Empire vs Yuuzhan Vong

[vadereclipse]

death star was effectively impervious to turbolasers. not necessarily impervious to vong weaponary.
and if you want a time when thrawn had no role, there is no known time. before he joined the empire, he was captain in the chiss ascendancy fleet, taking down outbound flight. but before imperial service, try around 24BBY-ish.

[Isamu]

the deathstar 1 also only had partial shields to protect against capital attacks. if the yv fighters got in there they could do some damage. personally i'd get to the surface drop a nuke and get out.

[Meyer]

it needed to nuclear missiles directly to the reactor to explode! So I think that one on the surface wouldn't be so bad. And DS had some 7000 TIEs that it could send to battle. not so easy to get to the point-blank range. And it's armament was:    

    * Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser (1)
          o Range: 47,060,000 kilometers
    * Taim & Bak D6 turbolaser batteries (5,000)
    * Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolasers (5,000)
    * SFS L-s 4.9 laser cannons (2,500)
    * Borstel MS-1 ion cannons (2,500)
    * Phylon tractor beam generators (768)
    * Charged-particle blasters
    * Magnetic railguns
    * Proton torpedo banks

So even without the superlaser it is a formidable enemy. And the DSII had even more weapons.

[aNaRcHiSt44]

The Death Star would work very well as a battle platform against the YV, and it could easily double as a command centre. Many people underestimate the first Death Star because it could only fire the superlaser on planets and moons, but it had thousands of weapons to easily destroy incoming ships. Dont know if it would be effective against the YV, so I'll leave that up to the people that know more about them.

[Slornie]

And DS had some 7000 TIEs that it could send to battle. not so easy to get to the point-blank range. And it's armament was:    

    * Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser (1)
          o Range: 47,060,000 kilometers
    * Taim & Bak D6 turbolaser batteries (5,000)
    * Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolasers (5,000)
    * SFS L-s 4.9 laser cannons (2,500)
    * Borstel MS-1 ion cannons (2,500)
    * Phylon tractor beam generators (768)
    * Charged-particle blasters
    * Magnetic railguns
    * Proton torpedo banks

Yet, due to Imperial overconfidence, the Rebel Alliance managed to get to the Death Star, through its shield, and into the correct trench.  What is to prevent the Vong from managing the same?

The Death Star had:
- Surface area of 80425km².
- One turbolaser per 8 km².
- One laser cannon per 4 km².
- One ion cannon per 4 km².
- One TIE per 11.5 km².

Compare that with the (estimated) stats for a Imperial II Star Destroyer:
- Surface area of 1.28 km².
- One turbolaser per 0.03 km².
- One ion cannon per 0.064 km².
- One TIE per 0.02 km².
So really, the Death Star wasnt all that heavily armoured.

So even without the superlaser it is a formidable enemy. And the DSII had even more weapons.

Yet, as i argued earlier, the Second Death Star wouldnt have existed.

[Meyer]

we can't know that. the Empire develop better weapons all the time. and if not mkII then maybe more DSIs. Where did you get the surface area of DS by the way?

[Slornie]

Surface area of a sphere = 4 x Pi x Radius² = 4 x Pi x 80² (1/2 of 160km diameter).

[strike23]

the only reason that the rebels were able to destroy the death star was becasue of luke and the information on the only weakness it had. also the empire would have upgraded it if they were in a major war so it could have become more like DSII and it would never be used alone so other capital ships would help protect it. the YV would throw to many resources against it and would cause themselves to lose.

[vadereclipse]

YV WEAPONS MELTED DOWN SHIELDS.

[Dane Kiet]

Slornie, your calculations are off. It's 4/3 * Pi * radius². So divide your estimate by three.

[Slornie]

Slornie, your calculations are off. It's 4/3 * Pi * radius². So divide your estimate by three.

Nope, 4/3 x Pi x Radius² is the volume

[Dane Kiet]

Right on the surface area, but wrong on the volume. That's 4/3*pi*radius³ . But, also subtract the surface area of the superlaser disc...... thing. Further, you must remember that there are a lot of hangers on the DS, so those eat up space. Plus, you have not considered the final three weapons on Meyer's list.

[Slornie]

Meh, its been a while since i did geometry (or whatever)

I was just showing a rough estimate to compare the Death Star relative to a Star Destroyer, not a detailed statistical analysis.  To go into as much detail as you are suggesting would be practically impossible with the known data.

As for the particle blasters, railguns and proton torpedoes, there is no information on how many of them there were, so they cannot be added to my comparison.

The point i was trying to make was that although the Death Star had a considerable amount of firepower, when you take into consideration the physical size of the station, that armament is of a much lower concentration than on the standard Imperial warships.

[Meyer]

but most of those turbolaser were on towers which could rotate 360 degrees. so they covered very large area. so that how many of those are on a square km doesn't really tell you anything. and those turbolaser had fairly good range also. and have you taken out of the area of the superlaser dish? there is no way there is turbolasers.

[Isamu]

and they were also towers. but they would be a little spread for my tastes

[strike23]

and the points not how concentrated weapons are. thats like saying nuclear subs are less useful becasue they have less torpedo launchers per km squared than an attack sub. it really doesn't matter, the nuclear sub can fire a nuke...

[Scarecrow63]

YV WEAPONS MELTED DOWN SHIELDS.

SO DO TURBOLASERS

and the points not how concentrated weapons are. thats like saying nuclear subs are less useful becasue they have less torpedo launchers per km squared than an attack sub. it really doesn't matter, the nuclear sub can fire a nuke...

And no, Slornie makes a valid point, considering the vong could take out when section of turbos and have an entirely open side to attack, weapons placement is very important

[Isamu]

umm attack subs are for certain things. nuke subs are for nuking

[strike23]

exactly, the death star is for destroying things... anything. all they have to do is fire the laser, the YV gravity wells will take care of the rest...



i know it was a bad example... but the DS would still be pretty effective. after all, even if all its weaponry is spread out it can still shoot.

[Scarecrow63]

The first one couldn't target ships, so, it can't shoot very well