Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer... again!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, it’s started again, as a bit of a hijack to the Utterly Pointless Sci-Fi Debate. So once again we have the two fictional juggernauts of two of the most popular Space Opera series of all time… an Imperial (or Imperator) II-class Star Destroyer (henceforth to be abbreviated as “ISD”) and the U.S.S. Enterprise-D (henceforth to be abbreviated as “E-D”). Why not use the Enterprise-E? Well, frankly, we don’t know as much about it.

In any case, let’s get a rundown of the champions…

Enterprise-D

Strengths:

-Much longer ranges. Phaser range is supposedly in excess of 100,000 kilometers, and proton torp ranges are more then tenfold.

-Better sublight speed and maneuverability. Its yaw, pitch, and roll rates make it act much like a WWII-era fighter plane.

-Can separate into two vessels, the saucer section and the battle section. The latter is more powerful than the former.

-Transporters. If they can make a hole in the ISD’s shields, they can start doing funky things to them. Additionally, they can nullify the threat of TIE fighters with the transporter (as the TIE’s are unshielded).

Weaknesses:

-They’re more reliant upon non-conventional tactics, such as “rerouting” things through the deflector dish. Such tactics take up valuable time. Further, they often delay action to discuss a situation amongst themselves on the bridge.

-Erratic ship strength. Sometimes the E-D can withstand brutal amounts of punishment (such as its first encounter with a Borg cube), and other times a single love-tap can destabilize its warp core (the instance when the U.S.S. Bozeman “collided” with it in Cause and Effect).

-Porous shields. Oftentimes, the shields allow “splash damage” to leak through and damage the ship. Theoretically, this can cause the ship to take significant damage while still maintaining its shield integrity.

-Only a tiny percentage of the ship is given over to weaponry/defenses. The vast bulk of the vessel is designed for diplomatic functions, which means that it’s carrying a lot of “dead weight” into battle.

-Very centralized systems. A lucky shot at a single section of the ship can completely neutralize its weapons array, or eliminate its propulsion systems.

Disputed:

-“Warp strafing”. This is the tactic that has the E-D able to flit around its target while in warp, firing phasers and photon torpedoes. Another variation is that it goes to warp, drops out a few tens of thousands of kilometers away, fires a few times, and then goes back to warp. The former, I think, is implausible (we’ve never seen it), while the latter should be within the capabilites of the E-D (at least for short periods of time), even though we’ve also never seen it.

Star Destroyer

Strengths:

-Far more weapons. Over a hundred weapons emplacements (60 turbolasers and 60 ion cannons, according to the SW Encyclopedia). These range from the light turbolaser batteries that dot alongside the central axis of the ship, to the heavy turbolasers mounted on enormous turrets on the dorsal-aft section of the ship.

-Greater size. The E-D is 650 meters long, the ISD is 1600 meters long. This basically means that there’s more ship that the E-D needs to destroy in order to penetrate the ISD’s reactor core.

-Superior FTL speeds. Hyperspace is many thousands of times faster than Warp. This gives the ISD a great advantage in terms of initiating an ambush, or retreating should things get too dicey.

-Support ships. In addition to 72 TIE fighters (three or four squadrons of normal TIEs, one or two squadrons of TIE Interceptors, and a squadron of TIE bombers), there are eight Lambda-class shuttles (those tri-winged ones we saw in ROTJ), fifteen stormtrooper transports (although these are probably worthless in space combat), five assault gunboats (these are nicely powerful starfighters), an unspecified number of Skipray blastboats (more than two or three, I’d imagine) and Gamma-class assault shuttles. This basically means that the ISD can potentially swarm the E-D with targets.

Weaknesses:

-Shorter ranges. Turbolaser blasts have, at the very least, a range of a few hundred kilometers (planetary bombardment, don’tcha know), and at most a few thousand kilometers.

-Less diversity. A Star Destroyer isn’t capable of emitting or manipulating energy fields to the extent that the E-D can be. This leaves them vulnerable to the E-D’s technobabble.

-Ego. Imperial officers are haughty sumbitches, which means that they may underestimate the E-D and make a fatal mistake.

