Post by Arka on Nov 29, 2005 14:06:54 GMT -5
Ship-mounted weapons
[edit]
Blasters
Blaster is a term that can be used interchangeably with the term "laser" for everyday conversation. Regardless, blasters and lasers are particle beam weapons, which fire a "bolt" of energy. The designs of blasters are a fair bit older than that of lasers, becoming less common in newer ships. With their design, blasters have high fire cycle rates, enabling them to multi fire, a mode of fire in which the rate of discharge is increased at the cost of accuracy. Blasters, because they are weaker than laser of similar size, are limited to starfighters.
Among the oldest and most venerable of blaster technology is the triple blaster, which dates back to the ancient days of the Old Republic. It works by using three separate blasters connected to the same targeting system, often found in coordinated sets of two or four, to fire simultaneously on a target. No company still mass produces them, and by the Rise of the Empire, triple blasters become exceedingly rare.
An updated version of blaster technology is the auto blaster, a modern redesign. Designed for the B-wing fighter, it has an even higher rate of fire than other blasters, but is not available to other models until after the Battle of Endor.
Blasters are allowed on civilian vessels except for heavy blaster cannons during the Rise of the Empire, when they are restricted to corporations through the purchase of Imperial licenses.
The most common manufacturer of blasters during the films is BlasTech, which among other lines has a contract with both the Imperial Military and the Rebellion. It also manufactures the Protector civilian fighter-grade blaster line.
[edit]
Lasers
In the Star Wars Universe, laser cannons are like blasters, but much more powerful. They are usually used on fighters, freighters, and other small ships, as big warships use Turbolasers. Quad laser cannons have been mentioned on the Millennium Falcon and the Trade Federation battleships. While they generally have a destructive impact, very rarely they can have an effect similar to ion cannons, as happened to Luke Skywalker at the Battle of Hoth.
To solve the apparent discrepancy between Star Wars lasers and real lasers (for example, the fact that real lasers do not fire at sublight speeds and are not visible from the side), various explanations have been given. One of them is that Star Wars lasers are in fact real lasers fired at lightspeed, however a sublight tracer bolt goes before it. The bolt itself is invisible, though the laser that follows can be seen by the naked eye. So targets will be destroyed or killed before the laser seems to reach. While perhaps sounding a little ad hoc, it is consistent with what is seen on screen. Additionally, this explanation also seems consistent with official material, e.g. matching extremely well with what the book Incredible Cross-Sections of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (also known as AOTC:ICS) says about energy weapons.
[edit]
Turbolasers
Turbolasers are the immensely scaled up versions of the blaster and laser cannon that are shown on the films; even the smaller ones are able to eradicate fairly large asteroids in a single shot. They can also be planet-based weapons, with power to match their immense proportions. These can be seen on the Death Star as they are the turrets that the rebel fighters avoid with their speed and are shooting at them when they go down the trench. Turbolasers are the standard weapon on most cruiser-sized or bigger ships, including Victory, Venator, Imperator, Executor, and Eclipse-class Star Destroyers. Massive ships, such as the Eclipse class Star Destroyers, carry gargantuan numbers of Turbolasers and are capable of bombarding the surface of a planet into a flaming ruin. This type of orbital bombardment is known as "Base Delta Zero". Turbolasers require vast amounts of energy and are therefore powered by individual power generators instead of smaller, dispensible "power packs" like blasters. Some of them also have slow fire rates. It takes a huge amount of energy to get sustained rapid fire. Turbolasers are primarily used for capital ship combat since their targeting computers normally are not fast enough to track the smaller craft like fighters and bombers.
Despite their immense firepower, turbolasers are not entirely effective against fighters. Skilled pilots can dodge the heavy bolts and it takes time for the turbolaser to rotate, while the fighter can also use surperior manuverability. In addition, turbolasers fire slowly. It is more effective to "take them out ship to ship" aka send out other fighters.
Turbolasers are best used against slow or stationary or targets that have poor manuvering abilities.
[edit]
Ion cannons
Ion Cannons are designed to knock out electrical systems. Firing bolts of ionized energy, they can disable everything from propulsion to life support systems. They are often used on capital starships to facilitate the capture of enemy vessels. They can also be planet-based weapons, as seen in the Battle of Hoth when the Rebels used one to disable a Star Destroyer, allowing a transport to escape through the Imperial barricade. Rebel Y-wing fighters carry a pair of light Ion cannons, useful for disabling freighters and convoy ships that would ordinarily be severely damaged by a laser bolt barrage or a proton torpedo.
