Victory-Class Star Destroyer vs. Modern Day Earth

im sorry, but i dont buy any of that, never have. wong is not affiliated with star wars at all or anyone that affiliates with it; hes just some scientist. so regardless of his statistics and how sound they may or may not be, i dont take any stock in it. i go only by what the movies and the EU shows us

That's a pretty silly way of dealing with the parts where he basically handles the assertions you're making with movie evidence. "I don't buy it" isn't the same as "I can refute it". I would respect that you at least address the points I have here, even if you dislike Wong. Arguments should not be reflective of their makers, but of their own stand-alone validity.

Even if you don't buy his figures (Which come from the Star Wars Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections), he's pointed out some serious flaws in something you've asserted - namely that kinetic energy would destroy an ISD. That's obviously not the case. They soak asteroids which, according to EU material, have multi-megaton yields per hit. They do this for seemingly days or hours in the movie, TESB.

Additionally, they soak fire from warships who have official stats energy outputs far exceeding a conventional nuke. Don't forget that the largest tested nuke was only 50 megatons. The Tsar Bomba was designed for 100 megatons but reduced in design. It's unique in that modern day nukes are not made this way because they're not droppable bombs and they must be made to fit into warheads.

Again, I don't see a bomber dropping anything substantial on an ISD.

i already stated that the a-wing only managed to do that when the shields were down. that was m entire point, that its armor isnt all that special without its shielding.

The A-Wing, made of space-age material which can withstand multiple reentries of planet atmosphere and the constant radiation of its own firepower, attacks, and just being in space, slammed into the glasteel viewport (Read: the most vulnerable spot on the entire ship) without being blown to smithereens and luckily incapped an entire ship.

So basically, you expect the world to field enough firepower to reduce the shields which can tank anything that we can throw at it, and then expect some kind of concussive force like a flying plane or nuke to just... knock out the viewport?

This relies on two weak premises:

1. That the Earth forces could muster enough firepower to destroy the IMP shields.

2. That they would necessarily be able to capitalize on the one weak spot on the entire ship which is not distracted by larger warships and snub fighters with thermonuclear weapons like in ROTJ.

Let's go over something here:

Acclamator I Class Assault Ship (Link):

Peak (shields): 7 × 10^22 W.

Or in other words 4 2/3 * the energy which the sun hits earth with in a single day can be soaked by the shields of the forerunner of the forerunner of the ISD.

Compare with the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon used in human history: Orders of Magnitude - Energy (Link). 2.1×10^17 yield, as you can see.

Also: "By contrast, the largest weapon ever produced by the United States, the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 Mt, and the largest nuclear device ever tested by the US (Castle Bravo) yielded 15 Mt (due to a runaway reaction; the design yield was approximately 5 Mt)." (Source/link)

In other words, current nuclear devices in use aren't anywhere near as powerful as the Tsar Bomba. Fractions of its energy output. Even a 100 megaton theoretical yield would only be 4.184×10^17 watts. This is still lower than a ship a few generations before the ISD in question.

The peak power output of a Victory-class ISD is 3.6 × 10^24 W. Source/Link. If this is comparable to the Acclamator I-class, then the shield peak of the Victory-class ISD is roughly around 7-8 x 10^23.

Or... tl;dr version is - a nuke won't screw up an ISD with a direct hit.

It would take literally the entire payload of every major nation on the planet just to down the shields. Direct hits, too, and mind you that most major nuclear powers rely on ICBMs which are not made to take down mobile targets. Even those have smaller payloads than the 15+ megaton gravity bombs which I've mentioned above (sometimes less than a megaton per warhead!), and cruise missiles - while more accurate - have yields only in kilotons. These would be worthless in combat against something which can unleash more damage per shot with its smaller weapons. Considering that the turbolaser batteries of ISDs are meant to shoot down snub fighters who routinely have enough propulsion power to enter and leave orbit in minutes (See ANH - Battle of the Death Star) and considering 10km is "point blank" range for ship-to-ship action for ISDs, I don't see any nuclear threat knocking them out of the sky.

The ISD tanks Earth on its own.

Goddang, Janus. You just killed the debate in an overly effective manner.

Hawt.

i don't really know what to say then. i was trying to not make the thread imbalanced in favor of the Earth but instead I made it in heavy favor of the Empire, even while using the weakest form of Star Destroyer. @_@

First , what does EU mean ?

Second , if anywhere in Star Wars it is mentioned how much energy the shields can withstand , then be sure they'll say a number that will make us look like primitive monkeys , just to impress . You never say a number which we could deal with , because then you make you're creation look weak and un-impressive .

But ignoring the fictional fact , we could blow our damn planet up over 3 times . That ship isn't even compared to the planet in size , how the hell can it withstand such a huge force . We could basicly expose each square centimeter of their ship to a force that would vaporize anything we know of ... the 70 trilion GW number is way to fictional to be brought to reality so why bother making a post . Try to debate it from a resonable point of view . The idea is to discuss what strategies we could take , how would the battle progress , not to give them a power we could not match from the start and ...thats it .
Consider their shields are down , what will then be the result ?

