40k Calculation and Quantification

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**Toastedandy**

Canadian 5th wrote:
Bolters have a firepower power that is shockingly close to a modern hand grenade. I've done the math before, but will need to dig it up. Connor has done his own math in the thread I linked to back on page 1.

I would prefer to know how to get the result, rather than just an answer.

**Corrode**

Are we actually trying to apply maths to 40k fluff? This is a thing?

God help us all.

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:
Canadian 5th wrote:
Bolters have a firepower power that is shockingly close to a modern hand grenade. I've done the math before, but will need to dig it up. Connor has done his own math in the thread I linked to back on page 1.

I would prefer to know how to get the result, rather than just an answer.

Well the way I used was to look at the bolter round, figure out how large it was and, by diagrams, how much explosive you could put in the shell. Then you look at the fact that 40k explosives put ours to shame and say double the power of our best stuff. That's one way, and the results seem to fit what we see. The other way is to base it off injury inflicted, that's much harder and less accurate in many cases.

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Corrode wrote:Are we actually trying to apply maths to 40k fluff? This is a thing?

God help us all.

If you don't like it don't post. Keep the spam out of my thread.

**Corrode**

It's very nice that you've looked at diagrams and all those other things but you've missed the fundamental point that they're all made up by people who have the barest idea of how any of this gear would function and in a lot of cases have just plain old made it up or even changed it between descriptions. This is one of those weird Star Wars Aspergers things except that in Star Wars the team went and produced a bunch of as-realistic-as-we-can-get stuff to help out.

**Canadian 5th**

Corrode wrote:It's very nice that you've looked at diagrams and all those other things but you've missed the fundamental point that they're all made up by people who have the barest idea of how any of this gear would function and in a lot of cases have just plain old made it up or even changed it between descriptions. This is one of those weird Star Wars Aspergers things except that in Star Wars the team went and produced a bunch of as-realistic-as-we-can-get stuff to help out.

I'm showing that you can do the math and that changes can be explained if you care enough to do the work. Now kindly leave out the disparaging remarks and leave this thread.

**Toastedandy**

I have to say Corrode is right. The math can only go so far, and at the end of the day, it would be far from accurate as everything is made based on the rule of cool.
But I have to say, it would be interesting to seem the limitations of certain weapons, and how effective the weapons would be if they were real.

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:I have to say Corrode is right. The math can only go so far, and at the end of the day, it would be far from accurate as everything is made based on the rule of cool.
But I have to say, it would be interesting to seem the limitations of certain weapons, and how effective the weapons would be if they were real.

Of course the numbers won't be terribly accurate, we're working with second hand evidence at best and working from what they have done rather than their real specs. The best we can get is to within an order of magnitude, which tells you some basic things about the weapons and it's role and how it stacks versus what we have. However, even rule of cool can be calculated and I, among others, am attempting to do so.

**Toastedandy**

But you would come up with glaring irregularities. Like a guardsmen not being wounded by a melta shot. What equation would you use to calculate the max effective range of a bolter? I have'nt done any real math for about 4 years.

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:But you would come up with glaring irregularities. Like a guardsmen not being wounded by a melta shot. What equation would you use to calculate the max effective range of a bolter? I have'nt done any real math for about 4 years.

You don't see meltas failing to kill stuff much in the fluff, and the game on the table top isn't something you can work from. As for range, that's tough, I'm sure some books make mention of it though.

**Toastedandy**

But the problem is, that because of lack of fluff on the details of all the weapons, the only way we can get any reference figures, is from the tabletop. But as we all know, the tabletop is out of proportion, you can see this from the size of marines, guardsmen and even the tanks.

**Brother Coa**

You can't put math and laws of physic in a universe that has very little to none of both. You may know math, but GW writers don't.

For example: give me a number of Guardsman on active duty all across the Imperium.
Or a possibility that you will see even one Space Marine in your life.
Better yet: give me the exact population number of Orks in the galaxy...

On further notice, one guy take math and he find out that output power of Lasgun shot is 1.21 GW. And we are talking about math and 40k?

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Canadian 5th wrote:
Given the attitude on this board towards actually doing math and, heck, even typing in proper English I took your first post as more of the same ignorant and tiresome attitude.

And what is your problem with countries that doesn't have Engish as their first language? People are at least trying...
You are not one of those guys who thinks that North America is the whole world?