-Maneuverability. These things take FOREVER to make a turn (compared to the nimble E-D, that is). For all intents and purpose, an ISD is a stationary target (except for its hyperspace capabilities).

Disputed:

-The Microjump. The standard SW-suggested method of countering a Trek ship’s greater range and/or Warp Strafing. While its exact range limits are unknown, it’s suggested that it can be used by the ISD to pull right alongside the E-D and unleash a barrage of turbolaser blasts. At worst, two microjumps may be needed.

-Shields. There’re big arguments over whether or not the two globes atop the ISD’s bridge tower are shield generators or not. I propose that they are not, as the original blueprints (made for ANH) described them as sensor domes. Further, no other capital ship displays such external shield generation domes (they’re always internal). Finally, they resemble radar domes that exist on modern-day battleships.

Anyway, there’re the two ships. For the sake of debate, there are a few rules: No superpowered beings. This means no Q, and no Darth Vader. Second: No time travel.

I think my own opinions on the matter are well-known… go ISD! But what say you, my fellow Teeming Millions? You think the Enterprise is going to pull off the impossible… again? Or do you think the Imperial might is, once again, going to squash the opposition like a bug?

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I think the Star Destroyer would win, and not just because i despise all things star trekian. I think the support ships would make up for the lack of range(and if the microjump works thats moot anyway). once the ISD was in range the overwealming firepower would completely decimate the enterprise. The combination of TIEs ,gunboats and the ISDs extreme size would make it nearly impossible for the Enterprise to do enough damage before being destroyed

5-HT the happy neurotransmitter

3

I think an issue that needs to be covered more to determine the outcome is sensor capability. Given that both ships have excellent evasion techniques due to their different FTL capabilities (how can a Stardestroyer track a vessel traveling at warp? how could the Enterprise possibly keep up with a jumping ISD?) I think that any combat between the two would involve a lot of hit and run.

I am not conversant enough in either ‘universe’ to make a strong argument for either vessel, but my gut feeling gives the edge to the Enterprise. They’re constantly twiddling with and improving their sensors, whereas Imperial pilots merely whine, ‘They’re gone from our scopes.’

Anyway I think the crucial factors are:

  • Ability to detect the enemy ship
  • Ability to detect incoming fire
  • Ability to hit and run
  • Ability to evade

What are you thought’s on the ships in this context? It seems the E-D has the edge in hit and run (longer weapon’s range), detection as I said I’m not sure on, and evasion mostly depends on crew reaction time since both ships should be safe once they hit FTL.

My .02.

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Another thing to keep in mind, Ikujinashi (excellent point about sensors, by the way), is that the Federation, for some reason, has always been reluctant to use their vessels to their fullest extent. I mean, I said that phasers supposedly have a range of over 100,000 kilometers, but they consistently engage the enemy at ranges of three or four kilometers, at most.

My own theory is a combination of phaser strength getting weaker and weaker as its range increases (ultimately making it degrade into nothingness), and Starfleet personnel being hesitant to fight. “First contact” rules and all. Further, they’d waste even more precious seconds trying to communicate with the ISD. In my opinion, this hesitation on their part would get them killed.

However, I agree that the ISD would not be able to track the Enterprise in warp, since subspace is an alien thing to them.

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I wouldn’t put too great a stock on the range of phasers and photon torpedoes. There appears to be some sort of inability to use them beyond visual range. Ships are always at grab-a-belt-loop-knife’em distances when they fight in the Star Trek universe. Sensors, too, appear to kick in shortly after a potential threat becomes visible.

The one thing that matters above all others is that the Star Destroyer is a purpose-built warship. It exists solely to whack the snot out of anything it can catch, and it’s designed specifically to take severe damage and keep fighting. Imperials don’t like limiting themselves to a fair fight, either. Imperial tactics would dictate multiple Star Destroyers, Victory-class Destroyers, Corellian Corvettes, and Interdictors (whose effectiveness might be debateable against Star Trek’s drive system). The Enterprise, on the other hand, would be negotiating alone right up to the point that the first wave of TIE bombers fired their torpedoes.