[edit]
Tractor beams
Tractor beams (which are commonly used in many science-fiction works) are used by ships to bring small ships into the docking bay of large vessels. Tractor beams require their own generators, making them somewhat inefficient. The tractor beams aboard the Death Star took energy from the main reactor, giving them a constant flow of power and making it impossible for a vessel caught in it to escape. However, if one of the tractor beam's seven links to the reactor was severed, the projectors would be inactive and vessels would be allowed to escape, as Obi-Wan Kenobi discovered. Typically, tractor beam generators are too large for fighters or bombers to carry them.
[edit]
Gravity well projectors
While not weapons in the classic sense, gravity well projectors are used to artificially project a strong gravity field in an area of space where no major masses usually exist, making it impossible to use Hyperspatial engines. The main function of any Interdictor Cruiser ship is to use this effect to foil hit-and-run tactics and keep outmaneuvered enemies from escaping. Interdictor Cruisers work just as well in reverse: Grand Admiral Thrawn used them to drag his own ships out of hyperspace in pinpoint combat formation, catching opposing New Republic forces off-balance.
[edit]
Concussion missiles
These missiles came in different shapes and sizes, from capital ship-range to starfighters. The Millennium Falcon modified freighter, A-Wing Interceptors and Slave I patrol ship were armed with concussion missiles. In James Kahn's novelization of Return of the Jedi, Lando implies that concussion missiles have greater armor-piercing capability than proton torpedoes.
[edit]
Energy torpedoes
Energy torpedoes are a cheaper and less powerful version of proton torpedoes. They are featured in Wizard of the Coast's roleplaying book "Starships of the Galaxy" and they are mounted on the Naboo Starfighters in The Phantom Menace movie. They look like energy bolts when fired.
[edit]
Proton torpedoes
Main article: Proton torpedo
Proton torpedoes are guided weapons fired from tubes on various spacecraft. Their tubes commonly mounted on Rebel starfighters, torpedoes are the staple warhead of the Rebel Alliance. It was one of these that was shot from Luke Skywalker's X-Wing into the exhaust port of the first Death Star that saved Yavin 4 and many other planets from sure destruction. In LucasArts' "X-Wing", it is shown that Proton torpedoes are more powerful, but Concussion missiles are faster and better at tracking. However, some sources show they have the same power and abilities.
[edit]
Superlaser
Found only aboard the Death Stars and the Eclipse Star Destroyer, the superlaser is a weapon of incomprehensible destruction. The Death Star was created to house this superweapon since the weapon required a titanic reactor core and focusing channels. The superlaser was designed primarily for the destruction of an entire planet and the weapon did so with frightening efficiency. Requiring the Death Star's hypermatter reactor to charge for a full day before the planet-destroying weapon could be fired, the superlaser was of an extremely advanced design. Using a technology called composite beam lasers, the superlaser actually consisted of eight enormously powerful lasers merging into one superlaser. Fortunately for the galaxy, the weapon was used only a few times. The weapon was operated by top Imperial gunners and the gunner stations were under the heaviest security since the superlaser could become a extremely potent threat to the Empire if it fell under the wrong hands. A smaller, less powerful superlaser was found onboard the Eclipse-class Star Destroyer and had roughly 2/3 the power of the Death Star's superlaser. Its ability to destroy a planet came from it's ability to drill into the planets core causing it to super-heat and destroy the planet.
[edit]
Galaxy Gun
Another one of the Imperial Superweapons, the Galaxy Gun was another weapon of colossal destruction. The Galaxy Gun was actually a massive starship that surrounded the enormous weapon. It fired gigantic missiles that were astonishingly fast in both sublight and lightspeed realms. The missile was designed to destroy entire planets but its particle disentigrator warhead could be programmed to take out certain strategic locations such as cities or military bases or plants. The warhead was a particle disentigrator and upon detonating, it would explosively convert all matter into energy. The Galaxy Gun's advantage to the Death Star was that it was in a fixed location. The Imperial fleet was always around the weapon making any attempt to raid and destroy or sabotage it apparent suicide.