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:But the problem is, that because of lack of fluff on the details of all the weapons, the only way we can get any reference figures, is from the tabletop. But as we all know, the tabletop is out of proportion, you can see this from the size of marines, guardsmen and even the tanks.

Not really, you get data from the books and the descriptions there. The table top is an abstraction of what happens in the fluff.

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Brother Coa wrote:You can't put math and laws of physic in a universe that has very little to none of both. You may know math, but GW writers don't.

For example: give me a number of Guardsman on active duty all across the Imperium.
Or a possibility that you will see even one Space Marine in your life.
Better yet: give me the exact population number of Orks in the galaxy...

On further notice, one guy take math and he find out that output power of Lasgun shot is 1.21 GW. And we are talking about math and 40k?

Gravity is still the same, water still boils the same, people are made of more or less the same stuff. The only laws of physics that we can assume change are the ones we see directly.

Why are you hung up on exact numbers that we won't find. This thread is about doing the best we can with what we're give, so I can say that most worlds have a PDF and contribute to the guard in some way, we get exact numbers for some conflicts and less data on others.

And what is your problem with countries that doesn't have Engish as their first language? People are at least trying...
You are not one of those guys who thinks that North America is the whole world?

Americans and Brits are as bad as anybody at times.

**Emperors Faithful**

Canadian 5th wrote:
Psienesis wrote:Heh, if we cut out all the table-top stuff, we've just removed the "canon" from the WH40K aspect of the equation, since the video games, books, and single movie in the rest of it is... not really canon.

Not really, the tabletop isn't accurate to the way the game is shown in every other source for 40k information including the non-gameplay related sections of every codex. The novels and codex's are more alike to each other than things on the table top are. Unless you're trying to say that a space marine can't rapid fire a bolter further than the length of a baneblade, or fire accurately past that same distance if he's moved. It's for this reason, reasons of scale often being off, ie. compare the height of marine to a guardsman, compare the size of some vehicles to the passengers they claim to carry.

How am I supposed to prove a negative? You've put this forward. Now back it up.

I didn't actually ask you to prove a negative. You asked me to provide a slew of numbers for 40k. I'm asking you to find a specific thing and we can try to work through how to do the math for it.

No, what I've said, and what other people here are saying, is that you can't do such a thing for 40k. You've said you can, so by all means go for it.

So it was only a few days, not "days at the very least" as you suggested (which implied the time spend there could stretch further into weeks or months).

It was at least days, days being anything over a single day. If it was more than 7 days I would have said a week at least, more than 14 days I would have said weeks, and more than a month a month at least, and so on.

But you implied that 'days' (numbering between 1-7) was the very minimum by adding 'at least'. It's okay, it's just a little thing, so the adult thing would be to fess up and say you were incorrect in making such an implication.

Well, yes. If the ship is travelling through an asteroid field. Without any shields. Whatsoever. How well would an ISD fare if they tried that?

In fact, the larger Imperial Ships (larger than escorts) would still survive such treatment.

We've seen them do it with at the least much reduced shields and it was at best damaged. That would likely be akin to taking a few of the more minor critical hits in BFG.

The point still stands that the Imperial Navy shields operate just as well, if not better, than ISD's travelling through asteroid fields.

"Substantial damage", so it was hardly a minor scrape. Then again, I can't recall obvious signs of damage from the movie (unless the trail of refuse was actually part-wreckage).

Substantial can actually be used a few ways, if you're not used to fighting your definition of substantial is going to be lower than a UFC fighter for example. Thus the damage likely was substantial, at least for what they expected from asteroids. Thinks like gun barrels likely needed changing and they were still suffering from that ion cannon earlier.

There's not really much to go on here, it could mean anything from a sevre hull breach to a slightly erratic communications array.

You still haven't answered my point, we know that the Avenger had suffered damage beforehand, but how does this compare to Imperial Navy shields simply brushing asteroids aside in all cases? Here we have an ISD with weakened shields suffering damage, but even the weakest Imperial Ship has shields capable of ignoring such detrius. Only when their shields are down completely do Imperial Navy ships run the risk of damage. If anything an Imperial Navy shield looks to be a lot better, since their shields recharge rapidly if one or two are knocked down.

Well, both universes would have their ships would shrug of asteroids with ease if they were in good shape and become damage if they weren't. 40k ships tend to have a heavy prow so that may help them in that regard, but the spires and other smaller sections of the ship may also be in danger from hits if the shields drop. Especially those large open stained glass chapel windows. Over all though, I think we should expect both sides to come through okay with shields up or down as their hulls are designed to take larger than kiloton impacts.