Star destroyers are ready to be boarded- you could transport the entire yellow-shirt brigade to the SD’s bridge, and I doubt that six half-interested stormtroopers would break a sweat blasting them to component atoms. Small unit tactics do not appear to exist in the Star Trek universe.

There are no civilians aboard a Star Destroyer to get in the way, none of the holodecks, bars, and extravagant personal quarters that appear to be the whole of the Enterprise. They’re all muscle, where the Enterprise has a shocking amount of fat.

It all boils down to purpose- giving diplomats guns does not make them soldiers. They fight reluctantly, and their tactics are extravagantly clever rather than doctrinally sound. Veteran soldiers, even if their equipment is slightly inferior, will make short work of them.

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Ookay… Photon torpedoes seem to be wimpy little weapons (although I’ve read otherwise). Maybe Geordi can rig up a more powerful warhead…

The Enterprise could do it’s best to stay out of weapons range, and it could try to pound the ship to dust, targeting specifically the hangars and weapons (with warp-speed, and therefore, undetectable torpedoes, too). It could win, but I’m betting on the dedicated combat vessel if the Enterprise blunders into turbolaser range.

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SPOOFE, I agree that the Federation is generally a lot more namby-pamby than the Imperial Navy. However, I doubt that an ISD opens fire on every vessel it encounters. Tractor beams it, interrogates the crew thoroughly, but probably not vaporize on sight. Their first contact directives probably aren’t cushy hands off Federation policy, but it’s tough to find new planets to subjugate if you annihilate first ask questions later.

Lets construct a scenario that would set these two mighty ships at each other’s throats… if the Empire and Federation were at war an ISD would definitely shoot first and ask questions later and I think the Federation would find the Empire morally repugnant enough to attack ISD’s on sight (they didn’t give much quarter to Borg or the Dominion).

To flesh it out even more, lets says the ISD and Enterprise emerge simultaneously from hyperjump/wormhole transit. I think that the next plausible step would be for the ISD to open up its can of whoopass, and the E-D to immediately begin evading. If you grant that the E-D could escape this immediate confrontation that sets up the cat-and-mouse (cat-and-cat?) that I postulated.

Another thing to consider is crew readiness/fatigue. I think that if each captain is focused on surviving while destroying the enemy that this could be a very long battle, especially using find, hit, run tactics. This could eventually give the edge to the ISD, as it seems they have a much larger complement of capable pilots, whereas the Enterprise doesn’t seem to have too many backup bridge crews (I assume Data’s out having lunch with Vader).

On preview I see that Trucido disagrees with the estimated phaser range. Looks like we need a mediator :). Should the ships be judged based on canonical specs or performance on the screen? I’ll play the Devil’s advocate and attack the purpose built warship argument. I don’t think it really floats. The ships should be compared as quantitatively as possible. One of those Greek ships with a ram and oars was a purpose-built warship, but I wouldn’t give it much of a shot against a modern yacht that a South Pacific pirate mounted a machine gun on. Top speed, range, weapon lethality, and draft would be more important in reaching a conclusion than ‘purpose of design.’ The crew comparison is good though. An E-D boarding crew wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

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ST universe shields are specifically modulated to blocks Transporters. [sub]Is this the cause of “splash” problems?[/sub]

If you don’t have transporters, you don’t know that you need shield configurations to block them.

The ISD is wide open. Beam out the core of their main power plant. :smiley:
Question–What is the power source for ISDs? I have always assumed Nuclear Fusion. The Ent.uses matter-antimatter. More raw energy.
Various Enterprise Tech manuel state that there are specific deflector shields used to remove asteroids from the ship’s path when traveling FTL. Necessary to avoid a big KABOOM.
Would these function as an effective defence vs. fighters, shuttles, et al?

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Errr… that last sentence of my post doesn’t seem all that clear. What I meant was something to the effect of ‘a boarding party of StarFleet personnel from the E-D transported onto an ISD wouldn’t have a prayer.’

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E-D has to lower her own shields to do this. ISD and fighters pound her to vapor or knock the transporters off-line before they succeed.