Originally posted by radu1234
First , what does EU mean ?

Second , if anywhere in Star Wars it is mentioned how much energy the shields can withstand , then be sure they'll say a number that will make us look like primitive monkeys , just to impress . You never say a number which we could deal with , because then you make you're creation look weak and un-impressive .

But ignoring the fictional fact , we could blow our damn planet up over 3 times . That ship isn't even compared to the planet in size , how the hell can it withstand such a huge force . We could basicly expose each square centimeter of their ship to a force that would vaporize anything we know of ... the 70 trilion GW number is way to fictional to be brought to reality so why bother making a post . Try to debate it from a resonable point of view . The idea is to discuss what strategies we could take , how would the battle progress , not to give them a power we could not match from the start and ...thats it .
Consider their shields are down , what will then be the result ?

EU = Expanded Universe.

Our creations are weak and unimpressive.

To answer your size comment: Bake a massive muffin (A couple of meters in diameter would suffice) and then smash it with a hammer. Then go get an anvil and smash that with a hammer. Get back to me with the result on which object suffered most damage. Then we can talk about how much size actually matters.

Originally posted by radu1234
First , what does EU mean ?

Originally posted by radu1234

Second , if anywhere in Star Wars it is mentioned how much energy the shields can withstand , then be sure they'll say a number that will make us look like primitive monkeys , just to impress . You never say a number which we could deal with , because then you make you're creation look weak and un-impressive .

Originally posted by radu1234

But ignoring the fictional fact , we could blow our damn planet up over 3 times . That ship isn't even compared to the planet in size , how the hell can it withstand such a huge force . We could basicly expose each square centimeter of their ship to a force that would vaporize anything we know of ... the 70 trilion GW number is way to fictional to be brought to reality so why bother making a post . Try to debate it from a resonable point of view . The idea is to discuss what strategies we could take , how would the battle progress , not to give them a power we could not match from the start and ...thats it .
Consider their shields are down , what will then be the result ?

We would be hard pressed to blow up the planet.

Leaving aside the whole 'canon doesn't agree with me so it's wrong' mentality (Janus/Gideon will deal with that maybe sometime) I don't think that we'd have much of a chance even if their shields were down. Their warships tank blasts from starship cannons that deal much more energy per shot than one of our nukes,even without their shields. (See the Battle above Coruscant.)
...
Maybe we could kamikaze a lot of F-22s and other planes into it?

*Ninja'd

I was refering to the Star Wars universe ... mostly to the ship shields >.>

and it's more like : take a house sized muffin( which you left over for a long time and herdened...really hardened like you could break your teeth in it) and an anvil , with the interior made entirely out of holes and a core (from which tunnels go through the entire anvil) of...a very very explosive substance ( that automatically spreads in the tunnels) . blow both up with dinamite and see what happens .

oh yeah and ... f**k i wanted to say we could blow up our planet , not couldn't . but i can see you noticed i was mistaking.
with your link and the fact that we CAN blow our planet about 3 or 4 times with the nukes we have (saw this in different tech magazines and things like that not on the internet,so i can't basicly prove it ... belive me or search the net, maybe you will find sth ,or just don't belive me -_- ) , we can conclude we could bring down their ship as well ... or not . we can't solve this problem since we don't know how would our nukes affect their ship. we can only make suppositions . i say we can blow the ship , you say we can't but none of us can actually prove it .

I've miscommunicated.

(That's not a word.)

Look:

(Same link)
-Blown up-
This method involves detonating a bomb so big that it blasts the Earth to pieces.
This, to say the least, requires a big bomb. All the explosives mankind has ever created, nuclear or non-, gathered together and detonated simultaneously, would make a significant crater and wreck the planet's ecosystem, but barely scratch the surface of the planet.

Our planet is nowhere near as frail as many appear to believe. Those that think we can shatter our beloved globe are misinformed and giving our scientists too much credit.

We might be able to render it sterile. Maybe. We certainly could kill most of the humans and large mammals. Maybe even a majority of plants. We couldn't touch the integrity of the rock we stand on though.

hmm , told you , i only read it somewhere , so it might be an exageration . I don't know for sure so i belive you ... so it still resumes to wheather or not all the armament on Earth could damage the ship or not . But it's more likely that we won't even scratch the ship first because our rockets would be obliterated by their guns before they reached the ship and second because they might not damage it enough ... a space battle would most likely be above us , who knows .

Think about it like this:

There's only 2047 troops are two squads of tie fighters, so the forces will get killed easily if they try to attack.

The only threat is the Star Destroyer, but with the FULL LOAD of the world's nuclear missiles we could probably take it down.

If all else fails, we could just fly fighter jets/transport planes into the destroyer (just like in Star Wars how fighters would fly into ENEMY ships' energy shield without trouble, meaning that our nukes could easily get through) and storm the destroyer (and since the Empire's troops would have been destroyed, the ship would be defenseless).