Holy hell, did you just agree with me?

On shielding coming back, that's hard to say. We know that void shields do tend to get knocked out and come back quickly. We also know that Star Wars shields do the same and that projectors can shift focus to cover fallen sections and ships roll to expose fresh sections while weakened ones recharge. In this case I don't think it was that the shields were knocked out, it's that there was significant damage down to the main power grid of the Avenger and that was hampering them.

A crippled Imperial Cruiser would still have void shields, albiet weakened, unless the actual void shield generator itself recieved damage (while the ship was unshielded). This weakened shield would still brush aside asteroids with ease.

Well that's relatively easy. If the shield on a ~~Cobra~~ Sword Class Frigate is capable of roughly the same protection, if not better, as an ISD, then a larger Imperial Navy ship, with shields usually quadruple the strength of a Sword Class Firgate would fare a lot better.

On reflection, a Sword or Firestorm Class Frigate is a better example, seeing as I can't recall the specifics of cobra class escorts.

Asteroids are the lowest end things we ever see hit an ISD, so shrugging them off isn't exactly impressive. Even the falcon took a few hits it couldn't evade in the field and took several hist from TIE's in the previous movie. We know that fighters have low kilotons to tens of kilotons of laser power so that's rather impressive. We also know that it can't take many though, and that she wasn't in peak shape at Hoth.

Fighters do what now?

Seeing as two out of three of the original Star Wars movies involve fighters destroying Super Weapons, isn't this pot calling kettle black?

And yes, a grot can kill a space marine. It's extremely unlikely, but still plausible. Why wouldn't it be?
Furthermore, I think game mechanics can be used to some extent. For example, we can use game mechanics to show that flak armour doesn't offer any real protection from bolter rounds, while carapace armour does. When it comes to range though you can dismiss ridiculous things, like how 38 millenia now the range of all weapons is less than a stones throw, becuase it contradicts other sources that offer a more logical explanation.

That involved fighters killing a ship that had a weakness to their main weapons and a crew that didn't want to send fighters out. Even so it took a Jedi to make the shot and had he failed they would have been done for. Few others in that or any other galaxy could make the shot and even less have technology able to follow his guidance while being small enough to go down the shaft.

He wasn't a Jedi (even an apprentice) during the attack, but he was Force Sensitive. Still, it's an example of a fighter killing a Superweapon. As unlikely and impossible as it would initially seem, someone did it (twice).

Things like an ISD don't have these glaring flaws and thus should hold up better, especially because unlike the Death Star they're shields weren't the weakest thing about them.

It has always struck me as rather hilarious that ISD seem impervious to fighters, but the bigger fellas (such as the SSD) can't handle them.

Flak armor will tend to not stop a bolter round in the books as well.

Yep, and where fluff and tabletop agree, we can see that the tabletop is reliable in that regard.

What exactly would a weapon with 10 light minutes range be shooting at?

But yes, a source that shows that such range is standard, rather than the exception, would be useful.

Space stations, cities on a planet, ships in a known orbit and the like. It won't be much use against anything maneuvering, but it does show that they have exceptionally fine turret control to even make such a shot.

It still seems extreme. You could be a tenth of that range and likely far outside the range of more common Space armanents.

I'm still trying to find data on star ship combat, it's not one of the more commonly cited things so it's taking time.

...er, Good luck?

**Toastedandy**

Canadian 5th wrote:
Toastedandy wrote:But the problem is, that because of lack of fluff on the details of all the weapons, the only way we can get any reference figures, is from the tabletop. But as we all know, the tabletop is out of proportion, you can see this from the size of marines, guardsmen and even the tanks.

Not really, you get data from the books and the descriptions there. The table top is an abstraction of what happens in the fluff.

But there is little or no data in the books. All of it is subjective, it will vary from author to author and even in each edition.

Canadian 5th wrote:
And what is your problem with countries that doesn't have Engish as their first language? People are at least trying...
You are not one of those guys who thinks that North America is the whole world?

Americans and Brits are as bad as anybody at times.

His first language isn't English, that is the point he is making. You keep telling him in a condescending manner that his English isn't up to scratch. I can understand him perfectly well, sure there will be grammar mistakes, but he has excellent English.

**Canadian 5th**

Emperors Faithful wrote:No, what I've said, and what other people here are saying, is that you can't do such a thing for 40k. You've said you can, so by all means go for it.