Almost certainly not. E-D’s navigational deflector array is an extremely long-range, low-power system that nudges debris out of the way before it gets close enough to be a threat. Think of it as a snow plow. It might have some effect on proton torpedoes/concussion missiles fired from dead ahead, but that’s about it.

ISDs are armored. E-D is thin-skinned. Under most circumstances, E-D can’t take an extended pounding, even with shields up. E-D’s systems are likely to fail when they’re most needed; ISDs can keep fighting until they blow up or have their systems ionized.

While Interdictor cruisers might not be effective, they aren’t part of a one-on-one fight, nor need they be. ISDs have rather powerful tractor beams. Once E-D drops out of warp, an ISD can latch right on – we’ve never seen that Star Wars shields have any effect on tractor beams. ISD might be able to prevent E-D from going to warp, or even from maneuvering under impulse power.

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Ikujinashi, I think we can handle a little disagreement. Even if you go with canonical specs, you’re still up against tactical limitations. The extra range on a photon torpedo or phaser doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t used. That is to say, the range limitation could just as easily be tactical as it could technical. As to purpose-built warships, we’re not talking about galley vs. motor yacht. We’re talking about luxury yacht versus military frigate. Also, do you really feel that assigning such a broad technological gap is necessary? We’re comparing relatively close levels of tech, different though they may be.

I also think of the battle as hinging on the fast-moving swarms of TIE bombers- canonically, they have weapons capable of damaging and destroying capital ships. With tractor beams or damage keeping the Enterprise from warp speed, you can very quickly bring hundreds of torpedoes into play, where the Enterprise normally launches two or three at a time.

Additionally, Star Wars shields have always been represented as very solid. There’s no modulating phasers to go through them, and few tricks beyond actually pummeling through the shields.

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They are in fact shield generators. See this picture for the details.

Anyone want anymore info on that card game, I’ll answer anything you want to know :slight_smile:

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Ikujinashi…

Yeah, that’s the more realistic result. What I meant was that the Federation is more hesitant to go all-out, while an Imperial officer would have no qualms about overkill, once the fighting starts.

Bosda…

Ray shields block EVERY external source of energy from penetrating, from all manner of cosmic radiation to weapons fire. Further, transporter beams can be disrupted by natural phenomenon as mild as simple atmospheric turbulence. They’re easy to disrupt.

There’re conflicting sources on that one. Some sources (such as starwars.com) describe it as a “miniature sun” (which would, indeed, imply “fusion”), but then go on to say that it also uses a “solar ionization reactor”… whatever that is. Mike Wong (www.stardestroyer.net) made the conclusion that SW’s “fusion” is not the same as the nuclear fusion that we know of today, as it is capable of using heavy, dense metals for fuel. Some of the novels describe a Star Destroyer as using a matter/antimatter reaction, like ST (which, since a Star Destroyer’s power core is MUCH larger than the E-D’s, would translate into shitloads more power).

Other estimates (such as Curtis Saxton’s extremely in-depth examination of the films) indicate that a Star Destroyer is capable of of producing hundreds of millions of Terawatts in energy simply for its weapon systems. Especially relevent is the description of the Base Delta Zero tactic, which calls for a single Star Destroyer to completely fry/melt/destroy the entire surface of a planet.

More information on turbolaser strength can be had at the Turbolaser Commentaries site.

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Trucido, the galley vs. motorboat example was simply a bit of hyperbole. SW and ST technology are portrayed quite differently and the levels are different in different areas. My main point was that purpose of design only applies if the designers have the same set tools.

As far as canonical specs go, I’m not expert enough in either mythology to make a go at hashing out what either ship is capable of. I’m enjoying proposing scenarios/tactics and asking those better informed than me what the capabilities of each ship is.

I agree that Imperial officers should have better tactical training than Starfleet officers. However, I’m not sure exactly what degree of advantage this should hold in a ship-to-ship fight. Certainly the ISD won’t do anything tactically foolish and would use its carrier capability to maximum effect (more on this later), but I don’t think that decreasing the E-D’s weapon range because of ‘tactical limitations’ is kosher. Because of targeting technology sure, but not because the captain doesn’t think he can fire a weapon from a distance that wouldn’t be picturesque.

