Star Wars Vessel Densities

[DSG2k 4]

Or the driver simply lost control due to the blowout.

That is an interesting theory. See, I have seen an 18-wheeler go to 17 at close range while in motion, and have seen dozens of lost treads and the remains of a handful or two of other blowouts. I have never seen a tractor-trailer lose it due to a blowout ... they have another wheel and tire *right there*. Even though this semi-trailer did not have tandem axles, the yield of tge blowout would have had to be remarkable to behave as you suggest.

 

I said nothing of the sort liar.

While I appreciate your artful dodge efforts, the simple fact is that in the context of killing a Sherman tank you asked if packing crates and mudflaps were tougher than the tank, which means you were suggesting that phasers were unable to deal with such targets. If you were claiming a particular bullet could penetrate a car engine and someone who actively tries to disagree with you all the time said "is an engine tougher than a ceramic plate? Or a few inches of ballistic gelatin? Yes or no?" ... well, it hardly follows that you are agreeing, and such questions make no sense unless you are suggesting those things can stop the bullet.

 

Now maybe it was 1:30AM for you, and based on a similar thread at DITL from 2008 I would assume you didn't mean to put it that way (though at the time you also claimed Worf's shot took out 3-4 cubic meters so frankly there's no telling), but it is the *meaning* of what you said despite any later backpedaling, so don't go calling me a liar just because of another of your own errors.

 

More later.

[DSG2k 4]

1) It's a fucking cave-in.

What are you even trying to refer to? I showed the solid rock from Insurrection. Worf's shot was against a "crack" in the igneous rock. Sisko's shot was against "a wall of stone". Do you wish to have me take you seriously?

 

2) Yes it is. The WW2 APC shell of the British 15"/42 Mk1 could penetrate up to 27" of armour at zero range, 16.5" at 10,000 yards.  HMS Ramillies used such shells to penetrate four metres of stone wall during the bombardment of Toulon.

Source, please. But in any case, almost half a meter at 10km versus four meters at unspecified range is a difference of eight times, and we haven't even touched on how many sgells were fired. Comparing a crapload of inches to a handful of meters is hardly an honest-minded response in the context of three inches of steel versus feet of rock.

 

 

Refresh my memory of why a delusional Riker's claims of a phaser's effects on a figment of his imagination are relevant to a discussion of what phasers actually do, especially when they're contradicted by non-delusional events.

 

You presume a contradiction where none need exist. Clean vaporization and explosive shots have both been observed. Does it not follow that Worf's shot is the former, whereas the latter would be more ... explosive?

 

Finally, you clearly have no argument against Merik. He was washed out for a split-second of indecision in a psycho-simulator test. His knowledge of the tech of his own era is not in doubt. You are basically a 17th Century naval aficionado making sweeping declarations about modern aircraft carrier small arms in contradiction to an able sea captain who got booted from Annapolis for political-correctness-grade reasons.

 

I know who I trust, and it ain't you.

[Tyralak 12,068]

A couple of things here. Rock and armor are two entirely different things. Phasers are fantastic at drilling through and disintegrating rock, not so much armor and dense metal. Even solid granite is nearly three times LESS dense than iron. Iron also has a greater heat capacity, and better dispersive effects. Of course Phasers would have an explosive effect on rock. Rock heats unevenly, is prone to fracture, and contains small pockets of trapped air and moisture. Almost universally we have seen in Trek that armor and dense metals pose more of a challenge to Phasers than other objects.

 

There is also quite a bit of discussion about projectile weaponry against armor, which has absolutely ZERO to do with Phasers. Kinetic weapons and beam weapons have entirely different effects on armor. 
 
Now, the one example you gave about the Noranium is excellent, because we are given numbers, we have screen time we can measure, and visual evidence. We can get a good idea of the amount of energy used. Once we have that information, we can compare that with the energy needed to melt through 3 inches of steel plating. The only pieces of information we don't have is the heat capacity of Noranium, and the total volume of metal vaporized. Going over the clip, they certainly didn't vaporize a pile of Noranium. They did, however, in short order, melt enough of it to release some nasty fumes. Here's the clip.
 

[Khas 12,158]

Didn't we see Valeris use a phaser to vaporize a steel pot in Star Trek VI, though?  Of course, a steel pot is probably a lot thinner than any armor.

[Tyralak 12,068]

Didn't we see Valeris use a phaser to vaporize a steel pot in Star Trek VI, though?  Of course, a steel pot is probably a lot thinner than any armor.

 

This is true, and it's a very important scene. It's hard to say if the pot was aluminum or stainless steel. Either way, it's a good example. Especially considering the complete disintegration of the pot.

[DSG2k 4]

Hyperdense mashed potatoes in that pot, eh? I think not.

 

Off the top of my head the references to density affecting phasers are Kirk on the Catwoman asteroid saying that the fact his phaser wouldn't dig out a tomb for d'Amato is because it looked like rock but was "infinitely denser", as well as Spock speculating that the Kelvan diburnium-osmium alloy jail bars were too dense for even their phasers to cut through.

