nedjelja, 22. kolovoza 2010.

star wars ground combat (unfinished)

Ground combat

Vehicles

AT-AT walkers seem to have combat range of several kilometers, with their armor stated to be "too strong for blasters". Walkers seem to be 15-20 meters tall, probably to compensate for their line-of-view weapons, which tends to limit effective range of smaller vehicles on rough terrain. Shots from AT-AT's blaster vaporizes few cubic centimters to 1-3 cubic decimeters of snow per shot. That gives is 1 to 2 kilojoule weapons, with 2.5 kilojoules being most possible high-end estimate.

AT-ST walkers fire their blasters in bursts; individual shots barely crack trees and are weaker than AT-AT shots - my estimate is 0.5 to 1 kilojoules. Still, Chewie has no problem destroying other AT-ST's after he comandeers one; 5 shots in cabin are enought (so AT-ST armor can withstand 2.5 to 5 kJ; when one remembers that Federation phasers have output of 2.5 to 6.2 GJ per second, it is clear that even basic Federation infantry weapons are going to be stunningly effective against AT-ST walkers). Even if AT-AT walkers have 1000 times stronger armor, it will still be insufficient to stop even ordinary hand phasers - however, due to its longer range, phaser rifle will be more effective.

If we go with other possibility - assuming AT-ST armor is iron - then AT-ST shots arrive at 53 KJ.


Infantry combat

Blaster firepower

In RotJ, shot from hand blaster barely burns Leia's arm. However, in ANH, we see shots from Han's hand blaster tearing holes in concrete; holes might be around 9 centimeters in diameter and 4-9 cm deep. We do see larger explosion caused by Han's last shot, but it is not possible to estimate amount of material removed; however, it seems to be 3-5 times larger than most of remaining shots.

Density of concrete is 2400 kg/m^3; volume af material removed by ordinary shots is around 1526 - 3053 cubic centimeters; for last shot it might be 4578 to 15 265 cubic centimeters, which gives us removed mass of around 3.6624 to 7.3272 kilograms; last shot removing 10.9872 to 36.636 kilograms.

Concrete does not have melting point; when temperature is higher than 1000°C, concrete crumbles like sugar. Heat capacity of concrete is 0.880 J/(g·K).

So one blaster bolt might have energy of around 3.7 to 6.448 MJ. Given that it is stronger than seen AT-AT and AT-ST firepower, I might bump up firepower of these to 30 and 60 MJ per shot as wild guess.

Also, it is worth noting that blasters do have stun setting, as Vader instructed his crew to "set blasters on stun" when they were about to board Falcon at end of TESB.


Starship close quarters combat

In ANH we see stormtroopers boarding Rebel blockade runner. Accuracy is terrible on both sides, althoght that can be attributed to stress of CQC.


Close air support

"Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success. " - Erwin Rommel

If you watch Attack of the Clones, Battle of Geonosis part, you will notice that while Separatist Hailfire (sorry if I spelled wrong) droids had great success against Republic walkers, republic gunships quickly destroyed them, demonstrating importance of air superiority.

In TESB we see TIE bombers for first time, dropping bombs on surface of asteroid. Crater at which they are dropping bombs is 15-20 times Falcon's length in diameter. Falcon's length is 2 times its width, or 45 meters. Therefore, crater is 675 to 900 meters in diameter. Explosions are around 1/5th to 1/10th of crater's diameter - that gives us yield of 0.04 to 0.4 kilotons for TIE Bomber bombs.

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