Have I not been doing so?

But you implied that 'days' (numbering between 1-7) was the very minimum by adding 'at least'. It's okay, it's just a little thing, so the adult thing would be to fess up and say you were incorrect in making such an implication.

Yes, because I knew that it was a few days at least. Hence at least, it was never my intention to make it seem longer than it was.

The point still stands that the Imperial Navy shields operate just as well, if not better, than ISD's travelling through asteroid fields.

They operate at roughly the same level against the impacts. However those impacts are far less energetic than weapons fire so it shouldn't surprise anybody.

There's not really much to go on here, it could mean anything from a sevre hull breach to a slightly erratic communications array.

Indeed, and that's one of the tough parts of doing this.

Holy hell, did you just agree with me?

This thread I've simply been trying to answer questions, this is a learning thread. Not any sort of debate.

A crippled Imperial Cruiser would still have void shields, albiet weakened, unless the actual void shield generator itself recieved damage (while the ship was unshielded). This weakened shield would still brush aside asteroids with ease.

That's hard to say. Given that we don't see much damage to the Avenger it's really hard to say how it did compared to a 40k vessel suffering in a similar way. We simply don't have enough data at this time.

Fighters do what now?

The lasers on a fighter have been calculated to output kilotons of energy per shot from a few sources.

He wasn't a Jedi (even an apprentice) during the attack, but he was Force Sensitive. Still, it's an example of a fighter killing a Superweapon. As unlikely and impossible as it would initially seem, someone did it (twice).

The first time was luck, and the second time was bad planning due to the Emperor having tunnel vision. It's unlikely he sets the same type of trap for another person besides Luke.

It has always struck me as rather hilarious that ISD seem impervious to fighters, but the bigger fellas (such as the SSD) can't handle them.

Actually, the Executor wasn't downed just by a fighter. It was attacked by the entire rebel fleet and they managed to down the shields. You can see part of what was going on in the movie, they say that shields are down and to intensify point defense fire in the area lest something slip through. It just so happens that a quick and nimble A-Wing dodged most of the flak and happened to crash into the unshielded bridge before they could either cover it with another section of shield, or bring the section back online. You can find more details in the novelization of the movie.

Yep, and where fluff and tabletop agree, we can see that the tabletop is reliable in that regard.

Yes, the table top can agree with the fluff at times, at others not so much. Given that the fluff gives more to work with it's best to stick with that approach and explain away differences on the table as an abstraction. Much like Chess and Go are abstractions of warfare.

It still seems extreme. You could be a tenth of that range and likely far outside the range of more common Space armanents.

Indeed, meaning that this ship might be able to bombard from outside the range where other ships simply can't see or aim at them well enough to return fire. Rather useful if you ask me.

...er, Good luck?

Thanks, believe it or not I don't have any Star Wars books currently. So I'll have to borrow them or see if I can find them in the bargain section sometime. When do I'll PM you with what I find.

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Toastedandy wrote:But there is little or no data in the books. All of it is subjective, it will vary from author to author and even in each edition.

That is less true than you may think. Sure some details change, but it's easy to say that the book takes place somewhere with slightly different gear. The IoM isn't exactly one uniform whole so that tends to help. Also, things tend to end up close even though changes. The most common things that change are lasguns and bolters actually, and they are usually described in such a way that being a different model of weapon is entirely likely.

Canadian 5th wrote:His first language isn't English, that is the point he is making. You keep telling him in a condescending manner that his English isn't up to scratch. I can understand him perfectly well, sure there will be grammar mistakes, but he has excellent English.

That quote wasn't actually a dig at him at all though. It's a general attitude on this site and you can see that many native speakers have worse English than some nonnative speakers, or people who speak it as a third language even though they learned it from a young age.

**Toastedandy**

I still don't see how one can calculate the power of certain weapons/vehicles from descriptions. Unlike SW, where the weapons would have an indepth description, alot of weapons in 40k, (in the fluff) would simply be descriptive. And if you reference the rules for the tabletop game, you will have to include all of the rules in the game, you would not be able to pick and choose stuff that will fit.

I have no problem with grammatical errors, mostly I would be able to understand it no problem. But you should understand that alot of the people on this site would be young. The hobby is aimed at people of that age.

And in regards to the attitude of this site, if you show respect, you get respect. While if you be a jerk, people will be jerks to you.

**Emperors Faithful**

Canadian 5th wrote:
Emperors Faithful wrote:No, what I've said, and what other people here are saying, is that you can't do such a thing for 40k. You've said you can, so by all means go for it.

