# Could current military technology destroy the Death Star? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 19, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846 "2014-10-19T20:49:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/1 "2014-10-19T20:49:37Z")
Basically, the question is: do we currently have missiles, smart bombs, or large guns accurate enough to hit a target 2 meters wide and at what range? Nevermind their performance (or lack thereof) in space; I’m just interested in how small a target our current weapons systems could reliably hit and at what distance. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/2 "2014-10-19T21:44:50Z")
Any weapon accurate enough to be targeted at a human has more than enough accuracy to hit a 2-meter wide target. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/3 "2014-10-19T21:47:11Z")
The target is described as a “thermal exhaust port”, which means it’d probably be pretty easy to home in on it with a heat-seeker. Of course, this leaves open the question of whether the payload would be effective, but the aiming isn’t a problem. EDIT: > [@](#): > > Any weapon accurate enough to be targeted at a human has more than enough accuracy to hit a 2-meter wide target. Or a womp-rat. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/4 "2014-10-19T22:21:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Or a womp-rat. so some sort of T-16 is in order? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/5 "2014-10-19T22:53:28Z")
Even in futures with lasers and phasers and graviton guns and the like, nukes seem to be a trump card. I don’t see how SW tech could protect against a 2, 10, 50 megaton blast. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/6 "2014-10-19T23:46:00Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Even in futures with lasers and phasers and graviton guns and the like, nukes seem to be a trump card. I don’t see how SW tech could protect against a 2, 10, 50 megaton blast. In space a nuke is simply a very brief, very bright, X-ray source; there is no significant “blast”. Since the Death Star already has to be pretty well rad-shielded to keep the crew alive in interstellar space for a long term, a nuke going off nearby may have very little weapons effect. Now if you get it down the exhaust port & set it off somewhere near the interior, now you’ve probably got a different result. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/7 "2014-10-19T23:55:13Z")
Well, the Empire doesn’t consider a low yield, tactical device to be a threat, or they’d have a tighter defense. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/8 "2014-10-20T00:00:46Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Basically, the question is: do we currently have missiles, smart bombs, or large guns accurate enough to hit a target 2 meters wide and at what range? Nevermind their performance (or lack thereof) in space; I’m just interested in how small a target our current weapons systems could reliably hit and at what distance. Do we have to “hit” the target, or simply put weapons effects on it? A 155mm artillery shell will destroy the heck out of any non-armored vehicle or building out to about 10-15 meters. So if we can drop one within 10m of the target, does that count? If so we can do that all day with guided artillery. [M712 Copperhead - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M712_Copperhead) Max range 16 km. Ditto GPS & laser guided bombs. Given enough refueling support for the aircraft, B-2s can hit any point on earth after taking off from the US. So the range is functionally infinite, at least on this planet. In good conditions I could drop dumb 500# bombs with 15 meter accuracy all day long. And I wasn’t even that good. The bombs had a lethal radius against soft targets of about 50m. Our max practical combat range with refueling was about 2000 miles each way. Much longer and we’d be too exhausted to fly safely towards the end. We also dropped the 2000# version with slightly better accuracy. It has a lethal radius against soft targets of more like 150m. A miss by 15m would leave the target inside the bomb’s crater; only heavily armored bunkers are going to survive that. ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/9 "2014-10-20T00:14:11Z")
Luke turned off his targeting computer and made the shot on instinct alone. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/10 "2014-10-20T00:26:51Z")
Yeah, Star Wars is extremely inconsistent in its technology. Almost every offensive weapon in Star Wars is inferior to weapons we have today. The exception is the Death Star’s superlaser which is ludicrously overpowered. Assuming 100% efficiency, that superlaser needs as much energy as our entire sun puts out in 1/4 second. If you vented that waste heat out of a 2-meter portal, the superlaser would be redundant. Furthermore, you might mistake the Death Star for a star, but never for a moon. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/11 "2014-10-20T00:27:42Z")
If for some reason we can’t just drop something sufficiently explosive down the exhaust port, what about going for a [mission kill](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mission_kill) instead? The big dish that the “superlaser” comes out of looks to be at least several miles to tens of miles wide, which is big but not impossibly big. Granted, nukes IN SPACE are actually less effective in many ways than nukes in atmo, but on the other hand, the tributary beams come from a series of points around the rim of the dish before converging. (There may also be some techno-babble device in the center of the dish to “focus” the beams as they converge and make them join together into one big planet-destroying super-beam.) Point is, we wouldn’t even necessarily have to completely blow up the entire dish to disable the Death Star’s main weapon. So, what if we Earthlings hit various parts of the dish with multiple high-yield thermonuclears (fused as “ground bursts”; i.e., detonating in direct contact with the hull, so we aren’t just flooding the place with X-rays and such against which the Empire’s ray-shielding would likely be pretty effective.) Could we at least prevent the Earth-shattering _kaboom!_ that way? ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/12 "2014-10-20T00:36:37Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In space a nuke is simply a very brief, very bright, X-ray source; there is no significant “blast”. > > Since the Death Star already has to be pretty well rad-shielded to keep the crew alive in interstellar space for a long term, a nuke going off nearby may have very little weapons effect. > > Now if you get it down the exhaust port & set it off somewhere near the interior, now you’ve probably got a different result. I think you’re underestimating a nuke. All those x-rays have to be absorbed by something, and they impart energy when that happens. In an atmosphere, they’re absorbed almost instantly, the air heats and you get the classic blast. In space, the x-rays are absorbed by armor. If you missed your target by a few miles, it might get so little radiation that it could handle the heating of the hull. In that sense, nukes in space aren’t very effective. However, if you actually \*hit \*a space ship with your nuke, the armor is going to do exactly the same thing the air did on Earth: superheat into plasma and expand with explosive force. There’s no substance (even in theory) that can withstand a megaton of gamma rays from a distance of a meter. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/13 "2014-10-20T01:26:49Z")
It’s shielded, so don’t send Liotta or Romano. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/14 "2014-10-20T01:56:02Z")
I’m still trying to decide if the OP is really asking about destroying a Death Star in space or is just asking whether how well we can damage a 2 meter wide culvert mouth on Earth. The title says one thing but the post backs away from all that. As to nukes, I agree a contact-burst nuke would tear the heck out of any structure in space. At least any structure we know how to build. And even if you’re only close the x-ray flux would pump a lot of heat into the surface of a less-than 100% x-ray reflective target. \*If \*the aliens have Star Trek style “shields” that really work then all bets are off. As far as \*we \*know that’s pure unobtanium though. One thing’s pretty sure, and that’s that we don’t have systems today that could target anything much above a middlin’ Earth orbit. Given a couple decades we could build a more robust plantetary defense system. But if the DS shows up tomorrow we’re screwed, nukes or not. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/15 "2014-10-20T02:01:20Z")
While nuclear bursts might be [surprisingly ineffective in space](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Nukes_In_Space), there are ways this might be corrected. A [nuclear shaped-charge](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Nukes_In_Space--Nuclear_Shaped_Charges) for example, could focus the energy of a blast into a “self-forging penetrator followed a few microseconds later by a jet of hot plasma.” I loved that the remake of Battlestar Galactica prominently featured nukes as weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/16 "2014-10-20T03:14:06Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > Almost every offensive weapon in Star Wars is inferior to weapons we have today. Well, it _was_ a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/17 "2014-10-20T03:59:20Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > Yeah, Star Wars is extremely inconsistent in its technology. Almost every offensive weapon in Star Wars is inferior to weapons we have today. Well, I don’t know that I’d say _that_. The are shots on “camera”, as it were, of capital ships disintegrating pretty sizable asteroids, hand weapons carving huge chunks out of war droids, and blasting substantial chunks out of masonry walls. Sure, they don’t do those ugly things to the _heroes_, but heroes tend not to die when you shoot at them. The Force does that. Or something. Actually, though, the biggest problem with the Death Star is that the shot which took it looks like some kiind of plasma ball, but is described as a torpedo. It fires out in from of the fighter at some substantial acceleration, then made a 90 degree turn in less than a second, and then travelled the entire radius of the Death Star to hit the core. We also have no idea how powerful that explosive was, although it was evidently a weapon meant to engage heavier ships than fighters. Presumably, the port had some kind of shielding directly above it, which is why they had to come in low. Otherwise, they would have just gone straight for it from high orbit. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/18 "2014-10-20T12:57:09Z")
Couldn’t they just put some plywood over it or something? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/19 "2014-10-20T13:06:36Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Well, it _was_ a long time ago. The question isn’t time, it’s distance… could you hit something far, far away? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846/20 "2014-10-20T13:26:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In space a nuke is simply a very brief, very bright, X-ray source; there is no significant “blast”. I had to read this and the other comments about three times to try to grasp the argument. While a nuclear explosion in space won’t cause the vast devastation caused by (atmospheric) blast, every other one of its characteristics will be present and would be quite effective, barring something on the other side of “magic” in technology. The vague notion of “nuking” a space fleet by throwing bombs at it, earth-surface style, would probably be quite survivable by SW/ST ships. It’s even possible that Death Stars, Enterprise-XYZs etc. have radiation shielding that could stop the enormous gamma burst from, say, a 2MT warhead. However, an impact or near-impact shot from such a device would create a plasma fireball at least several hundred yards in diameter that would (and has) vaporized every known substance on contact. You’re talking about poking ships with a piece of active star material… and while I might choose a 2MT device to annoy Kirk, I’d reach for a 50 to make sure Vader learned about the real “force.” The usual trope in sf/f is that nukes are just so, so 'orrible that ethical captains won’t use them even in extremis. So they piddle around with beams and flashbang torpedoes and 412s. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-current-military-technology-destroy-the-death-star/701846.md?page=2)