The wedge shape is good for a warship in space. Optimized for defense with a slopping armored hull and attack with all weapons being able to point in one direction. Whomever it was that designed it knew what he was doing.
The wedge shape is good for a warship in space. Optimized for defense with a slopping armored hull and attack with all weapons being able to point in one direction. Whomever it was that designed it knew what he was doing.
Sucks to be in either end when it has to turn, though.
Sucks to be in either end when it has to turn, though.
I look at it like this; Star Destroyers are brawlers. The way hyperspace works, opponents will be able to engage one another at point blank range relatively easily and regularly. With that being the case, they rely on turreted weapons to compensate for a ship's ungainliness.
However it is depicted in the movies and the TV shows (which are really stupid and inconsistent as far as combat goes), there's a certain logic to how the Star Destroyer is supposed to move and fight within the setting, what kind of tactics it'd use to win.
Lots of series are thoughtful like that. Like, Legend of Galactic Heroes, the ships are long, have very limited weapon arcs, and take forever to close with opponents. They fight at ranges that can be measured in light seconds. The primary weapons are designed to be effective at those ranges, the entire ship has to be turned and pointed at a target, and rather than accuracy, the ships line up in Napoleonic gun lines and perform mass barrages.
The weapons are uncomplicated, but powerful. All of the armor and shielding is at the front of the ship, with little on the sides and rear. This is how they fight because whatever leverage you could get from fighting in a 3D space is lost because closing the gap with the enemy is practically impossible.
I gotta say...I hate how stupid Star Wars is about space battles. All flash, no substance, and incredibly inconsistent.
I look at it like this; Star Destroyers are brawlers. The way hyperspace works, opponents will be able to engage one another at point blank range relatively easily and regularly. With that being the case, they rely on turreted weapons to compensate for a ship's ungainliness.
However it is depicted in the movies and the TV shows (which are really stupid and inconsistent as far as combat goes), there's a certain logic to how the Star Destroyer is supposed to move and fight within the setting, what kind of tactics it'd use to win.
Lots of series are thoughtful like that. Like, Legend of Galactic Heroes, the ships are long, have very limited weapon arcs, and take forever to close with opponents. They fight at ranges that can be measured in light seconds. The primary weapons are designed to be effective at those ranges, the entire ship has to be turned and pointed at a target, and rather than accuracy, the ships line up in Napoleonic gun lines and perform mass barrages.
The weapons are uncomplicated, but powerful. All of the armor and shielding is at the front of the ship, with little on the sides and rear. This is how they fight because whatever leverage you could get from fighting in a 3D space is lost because closing the gap with the enemy is practically impossible.
I gotta say...I hate how stupid Star Wars is about space battles. All flash, no substance, and incredibly inconsistent.
Well, Last Jedi really doubled down on "Star Wars is World War II in space", with their "Bombers" (actually called the "Star Fortress") being unabashed B-17 "Flying Fortress" knockoffs straight down to the iconic cockpits and pilots wearing leather bomber jackets and hats. See also: so far as capital ships are concerned, space is 2d, with only fighter planes getting to access 3-dimensionality in space, and the "bombers" have to fly "over" (universal up and down in space) the capital ship to "drop" their unguided dumb bombs.
At this rate, I won't be surprised if they try to somehow make the Empi Last Order have U-boats in space and somehow have a semi-capital ship that can "cloak" by going "under" the other capital ships, and force Y-wings to drop depth charges on the "surface" of space that sink down to the U-boat's level.
Well, Last Jedi really doubled down on "Star Wars is World War II in space", with their "Bombers" (actually called the "Star Fortress") being unabashed B-17 "Flying Fortress" knockoffs straight down to the iconic cockpits and pilots wearing leather bomber jackets and hats. See also: so far as capital ships are concerned, space is 2d, with only fighter planes getting to access 3-dimensionality in space, and the "bombers" have to fly "over" (universal up and down in space) the capital ship to "drop" their unguided dumb bombs.
At this rate, I won't be surprised if they try to somehow make the Empi Last Order have U-boats in space and somehow have a semi-capital ship that can "cloak" by going "under" the other capital ships, and force Y-wings to drop depth charges on the "surface" of space that sink down to the U-boat's level.
World War II in space would be awesome. The problem is it's not really world war II in space. Fighters and bombers are way way disproportionately powerful compared to big ships. Per Star Wars logic, a Corsair could destroy a battleship's turrets with it's machine guns. You know, the turrets that are designed to withstand being hit from battleship sized shells?
Warships in Star Wars have become little more than glorified set pieces that exist to get blown up by the plucky protagonists. They aren't real threats. Whatever logic exists in their design is not used by the writers and directors. Rather than look at what they've got to work with and building a scenario based on what is in play, they just put whatever they want on the screen on a whim.
So if anyone wants to and can get away with pouching Star Wars ship designs, I'm all for it. They are frankly being wasted.
World War II in space would be awesome. The problem is it's not really world war II in space. Fighters and bombers are way way disproportionately powerful compared to big ships. Per Star Wars logic, a Corsair could destroy a battleship's turrets with it's machine guns. You know, the turrets that are designed to withstand being hit from battleship sized shells?
Well, in Last Jedi, the turrets knocked out were the smaller-calibur anti-air guns. (The dreadnaught's cannons - the actual big guns - were apparently immune.) On the Yamato, for example, fighters could take out the gun directors that forced guns to be aimed manually, and most of the AA guns were unarmored turrets that had to be manned (and incidentally, in Star Wars, turrets are all manned, even though there's no reason a computer or drone wouldn't be a better gunner), and those absolutely were strafed by the fighters until all the gunners were dead. In fact, Yamato's last refit took out half the secondaries to add twice as many unarmored AA guns because they knew they were going to be swarmed with aircraft, so they added even more unprotected targets to the surface of the ship.