Have I not been doing so?

Not really. As you yourself said, there just isn't a lot of data on the 40k side of things.

Fighters do what now?

The lasers on a fighter have been calculated to output kilotons of energy per shot from a few sources.

Could I get a source for this? I've never seen evidence of fighters putting out shots that measure up to the blast from Hiroshima.

It has always struck me as rather hilarious that ISD seem impervious to fighters, but the bigger fellas (such as the SSD) can't handle them.

Actually, the Executor wasn't downed just by a fighter. It was attacked by the entire rebel fleet and they managed to down the shields. You can see part of what was going on in the movie, they say that shields are down and to intensify point defense fire in the area lest something slip through. It just so happens that a quick and nimble A-Wing dodged most of the flak and happened to crash into the unshielded bridge before they could either cover it with another section of shield, or bring the section back online. You can find more details in the novelization of the movie.

Still, from the movie the ship doesn't appear to have suffered extensive physical damage from the other ships. It really was that one fighter that took out the bridge and caused it to crash.

Yep, and where fluff and tabletop agree, we can see that the tabletop is reliable in that regard.

Yes, the table top can agree with the fluff at times, at others not so much. Given that the fluff gives more to work with it's best to stick with that approach and explain away differences on the table as an abstraction. Much like Chess and Go are abstractions of warfare.

**Toastedandy**

10 lightminutes?! So if the weapon you are firing would reach its target within ten minutes, IF it were travelling at light speed. If not, it would take much longer. Would the power decrease over such a distance?

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:I still don't see how one can calculate the power of certain weapons/vehicles from descriptions. Unlike SW, where the weapons would have an indepth description, alot of weapons in 40k, (in the fluff) would simply be descriptive. And if you reference the rules for the tabletop game, you will have to include all of the rules in the game, you would not be able to pick and choose stuff that will fit.

I have no problem with grammatical errors, mostly I would be able to understand it no problem. But you should understand that alot of the people on this site would be young. The hobby is aimed at people of that age.

And in regards to the attitude of this site, if you show respect, you get respect. While if you be a jerk, people will be jerks to you.

You can get a fair bit of data from looking at what weapons do in the fluff. Star Wars hasn't had any details like those in the ICS until recently anyway. Also, the rules for the tabletop are most certainly abstractions as we can all agree that scale, range, and the like aren't all that realistic.

As for grammar, being young isn't the much of an excuse. I'm only 23 and some of the people that are bad are older than that and some not much younger. It's an effort thing.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Not really. As you yourself said, there just isn't a lot of data on the 40k side of things.

There will be some holes in the data, and things like an exact number will rarely be possible. That said you can get things like rough firepower estimates and rough troop numbers.

Could I get a source for this? I've never seen evidence of fighters putting out shots that measure up to the blast from Hiroshima.

Sure, though this bit isn't my own work.

Mike Wong wrote:Laser Cannons

TIE fighters are armed with "laser cannons", although the characteristics of these cannons are anything but laser-like. The nature and properties of laser cannons are both very well known and there is no need to repeat a discussion of those phenomena here unless you recruits have been neglecting your studies. However, we have some preliminary analysis on a possible quantification of those weapons in Federation units.

From Luke Skywalker's strafing run in the Battle of Yavin, a single hit upon the unshielded surface of the Death Star could be seen to cause a large flash of superheated material, enough to engulf an entire X-Wing fighter and cause thermal damage to its hull despite its shields. Since armor is not flammable and lasers do not create wide-area flashes directly, one can conclude that large portions of the Death Star's surface buildings are flashing to vapor during Luke's strafing run.

Because of the shallow angle of approach and the fact that the flashes vary in size and brightness, it is difficult to gauge the actual amount of destruction being done. However, in order to create a flash of vapour the size of an X-wing fighter, the individual blasts must be vapourizing at least one cubic metre of metal each. This is a very conservative estimate since the gas also had to shoot away from the surface so quickly it intercepted the hurtling starfighter, but it will have to suffice. At least 60GJ is required to vaporize a single cubic metre of ordinary iron, so this provides a lower limit for starfighter laser cannon energy.