 

So yes, extreme density is a thing, the key word being "extreme". Is the toranium inlaid on some DS9 doors extremely dense? I wouldn't think so ... like duridium barrels, some things are just inherently resistant to the tech in use.

 

For a very rough modern analogy, some of the latest electronic gizmos are much more fragile than older electronics ... a minor EM pulse or static event can kill them whereas an older object wouldn't notice. A minor bit of overpressure can knock out a hard drive temporarily whereas an older system based purely on integrated circuits wouldn't be affected, et cetera.

 

Or for a better analogy, who would've ever thought that a mirror and heavy clothing would be useful against the latest military gear? Well, when you are being fired upon by dazzlers and those freaky skin-heating beam things, they are.

 

Phasers, however, are seen to be effective against most any common target. Yes, the phasers can be tuned for certain things, e.g. killing carbon-based life versus silicon-based. But even in that same episode, the Horta was a hard target and yet Kirk was pondering using their phasers to dig their own tunnels in the rock to out-maneuver the fast-tunneling creature, so there was more to it than just silicon being troublesome ... 90% of Earth's crust is composed of silicates, after all, and we have no specific indication of that world being off-the-wall in that regard.

 

As for the volume of noranium vaporized, I agree it was not an extreme amount. That was not the point. That they could heat a pile of it so that some of it was at temperatures higher that steel's melting point using a low phaser setting was the point. They were at less than half the maximum.

 

So the point here, still, is that the suggestion that common metal will resist phasers is on untenable ground. I am not saying they could make a feet-thick steel wall blow up like the Insurrection limestone, but that is not required. We're talking about penetrating three inches of steel. There is simply no plausible argument yet presented that would suggest this is going to be more phaser resistant than several feet of rock.

 

Given that the AT-ST probably features steel in its thin-walled cab construction (which still represented a major improvement over the prior generation's *open cab*), I would wager that the Sherman tank's three inch armor should be a fair guide, if not actually generous.

[Vince 520]

I agree with Tyralak, the Breen rifle would probably blast an AT ST easily, but not a hand-held phaser. AT ST's have been proven to be relatively susceptible to kinetic impacts like falling logs, but this tells us nothing about their resistance to DEW's like blasters or phasers. 

Iit can however be inferred that the AT ST is in-fact highly resilient to blaster fire, and phasers are not THAT much more powerful than blasters, when both weapons are set to maximum setting. Blasters, like phasers, would be anti-vehicular weaponry in the real world when on the highest settings, probably capable of taking out humvees and the like. 

 

Even a 2260's Type I style phaser was capable of dynamite-like effects.

So are blasters. It is pretty decisively demonstrated that blaster pistols and blaster carbines can rival modern day 40mm autocannons for per shot destructive firepower, when set to maximum setting. But to be fair if Han's shoot-out with the stormtroopers on Tatooine is anything to go by, then we could say that blasters are limited to perhaps only a half dozen shots or so when set to such high power, which is a limitation, but even light vehicles like AT ST's are virtually impervious to small-arms blaster fire regardless. So yes, phasers can destroy a larger volume of material by a marginal degree (although the method is more commonly disintegration) but the difference isn't great enough to start asserting that the standard hand-held phaser in star trek is an anti-vehicle weapon in star wars. especially when said vehicles handle blaster fire with such ease. Not unless you start arguing that AT ST's have little resilience to phaser-style magic disintegration, but such an assertion would be rather arbitrary and difficult to prove, since phasers (like most weapons) quite clearly vary in performance depending on the type of metal they are firing upon in star trek - and vehicles in star wars never face disintegration style weapons in the canon.

 

Dynamite-like effects:

 

Going over the clip, they certainly didn't vaporize a pile of Noranium. They did, however, in short order, melt enough of it to release some nasty fumes. Here's the clip.

 

There is that scene with the armoured blast door. Phasers disintegrated a wide, but very thin layer of lesser metal across the surface, but the metal beneath was impervious. That is one of the more impressive metal disintegrations that I'm aware of.  

[DSG2k 4]

I agree with Tyralak, the Breen rifle would probably blast an AT ST easily, but not a hand-held phaser. AT ST's have been proven to be relatively susceptible to kinetic impacts like falling logs, but this tells us nothing about their resistance to DEW's like blasters or phasers.

Not nothing, but there are definitely other considerations.

 

Iit can however be inferred that the AT ST is in-fact highly resilient to blaster fire,

Again, the prior version had an open-air cockpit without even a windshield for branch deflection. So I imagine it is better than clone armor but when you get right down to it, we have no clue how blaster-resistant it is supposed to be. I am not aware of seeing one hit other than by Chewie's shot using AT-ST guns that blew one up.

 

Blasters, like phasers, would be anti-vehicular weaponry in the real world when on the highest settings, probably capable of taking out humvees and the like. 

 

So are blasters. It is pretty decisively demonstrated that blaster pistols and blaster carbines can rival modern day 40mm autocannons for per shot destructive firepower, when set to maximum setting.