The destroyer has guns of its own. And I think you'd be surprised how well two squadrons of TIE would manage.

Originally posted by WO Polaski
i don't really know what to say then. i was trying to not make the thread imbalanced in favor of the Earth but instead I made it in heavy favor of the Empire, even while using the weakest form of Star Destroyer. @_@

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Goddang, Janus. You just killed the debate in an overly effective manner.

Hawt.

That post took a little while to get the numbers straight. I had to avoid crossing power with energy output, since they're different. And when it comes to these kinds of weapons, energy is more important.

i don't really know what to say then. i was trying to not make the thread imbalanced in favor of the Earth but instead I made it in heavy favor of the Empire, even while using the weakest form of Star Destroyer. @_@

This reminds me of Rex's quote: "Let's pile on random Jedi knights until Yoda dies." Basically, if the intent is to prove what it would take to destroy Subject X, it's usually better to just leave it up to an open discussion if that's the goal. If the objective is instead to seriously discover how X meets up against Y, then by all means, this was the right idea.

tell that to rogue jedi in the movie vs.

Rogue Jedi cannot be convinced of anything. He's completely shut off from outside feedback.

I missed this ridiculousness.

Originally posted by Hewhoknowsall
Think about it like this:

There's only 2047 troops are two squads of tie fighters, so the forces will get killed easily if they try to attack.

Actually, the idea that earth forces could get close enough to the ISD to attack any ground forces is kind of rubbish. Orbital bombardments aside, the ISD can effectively cover armed forces indefinitely. Considering that most of war is breaking the enemy's resolve, I don't see many world powers winning a war of attrition against a loaded ISD and its ground troops which it can land anywhere:

"With the use of transports the Imperials can land wherever they deem fit; that will be up to you guys to debate."

So since the Imps have conquered more worlds than I can name in a day and have very strict and to-the-letter doctrine on handling inferior mobs, they would not just spill their troops into the sand and buh-bye. They would neutralize any air forces or nuclear powers which attacked them through a judicious use of scanners, evasive sublight maneuvers, and overwhelming firepower/shields and then disperse their troops at key locations.

To put it this way, the ISD could hover over D.C., drop the troopers, let them mop up and scare off the population, and cover them from a distance of over 10 KM in any direction. This is more effective than any kind of air support or artillery support earth can muster. They could conceivably just march up the eastern seaboard of the U.S. or among another major powers' metropolitan areas and just divide and conquer. Sense no armed forces can be expected to defeat the ISD's firepower, and their lines would be broken, most major powers would collapse because of the idea of an unbreakable enemy.

Quite simply put, morale is far more important than sheer numbers. Hence Vietnam or Operation Barbarossa. Just the size of the ISD in the sky would probably cause such chaos in the streets that armed forces would not be able to make a solid line of defense. And even if they did, they would be strafed mercilessly by TIE fighters.

tl;dr version? Ground troops don't get dumped out like G.I. Joe's for the good old boys to shoot at, but can effectively land at strategic locations, mop up under ISD support, and move on. Blitzkrieg, ftw.

The only threat is the Star Destroyer, but with the FULL LOAD of the world's nuclear missiles we could probably take it down.

Which means that every single world power would have to want to commit 100% accurate nuclear strike on one mobile target, fallout be damned.

Do you realize how suicidal and stupid that idea really is, or are you just awestruck by moar = bettur?

If all else fails, we could just fly fighter jets/transport planes into the destroyer (just like in Star Wars how fighters would fly into ENEMY ships' energy shield without trouble,

First off, the explosive power of jet fuel will not exceed that of a nuclear bomb. Not by a longshot. So therefore it would take millions upon millions of planes to hit all at once to even approach the energy generated by a bomb which still wouldn't penetrate the shields of something older than the ISD.

If you seriously think that we can just throw planes at it indefinitely until its shields go down, you lack reading comprehension and intelligence on a scale so massive, it would take Stephen Hawkings, Einstein, and Jesus to measure it.

meaning that our nukes could easily get through)

No.

You have not been reading the above posts.

Try again.

and storm the destroyer (and since the Empire's troops would have been destroyed, the ship would be defenseless).

Seriously, epic fail. Do you even know what you're talking about? I'm assuming your learning of tactical expertise comes from watching cartoons and Star Trek, because this is complete nonsense. Take this back, or we get to revoke your human citizenship. This is shameful.

oh, btw, about landing in key points. In the even of an alien invasion, both the president and the prime-minister of US(most likely all other countries except the stupid ones will take the same measures) are immediately taken to secret safe places, each in a different one, so nobody except the ones that go there with them will know where they are. Also none knows where the other is(refering to president and prime-minister) in case one dies, the other is still safe.

So basicly dropping in key points to stop them from giving orders to the army in removed from the list.

But neutralizing their communicative capabilities is not.