[edit]
Sun Crusher
The utterly devastating Sun Crusher could fool most uninformed people. Looking like an ordinary starship, the Sun Crusher was actually another one of the Empire's Superweapons. A little larger than a fighter, the Sun Crusher was almost indestructible. It sported four lasers and quantum-crystalline armor that was compacted into layers seven times, making the craft able to take heavy turbolaser fire, and it even survived a blast from the Death Star. The main armament of the Sun Crusher was it's eleven plasma charged warheads. Once launched, the warhead would protect itself in a shell of plasma making the warhead look like a heavy laser bolt. The warhead would then travel into the center of a star where the warhead would arm and release extremly dense and enormous amounts of energy making the star go supernova. The resulting explosion would take out entire solar systems effectively eradicating trillions of beings within a short time frame. The Sun Crusher was "hijacked" by Han Solo, the soon-to-be jedi Kyp Durron, Chewbacca, and Qwi Xux to escape from an Imperial emplacement.
Kyp Durron used seven of the eleven warheads at the Cauldron Nebula. He used another at an Imperial Core World, another at the Imperial Military Installation at Carida, and the others on the Death Star prototype.
The Sun Crusher was destroyed when Kyp Durron flew it into a black hole in the Maw during the attack on the Maw Installation.
[edit]
Personal ranged weapons
The standard weapon of classic science fiction, the ray gun, is also the most common weapon in the Star Wars universe, although the lasers of Star Wars are most likely high power plasma weapons. There are many variations of blasters; pistols, carbines, cannons, assault rifles and even machine guns. For example, Princess Leia Organa wielded a Sporting Blaster when her ship was boarded by Darth Vader's forces, while Han Solo prefers a Heavy Blaster Pistol (a BlasTech DL-44). The most common blaster is the E-11 blaster rifle, the standard weapon of Imperial Stormtroopers. Several of Star Wars' fictional weapons are modified from real-life blank firing prop guns; Han Solo's pistol is a customized Mauser C96, whilst the Stormtroopers carry Sterling submachine guns or MG34 WW2 German general purpose machine guns (most easily seen in the detention center break-in in Episode IV).
The average output of a blaster (data from tech manuals) is about 8 megajoules. Starship scale blasters are called lasers, while capital scale blasters based on a slightly expanded technology (supported by capacitors and turbines) are called turbolasers. According to official literature on blaster output, the heavy turbolasers mounted on the Old Republic-era Acclamator have an energy output of 200 gigatons per shot. Newer ships in the classic Star Destroyer line are equipped with much larger weapons.
[edit]
Blasters
Blaster is a term that can be used interchangeably with the term "laser" for everyday conversation. Regardless, blasters and lasers are particle beam weapons, which fire a "bolt" of energy. The designs of blasters are a fair bit older than that of lasers, becoming less common in newer ships. With their design, blasters have high fire cycle rates, enabling them to multi fire, a mode of fire in which the rate of discharge is increased at the cost of accuracy. Blasters, because they are weaker than laser of similar size, are limited to starfighters.
Among the oldest and most venerable of blaster technology is the triple blaster, which dates back to the ancient days of the Old Republic. It works by using three separate blasters connected to the same targeting system, often found in coordinated sets of two or four, to fire simultaneously on a target. No company still mass produces them, and by the Rise of the Empire, triple blasters become exceedingly rare.
An updated version of blaster technology is the auto blaster, a modern redesign. Designed for the B-wing fighter, it has an even higher rate of fire than other blasters, but is not available to other models until after the Battle of Endor.
Blasters are allowed on civilian vessels except for heavy blaster cannons during the Rise of the Empire, when they are restricted to corporations through the purchase of Imperial licenses.
The most common manufacturer of blasters during the films is BlasTech, which among other lines has a contract with both the Imperial Military and the Rebellion. It also manufactures the Protector civilian fighter-grade blaster line.
[edit]
Lasers
In the Star Wars Universe, laser cannons are like blasters, but much more powerful. They are usually used on fighters, freighters, and other small ships, as big warships use Turbolasers. Quad laser cannons have been mentioned on the Millennium Falcon and the Trade Federation battleships. While they generally have a destructive impact, very rarely they can have an effect similar to ion cannons, as happened to Luke Skywalker at the Battle of Hoth.
To solve the apparent discrepancy between Star Wars lasers and real lasers (for example, the fact that real lasers do not fire at sublight speeds and are not visible from the side), various explanations have been given. One of them is that Star Wars lasers are in fact real lasers fired at lightspeed, however a sublight tracer bolt goes before it. The bolt itself is invisible, though the laser that follows can be seen by the naked eye. So targets will be destroyed or killed before the laser seems to reach. While perhaps sounding a little ad hoc, it is consistent with what is seen on screen. Additionally, this explanation also seems consistent with official material, e.g. matching extremely well with what the book Incredible Cross-Sections of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (also known as AOTC:ICS) says about energy weapons.