The way I see my hypothetical encounter playing out is:
A. One side or the other’s magic technology works, game set match to that side (E-D can use transporters to wipe out the ISD’s bridge crew/reactors, ISD can use tractor beam to hold E-D for a spanking, etc.)
B. One ship cannot effect the other through conventional means (E-D technobabble hypermodulates the gludeon matrix of the shields to be impervious to weapon fire, ISD is built like a rock and the E-D could unload its entire armament for a day before crippling it)
or
C. Both ships are on at least the same magnitude. One might have longer range, one might have more devastating fire power, one might be more maneuverable, one definitely has a larger complement of fighters, etc.

I like looking at case C, and I really like my duck and run battle (can you tell?) idea. Right now I have the impression that the E-D has longer weapons range/better sensor capability and the ISD has more overwhelming firepower/stronger defense. It seems that the E-D’s best tactic in this situation is to hit and run and wear the ISD down. The ISD’s best tactic is probably to use its superior FTL travel to make many small jumps and open up on the E-D when they get lucky.

I don’t see the fighters/bombers playing a large role unless they have FTL capabilities, are difficult to detect (a bomber minefield), or the ISD has longer effective weapons range and can remain in normal space without needing to chase the E-D.

Any comments on my stackup of the strengths/weaknesses?

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Unless there’s a strange atmospheric condition. Or a particular ore (One of dozens) under the planetary surface. Or they’re just plain too far underground\behind a dense substance\random energy field.

**

It’s described as ‘fusion’, but presumably not nuclear fusion as we’d think of it. There’s a quote about an ISD jumping to hyper using more energy than some planetary nations use during their existance.

Lateralus, the card game isn’t canon, and I’m not sure if it’s even official. Either way, they’re still within the shields, so it’s not gonna help that much.

Warp strafing hasn’t been seen since TOS, though the Picard manouvre is quite neat (even if it’s been used what, twice?)

For a somewhat scary amount of information, go here for a blatantly pro-Wars viewpoint, or here for a blatantly pro-trek take.

Edit: From preview I see some people are ahead of me, but never mind. One more point, the ISD can simply head off to a UFP target, forcing the E-D to try and catch up with its slower FTL drive. OTOH, should the E-D try and break past to an Empire base the ISD can get there first.

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Well, if we want to compare the Star Wars CCG to the Star Trek CCG, that’d be useful. :smiley:

But seriously, Curtis Saxton discussed this (remember, there’re a lot of nerds out there… they discuss everything) here. Basically, the notion that they’re shield generators was started by West End Games, based on the now-infamous scene in ROTJ where a pair of A-wings shot one of the globes, causing it to blow up. The next scene showed one of the bridge officers say “We’ve lost the bridge deflector shields!”

What makes me think that they’re not shield generators was… well… the simple fact that the other globe was completely intact. Since the battle had been raging on for some time, a better alternative is that a near-constant barrage from the Rebel ships caused the shields to go down, and the destruction of the globe simply coincided with it, or let the Executor crew know that the shields had dropped.

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And Ikujinashi, I also like your option C. Either of your other options would leave us with no debate, and, well, that’d be boring, wouldn’t it?

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Of course it is. All cards are approved my Lucasfilm to make sure they agree with the story. It’s been specifically stated on the cardgame’s website that the cards can be considered an extension of the story.

I imagine an error that large wouldn’t be able to slip past Lucasfilm’s watchful eye. :slight_smile:

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This a manifestly a debate about the relative abilities of fictional starships from TV and films. Isn’t this what the Cafe Society is for?

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What about the tractor beam? The ISD could probably catch the Enterprise in a tractor beam, if they felt like it.

Not to mention the fact that the Imps ARE nasty SOBs, and would be more than willing to blast the shit out of the Enterprise.

I used to have a picture-and I probably LOST it-of a Star Destroyer firing on the Enterprise.

HOWEVER, the Enterprise COULD maybe pull a Han Solo, and hide out against the ISD, and then float away with the garbage, but I doubt that would happen.