire rate of 5 shots per second. Each shot carries at least 1.5E15 joules of energy, and around 1E17 joules of energy if set to maximum power. If similar fire rates occured in the Endor battle (note that we are disregarding the heavy turbolasers which would increase the estimate by an order of magnitude), this means that the energy capacity of a Star Destroyer's shields is between 1.4E19 and 9E20 joules, so 1E20 joules (24,000 megatons) is a reasonable estimate.
Bring the power of the shot down to 2,5E14 joules but keep the same firing rate, even then, it would give 535,7 megatons (2,25E18 joules). Not quite enough to match a Sovereign class, rated at 5,7E18 joules of shielding.
Registered: Feb 2005
Location: Hiding from zombies
Agreed.
In any case, a terawatt-range "energy emitter" (albeit using an unspecified type of energy) can overload GCS shields in less than a minute13.
A fully-shielded GCS is noticeably affected by mere 2.1MJ disruptors15, with bridge quaking which indicates a brief disruption of propulsion or inertial control systems (that simply isn't enough energy to physically rock the ship).
GCS shields cannot be made strong enough to permit safe passage through a low-density asteroid field28 (never mind an extremely violent high-density field like the one at Hoth).
GCS shields cannot deflect the heat of atmospheric re-entry, and the hull will heat up dramatically even before shields fail32.