[edit]
Turbolasers
Turbolasers are the immensely scaled up versions of the blaster and laser cannon that are shown on the films; even the smaller ones are able to eradicate fairly large asteroids in a single shot. They can also be planet-based weapons, with power to match their immense proportions. These can be seen on the Death Star as they are the turrets that the rebel fighters avoid with their speed and are shooting at them when they go down the trench. Turbolasers are the standard weapon on most cruiser-sized or bigger ships, including Victory, Venator, Imperator, Executor, and Eclipse-class Star Destroyers. Massive ships, such as the Eclipse class Star Destroyers, carry gargantuan numbers of Turbolasers and are capable of bombarding the surface of a planet into a flaming ruin. This type of orbital bombardment is known as "Base Delta Zero". Turbolasers require vast amounts of energy and are therefore powered by individual power generators instead of smaller, dispensible "power packs" like blasters. Some of them also have slow fire rates. It takes a huge amount of energy to get sustained rapid fire. Turbolasers are primarily used for capital ship combat since their targeting computers normally are not fast enough to track the smaller craft like fighters and bombers.
Despite their immense firepower, turbolasers are not entirely effective against fighters. Skilled pilots can dodge the heavy bolts and it takes time for the turbolaser to rotate, while the fighter can also use surperior manuverability. In addition, turbolasers fire slowly. It is more effective to "take them out ship to ship" aka send out other fighters.
Turbolasers are best used against slow or stationary or targets that have poor manuvering abilities.
[edit]
Ion cannons
Ion Cannons are designed to knock out electrical systems. Firing bolts of ionized energy, they can disable everything from propulsion to life support systems. They are often used on capital starships to facilitate the capture of enemy vessels. They can also be planet-based weapons, as seen in the Battle of Hoth when the Rebels used one to disable a Star Destroyer, allowing a transport to escape through the Imperial barricade. Rebel Y-wing fighters carry a pair of light Ion cannons, useful for disabling freighters and convoy ships that would ordinarily be severely damaged by a laser bolt barrage or a proton torpedo.
[edit]
Tractor beams
Tractor beams (which are commonly used in many science-fiction works) are used by ships to bring small ships into the docking bay of large vessels. Tractor beams require their own generators, making them somewhat inefficient. The tractor beams aboard the Death Star took energy from the main reactor, giving them a constant flow of power and making it impossible for a vessel caught in it to escape. However, if one of the tractor beam's seven links to the reactor was severed, the projectors would be inactive and vessels would be allowed to escape, as Obi-Wan Kenobi discovered. Typically, tractor beam generators are too large for fighters or bombers to carry them.
[edit]
Gravity well projectors
While not weapons in the classic sense, gravity well projectors are used to artificially project a strong gravity field in an area of space where no major masses usually exist, making it impossible to use Hyperspatial engines. The main function of any Interdictor Cruiser ship is to use this effect to foil hit-and-run tactics and keep outmaneuvered enemies from escaping. Interdictor Cruisers work just as well in reverse: Grand Admiral Thrawn used them to drag his own ships out of hyperspace in pinpoint combat formation, catching opposing New Republic forces off-balance.
[edit]
Concussion missiles
These missiles came in different shapes and sizes, from capital ship-range to starfighters. The Millennium Falcon modified freighter, A-Wing Interceptors and Slave I patrol ship were armed with concussion missiles. In James Kahn's novelization of Return of the Jedi, Lando implies that concussion missiles have greater armor-piercing capability than proton torpedoes.
[edit]
Energy torpedoes
Energy torpedoes are a cheaper and less powerful version of proton torpedoes. They are featured in Wizard of the Coast's roleplaying book "Starships of the Galaxy" and they are mounted on the Naboo Starfighters in The Phantom Menace movie. They look like energy bolts when fired.
[edit]
Proton torpedoes
Main article: Proton torpedo
Proton torpedoes are guided weapons fired from tubes on various spacecraft. Their tubes commonly mounted on Rebel starfighters, torpedoes are the staple warhead of the Rebel Alliance. It was one of these that was shot from Luke Skywalker's X-Wing into the exhaust port of the first Death Star that saved Yavin 4 and many other planets from sure destruction. In LucasArts' "X-Wing", it is shown that Proton torpedoes are more powerful, but Concussion missiles are faster and better at tracking. However, some sources show they have the same power and abilities.