We must stress the highly conservative nature of this estimate: the DS shell was constructed of heavy armor, and Imperial armor is far superior to simple iron. In The Stele Chronicles, a TIE fighter pilot deliberately flew his unshielded fighter into the atmosphere of a planet at high speed as an evasive maneuver. The unprotected armor and transparent front window of his fighter were totally unaffected by this event- an event that would easily push ordinary iron beyond its maximum service temperatures as the 20th century Space Shuttle's ceramic heat tiles demonstrate. Furthermore, Imperial dura-armor is made by "compressing and binding neutronium, lomite, and zersium molecules together through the process of matrix acceleration", according to the SWE. The use of neutronium micro-particles as interstitial alloying elements in dura-armor is strongly suggestive of extreme mechanical and thermal toughness.

"Isard's Revenge" contained a few passages describing the firepower of New Republic laser cannons, in narrative form:

pg. 7 "Two New Republic Assault Frigates, the Tyrant's Bane and Liberty Star, cruised in toward the Golan station. Though each ship was less than a third as long as the station, they bristled with fifty laser cannons and poured terajoules of coherent light into the Golan."
pg. 111 "Moonshadow was coming up and turning to port, its port-side batteries firing Direption's aft shields. Red and blue laser and ion cannon fire pumped terajoules of energy into the shields, but somehow they stayed up."

These quotes suggest that New Republic laser cannons (and ion cannons) unleash energy in the terajoule range (implying 1E12 to 1E15 joules, otherwise it would be into the petajoule range). The second quote is a bit vague, but it describes a pair of Star Destroyers doing battle. It should be noted that both ships were already heavily damaged, and are apparently left with nothing but their laser and ion cannons (since they had destroyed each others' heavy turbolaser turrets earlier in the battle). The novel does not describe the behaviour of turbolasers and heavy turbolasers in detail, except to say that a single heavy turbolaser volley is sufficient to collapse a corvette's shields and damage it so badly that it becomes a floating hulk. This is hardly surprising, given the firepower that heavy turbolasers are known to have.

Star Destroyers also carry laser cannons, arranged in quad-laser batteries along the side trenches. These turrets are designed to quickly track small fighters and the trench notches allow these turrets a large field of fire both above and below the vessel. Some questions remain: these weapons (both on the fighters and on the Star Destroyers) are explicitly described as laser cannons in all of the source material but they do not have the basic characteristics of lasers. They appear to travel at subluminal speed while lasers travel at exactly c. They are clearly visible in the vacuum of space while lasers would never be visible in vacuum. There are two possible resolutions to these conflicts:

The word "laser" is defined differently in the Star Wars universe. This is not a satisfactory explanation because the language of the Star Wars universe is not English and the films merely show everyone speaking English so that the audience can understand. Therefore, the dialect of English in the films is 20th century American English complete with all of its dialectic subtleties, as well as its technical terms such as "laser".

Imperial laser cannons use a tracer mechanism to make them visible. This mechanism acts as a targeting and visualization aid for fighter pilots and defensive gunners, and it consists of an energy discharge which follows the laser and glows visibly. Assuming that it consists of particles which have mass, the tracer will lag behind the laser itself. This would explain the fact that the TESB asteroids actually began melting before the visible tracer arrived.

Still, from the movie the ship doesn't appear to have suffered extensive physical damage from the other ships. It really was that one fighter that took out the bridge and caused it to crash.

It was a combination of damage suffered from the turbolasers of the rebel fleet, the fighter, and then being pulled into the gravity well of the Death Star after an engine misfire. Had the DS not been there then it would have recovered, or simply smashed through a smaller ship.

Yeah, having a range advantage is good and all, but 10 light minutes is still a ridiculous figure.

Indeed it does seem large, but those are the facts.

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Toastedandy wrote:10 lightminutes?! So if the weapon you are firing would reach its target within ten minutes, IF it were travelling at light speed. If not, it would take much longer. Would the power decrease over such a distance?

Yes, it would take at least 10 minutes unless the weapon was very special. However you don't lose power in vacuum like you do on earth. Projectiles don't slow, lasers spread only very little, and most other weapons would also be unaffected. Some things like particle beams, or plasma weapons could fade over distance though, but these are exceptions.

**Toastedandy**

Canadian 5th wrote:
Toastedandy wrote:I still don't see how one can calculate the power of certain weapons/vehicles from descriptions. Unlike SW, where the weapons would have an indepth description, alot of weapons in 40k, (in the fluff) would simply be descriptive. And if you reference the rules for the tabletop game, you will have to include all of the rules in the game, you would not be able to pick and choose stuff that will fit.