"Decisively" is a topic for another time, but even stipulating to that for the moment, it is funny you bring it up. See, my thought about Tyralak's suggestion that phasers would be expected to fracture rock ... besides that I had already pointed out that it can either fracture or cleanly vaporize ... was that his statement applied best to blasters. Being packets of radioactive particles with limited penetration commonly displayed, blaster hits that damage rock would presumably be doing so (to borrow from Tyr) by adversely affecting water content, air pockets, 'impurities', and such.

 

However, we were all studiously avoiding blasters in favor of focusing on phasers, so I take your change of subject as an indication that the phaser points stand.

 

There is that scene with the armoured blast door. Phasers disintegrated a wide, but very thin layer of lesser metal across the surface, but the metal beneath was impervious. That is one of the more impressive metal disintegrations that I'm aware of.

Indeed. Safe to say that wasn't mere steel, either.

[Vince 520]

Again, the prior version had an open-air cockpit without even a windshield for branch deflection. So I imagine it is better than clone armor but when you get right down to it, we have no clue how blaster-resistant it is supposed to be. I am not aware of seeing one hit other than by Chewie's shot using AT-ST guns that blew one up.

 

An AT RT is relatively small, fast and nimble, whereas the AT ST is as wide as a truck, taller than a house and relatively lumbering; I think it is safe to assume that the AT ST's armour protects it from common small-arms fire.

 

 

"Decisively" is a topic for another time, but even stipulating to that for the moment, it is funny you bring it up. See, my thought about Tyralak's suggestion that phasers would be expected to fracture rock ... besides that I had already pointed out that it can either fracture or cleanly vaporize ... was that his statement applied best to blasters. Being packets of radioactive particles with limited penetration commonly displayed, blaster hits that damage rock would presumably be doing so (to borrow from Tyr) by adversely affecting water content, air pockets, 'impurities', and such.

 

Then to beyond reasonable doubt 

 

Blaster bolts can result in explosive fireballs and fragment wall or rock; these feats represent impressive firepower regardless of whether they are secondary effects to flash vaporization, or the primary effects of "explosive bolts".  

 

 

However, we were all studiously avoiding blasters in favor of focusing on phasers, so I take your change of subject as an indication that the phaser points stand.

 

That phasers can can explosively blast or disintegrate rock? I agree with those points.

 

And I didn't consider it a change of subject. The discussion was about whether a hand-held phaser could destroy an AT ST, and the precise firepower and mechanics of phasers is only one side of that discussion. I simply meant to point out that blasters aren't too far behind phasers on the wall blasting side of things, so that when it comes to explosive fragmentation these weapons are of similar magnitude, which by extension also implies that blaster resilient armours may be resilient to phasers. But phasers have the option of disintegration (or "clean vaporization" as you call it) on the same maximum setting, which would be an OCP for armour in star wars.

 

Indeed. Safe to say that wasn't mere steel, either.

Indeed. Quite a few pots and pans there. 

[DSG2k 4]

A correction about diburnium-osmium ... that was from "That Which Survives" and the Catwoman planet (which probably orbits the Riddler sun, and has an average planetary density of 275,000 kg/m^3, it seems). The Kelvans used something similar to diburnium but considerably *more* dense.

 

http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2015/02/that-which-is-diburnium.html

 

Suffice it to say, based on diburnium it takes significant density to be phaser-proof due only to density.

[Vince 520]

Interesting, although it's hardly a lower limit. Considering the world is artificial is it not possible that there is some kind of artificial gravity? 

[DSG2k 4]

Re: Lower limit

 

We can stretch "similar" in regards to Earth to try to bring it down, but that's about it (other than those faked values obtained via discarding evidence).

 

Re: artificial gravity

 

That would bring up the question of how they established the mass via scans in the first place. 

 

To establish mass, you would generally either estimate based on volume and density or else you would look at the gravitational relationships. The crew apparently didn't know what the planet was made of until Sulu completed his analysis, so they couldn't have been estimating based on that. Thus, the mass was most likely estimated from the gravity (having an orbiting ship makes this easy).

 

So if it walks like a duck and you don't know it doesn't have feathers, why say it ain't a duck?

 

The only alternative is that there is some subspace mass-registering whatzit. But then having way less gravity showing (e.g. when their orbit was all wrong) would've been a notable discontinuity, and they wouldn't have been wondering if the place was constructed. Grav plating would tend to give that away. ;-)

[DSG2k 4]

Just to bookend this old conversation, here is what I said in 2010:  "If one wants a specific estimate, I'd guess a density of 750kg/m³ and an ISD mass of 40,000,000 tonnes.". That's currently the #1 Google result for "star destroyer mass".

 

Here is a recent Star Wars Marvel comic in the new canon: 

 

 

So, it seems both the Lucas canon and the Disney canon are in agreement.  And, given wildly destructive low-velocity rammings and kyber crystal superlaser effects, the Disney canon actually seems to further agree with me . . . which is not a gloat at all, just a note of irony since I don't use it. 

[Tyralak 12,068]

The Disney canon is the law of the land, so to speak. They do seem to be going with the more conservative estimates of things, rather than the inflationist view.