[edit]
Superlaser
Found only aboard the Death Stars and the Eclipse Star Destroyer, the superlaser is a weapon of incomprehensible destruction. The Death Star was created to house this superweapon since the weapon required a titanic reactor core and focusing channels. The superlaser was designed primarily for the destruction of an entire planet and the weapon did so with frightening efficiency. Requiring the Death Star's hypermatter reactor to charge for a full day before the planet-destroying weapon could be fired, the superlaser was of an extremely advanced design. Using a technology called composite beam lasers, the superlaser actually consisted of eight enormously powerful lasers merging into one superlaser. Fortunately for the galaxy, the weapon was used only a few times. The weapon was operated by top Imperial gunners and the gunner stations were under the heaviest security since the superlaser could become a extremely potent threat to the Empire if it fell under the wrong hands. A smaller, less powerful superlaser was found onboard the Eclipse-class Star Destroyer and had roughly 2/3 the power of the Death Star's superlaser. Its ability to destroy a planet came from it's ability to drill into the planets core causing it to super-heat and destroy the planet.
[edit]
Galaxy Gun
Another one of the Imperial Superweapons, the Galaxy Gun was another weapon of colossal destruction. The Galaxy Gun was actually a massive starship that surrounded the enormous weapon. It fired gigantic missiles that were astonishingly fast in both sublight and lightspeed realms. The missile was designed to destroy entire planets but its particle disentigrator warhead could be programmed to take out certain strategic locations such as cities or military bases or plants. The warhead was a particle disentigrator and upon detonating, it would explosively convert all matter into energy. The Galaxy Gun's advantage to the Death Star was that it was in a fixed location. The Imperial fleet was always around the weapon making any attempt to raid and destroy or sabotage it apparent suicide.
[edit]
Sun Crusher
The utterly devastating Sun Crusher could fool most uninformed people. Looking like an ordinary starship, the Sun Crusher was actually another one of the Empire's Superweapons. A little larger than a fighter, the Sun Crusher was almost indestructible. It sported four lasers and quantum-crystalline armor that was compacted into layers seven times, making the craft able to take heavy turbolaser fire, and it even survived a blast from the Death Star. The main armament of the Sun Crusher was it's eleven plasma charged warheads. Once launched, the warhead would protect itself in a shell of plasma making the warhead look like a heavy laser bolt. The warhead would then travel into the center of a star where the warhead would arm and release extremly dense and enormous amounts of energy making the star go supernova. The resulting explosion would take out entire solar systems effectively eradicating trillions of beings within a short time frame. The Sun Crusher was "hijacked" by Han Solo, the soon-to-be jedi Kyp Durron, Chewbacca, and Qwi Xux to escape from an Imperial emplacement.
Kyp Durron used seven of the eleven warheads at the Cauldron Nebula. He used another at an Imperial Core World, another at the Imperial Military Installation at Carida, and the others on the Death Star prototype.
The Sun Crusher was destroyed when Kyp Durron flew it into a black hole in the Maw during the attack on the Maw Installation.
[edit]
Personal ranged weapons
The standard weapon of classic science fiction, the ray gun, is also the most common weapon in the Star Wars universe, although the lasers of Star Wars are most likely high power plasma weapons. There are many variations of blasters; pistols, carbines, cannons, assault rifles and even machine guns. For example, Princess Leia Organa wielded a Sporting Blaster when her ship was boarded by Darth Vader's forces, while Han Solo prefers a Heavy Blaster Pistol (a BlasTech DL-44). The most common blaster is the E-11 blaster rifle, the standard weapon of Imperial Stormtroopers. Several of Star Wars' fictional weapons are modified from real-life blank firing prop guns; Han Solo's pistol is a customized Mauser C96, whilst the Stormtroopers carry Sterling submachine guns or MG34 WW2 German general purpose machine guns (most easily seen in the detention center break-in in Episode IV).
The average output of a blaster (data from tech manuals) is about 8 megajoules. Starship scale blasters are called lasers, while capital scale blasters based on a slightly expanded technology (supported by capacitors and turbines) are called turbolasers. According to official literature on blaster output, the heavy turbolasers mounted on the Old Republic-era Acclamator have an energy output of 200 gigatons per shot. Newer ships in the classic Star Destroyer line are equipped with much larger weapons.