I have no problem with grammatical errors, mostly I would be able to understand it no problem. But you should understand that alot of the people on this site would be young. The hobby is aimed at people of that age.

And in regards to the attitude of this site, if you show respect, you get respect. While if you be a jerk, people will be jerks to you.

You can get a fair bit of data from looking at what weapons do in the fluff. Star Wars hasn't had any details like those in the ICS until recently anyway. Also, the rules for the tabletop are most certainly abstractions as we can all agree that scale, range, and the like aren't all that realistic.

As for grammar, being young isn't the much of an excuse. I'm only 23 and some of the people that are bad are older than that and some not much younger. It's an effort thing.

And the jerk thing?

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:And the jerk thing?

I can be a jerk, other people have been jerks back. I'm no less correct if I present data in a a pleasant fashion or if it's in a less pleasant way.

**Toastedandy**

But by that logic, then people should have a right to be a jerk back. You keep calling them on it, even if it is deserved.

Anyway, as I have said before, the massive lack of fluff apart from the descriptive which would be vague/exaggerated/inaccurate, it would be near impossible to get the calculations correct.

**Emperors Faithful**

Canadian 5th wrote:
Emperors Faithful wrote:Not really. As you yourself said, there just isn't a lot of data on the 40k side of things.

There will be some holes in the data, and things like an exact number will rarely be possible. That said you can get things like rough firepower estimates and rough troop numbers.

Troop numbers yes, there's solid fluff on that. But nothing to help with firepower or the like.

Could I get a source for this? I've never seen evidence of fighters putting out shots that measure up to the blast from Hiroshima.

Sure, though this bit isn't my own work.

Mike Wong wrote:*wall of text*

The conservative estimate of 60-100GJ mentioned here is much less impressive that that of several kilotons.

Still, from the movie the ship doesn't appear to have suffered extensive physical damage from the other ships. It really was that one fighter that took out the bridge and caused it to crash.

It was a combination of damage suffered from the turbolasers of the rebel fleet, the fighter, and then being pulled into the gravity well of the Death Star after an engine misfire. Had the DS not been there then it would have recovered, or simply smashed through a smaller ship.

Yeah, there are contributing factors. But we are still talking about a single fighter contributing (extensively) to the destruction of a Super Star Destroyer.

Yeah, having a range advantage is good and all, but 10 light minutes is still a ridiculous figure.

Indeed it does seem large, but those are the facts.

This is the part where you take such things with a grain of salt.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Canadian 5th wrote:
Toastedandy wrote:And the jerk thing?

I can be a jerk, other people have been jerks back. I'm no less correct if I present data in a a pleasant fashion or if it's in a less pleasant way.

No. This is dakka. That attitude isn't going to get you anywhere here.

**Canadian 5th**

Toastedandy wrote:But by that logic, then people should have a right to be a jerk back. You keep calling them on it, even if it is deserved.

Yup, I'll call them on it and if they want to call me on it fine. However this is getting off topic.

Anyway, as I have said before, the massive lack of fluff apart from the descriptive which would be vague/exaggerated/inaccurate, it would be near impossible to get the calculations correct.

Star Wars is the same, until the ICS for Episode 3 came out we had no hard numbers either. Yet people don't complain about that. 40k is somewhat more chaotic, but that can also make working with it more fun.

**Toastedandy**

But then, you have no right to question the attitude of this forum. You would get helpful replies if you didn't insult everyone's competence. Rather than trolls and people asking for the topic to be closed.

But 40K doesnt have an ICS (Don't know what it is, presume it has numbers for the weapons etc) so trying to work it out from descriptions will be impossible, but I have been proven wrong before, and I wish you the best of luck.

**Kilkrazy**

How do Imperial ships dump waste heat?

**Emperors Faithful**

Kilkrazy wrote:How do Imperial ships dump waste heat?

Are we talking 40k Imperial Navy or Star Wars Imperial, becuase...

Spoiler:

**Canadian 5th**

Kilkrazy wrote:How do Imperial ships dump waste heat?

There are actually a few ways this could be done. If you're referring to IoM ships, I don't think it has been explained though they could use heat sinks and some storage medium. You can also radiate heat by venting gas or a liquid after it absorbs the heat. In the case of Wars they radiate it as neutrinos.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Toastedandy wrote:But then, you have no right to question the attitude of this forum. You would get helpful replies if you didn't insult everyone's competence. Rather than trolls and people asking for the topic to be closed.

You assume that people don't support me in this. Just because they don't post in the thread doesn't mean people don't enjoy what I'm doing. Some have commented on the attitude, but most understand that it's frustration and not actual anger. It can be hard dealing with people who don't seem to try when you're making an effort. Sometimes it gets the better of me.

But 40K doesnt have an ICS (Don't know what it is, presume it has numbers for the weapons etc) so trying to work it out from descriptions will be impossible, but I have been proven wrong before, and I wish you the best of luck.

The ICS is Incredible Cross Sections, and it does show some good details on the ships it covers. It's true that 40k doesn't have anything similar, but then again people were doing this for Wars when they didn't have one either.

**Brother Coa**

Toastedandy wrote:

Canadian 5th wrote:
And what is your problem with countries that doesn't have Engish as their first language? People are at least trying...
You are not one of those guys who thinks that North America is the whole world?

Americans and Brits are as bad as anybody at times.

His first language isn't English, that is the point he is making. You keep telling him in a condescending manner that his English isn't up to scratch. I can understand him perfectly well, sure there will be grammar mistakes, but he has excellent English.

Thank you for compliment

**Grey Templar**

Why is how they dump waste heat an important thing?(aside from just wanting to know)

Lets figure out how powerful the weapons are and how strong their armor is.

lets also drop talking about people's grammer, spelling, and punctuation. its off topic and should only be reported to the Mods if it makes the post unreadable. I think everyones posts have been clearly legible thus far.

Now, back to the topic.

Your math is off, you punched in kilograms and meters per second, when you surely meant tons and forgot to use kilometers per second. That punches the numbers up from sub kiloton to 2 gigatons. Not bad for a lower end weapon.

I belive i did use Kilometers/sec.

from BL books, I belive it doesn't take more then a few seconds for weapons fire to cross these distances. assuming 3 seconds for contact with the target, that gives an estimated weapons velocity of 18,713.6 km/sec.

if we assume a Landraider sized projectile(as is said to be an example) made out of 260 cubic meters of Uranium(a dense material suitable for an armor piercing warhead)

this gives us a weight of 496.6 kilograms.

(1/2)496.6 Kilograms times 18,713.6 km/sec squared gives us a kinetic energy value of 8.9654x10^10 joules.

that gives us 86,954,368.25 KJ of force for a single slug fired in their hundreds by IoM ships.

yup. If i am still missing something please show me exactly. this is about as high as i can get with math.

a typical ship in BFG has an armor rating of 5+. this means you need to roll a 5+ to do damage with each shot you get. otherwise the shot either bounces, is absorbed by the armor, or hits a non-vital area.

each volly of these 86,954,368.25 KJ projectiles, I think 100 rounds would be a fair estimate to represent a single Weapon battery shot in game, has a 1/3 chance to deal damage to the typical BFG ship.

we can then say that it takes 3 of these vollys to deal 1 point of damage.

for sake of sanity, I will translate the number for these projectiles from Kilojoules into Gigajoules(1 billion joules)

a single round imparts 86.95 Gigajoules. rounded to 87.

100 rounds per volly gives 8,700 gigajoules.

3 vollys gives 26,100 gigajoules to deal 1 point of damage to a typical BFG imperial cruiser(on the side and rear. prow armor is better)

for comparason, 63,000 gigajoules was the approximate output of the Hiroshima atomic blast. 3 vollys from weapon batteries would have a lowball damage output of 1/2 an atomic bomb from impact alone.

this doesn't take into account the possability of the damage creating hull breaches. Imperial ships are built around sections, allowing them to be closed off in the event of a hull breach. a Ship can still function with most of its sections breached, although it may suffer a reduction in damage output.

Lances are a little different. they have a flat 4+ to cause damage and completely ignore a ships armor, only being stopped by shields.

40k shields work on a different principal to Star Wars shields.

Void Shields operate by "teliporting" the incoming fire into the warp. the energy of the object being deflected is irrelevent, but only shots which would cause actual damage are teliported in this way. near misses are ignored.

Voids can only be stressed beyond their ability to keep up with the warp portal generation so volume of fire is required to get past them, but the shields are always active and can't be brought down for a period of time like Star Wars shields can.

a Star Wars shield is like "We can take this much damage before the shield drops"

a Void shield is like "We can ignore this many individual shots per second. anything beyond that gets through and hits the armor"

Void shields can be disrupted by the presense of high levels of radiation(such as from explosions) and space junk. Void shields can block asteroids by Teliporting them into the warp as they would enemy fire.