But yes, Star Wars designs are often much more vulnerable and less effective than actual WW2 ships, with far more glaring weak points like ludicrously exposed bridges with windows sitting on towers far away from the heavily armored hull when they have holographic technology that should enable the bridge to be in the most armored portion of the ship. And no, the windows aren't transparent aluminum or whatever, they crack and expose the whole bridge to vacuum (disabling the entire ship because there's no secondary bridge) from mere small arms fire in the prequel trilogy. (Shield generators being on big balls sitting even higher on the tower might be excused as necessary for projecting the shield, but they still are absurdly easily destroyed.)
Well, in Last Jedi, the turrets knocked out were the smaller-calibur anti-air guns. (The dreadnaught's cannons - the actual big guns - were apparently immune.) On the Yamato, for example, fighters could take out the gun directors that forced guns to be aimed manually, and most of the AA guns were unarmored turrets that had to be manned (and incidentally, in Star Wars, turrets are all manned, even though there's no reason a computer or drone wouldn't be a better gunner), and those absolutely were strafed by the fighters until all the gunners were dead. In fact, Yamato's last refit took out half the secondaries to add twice as many unarmored AA guns because they knew they were going to be swarmed with aircraft, so they added even more unprotected targets to the surface of the ship.
They aren't analogous though. The guns in TLJ are more like the Mark 12 5"/38 than quad bofors. Mark 12s were effectively immune to strafing attacks. A 200 lbs. bomb would do the trick, but that wasn't very practical. Bofors had exposed crew and were vulnerable to such things, but Bofors were also very deadly to fighters and bombers in return so it was a fair match.
Comparing the size of the X-Wing to the turrets, what you end up with is a much larger target that has no engine, possibly no crew, no generator being destroyed by a much smaller fighter that has all of those things. The turrets should have been so well armored and shielded that they'd be invulnerable to the laser cannons on an X-Wing. Hell, I've had a harder time destroying surface cannons *in a video game* than what was depicted in TLJ.
But again, this is Disney Star Wars. It's more important for the protagonist to show off his hot ride and his cool piloting skills than to actually have an interesting and plausible scenario play out. Because selling toys is more important.
And once upon a time, you could do both; have a plausible and interesting scenario AND sell toys.
As for the exposed bridge, eh, bridges are pretty exposed in World War II designs. Even in modern designs, frankly. They're not that important a part of the ship when you get down to it. It's a command center that coordinates and directs the actions of the rest of the ship, but technically speaking all the actions are carried out independently. It might not be convenient, but operating the engines, the rudder, even the weapons is possible from their respective parts of the ships.
Like, the hydraulics in a car exist independently of the steering wheel. If I had little fairies manipulating them, I could drive my car just fine by talking to them.
They aren't analogous though. The guns in TLJ are more like the Mark 12 5"/38 than quad bofors. Mark 12s were effectively immune to strafing attacks. A 200 lbs. bomb would do the trick, but that wasn't very practical. Bofors had exposed crew and were vulnerable to such things, but Bofors were also very deadly to fighters and bombers in return so it was a fair match.
Comparing the size of the X-Wing to the turrets, what you end up with is a much larger target that has no engine, possibly no crew, no generator being destroyed by a much smaller fighter that has all of those things. The turrets should have been so well armored and shielded that they'd be invulnerable to the laser cannons on an X-Wing. Hell, I've had a harder time destroying surface cannons *in a video game* than what was depicted in TLJ.
But again, this is Disney Star Wars. It's more important for the protagonist to show off his hot ride and his cool piloting skills than to actually have an interesting and plausible scenario play out. Because selling toys is more important.
And once upon a time, you could do both; have a plausible and interesting scenario AND sell toys.
As for the exposed bridge, eh, bridges are pretty exposed in World War II designs. Even in modern designs, frankly. They're not that important a part of the ship when you get down to it. It's a command center that coordinates and directs the actions of the rest of the ship, but technically speaking all the actions are carried out independently. It might not be convenient, but operating the engines, the rudder, even the weapons is possible from their respective parts of the ships.
Like, the hydraulics in a car exist independently of the steering wheel. If I had little fairies manipulating them, I could drive my car just fine by talking to them.
First, and while this is nit-picky, they didn't have bofors on the Yamato, those were mostly Allied guns. Yamato was primarily defended with 162unprotected 25 mm guns. Also, the main guns of the Yamato were noted to be so violent that they could deafen or injure any crew on the decks, which meant that Japanese crewmen were quite miserable at that point. And yes, they did fire the main guns with "beehive" rounds to basically no effect whatsoever but flinging their own AA gunners out of their seats. (But hey, better than the hundreds of guys in the engine room that were drowned when they flooded those rooms for counterbalance without giving any warning to evacuate!)
Second, the bridge of a battleship is quite vulnerable, but the conning tower of an Iowa-class battleship, for example, is protected by 17 inches of steel walls and a 400 lbs door. (In fact, there were even tests that showed battleships could be used as nuclear "secondary response" units, and could survive being in the area of nuclear explosions if it wasn't a direct hit, and sail on to launch nuclear missiles from off Russia's coast if need be, although the conning tower would need to have all airways sealed in a refit to accomplish that. Hypothetically, a reactivated battleship can have a refit that completely puts normal command and control in a bunker well within the citadel and just "fly by wire" to control the ship through a series of cameras and monitors.) WW2 capital ships had unarmored bridges with great sight lines for when people weren't shooting at you, and heavily armored conning towers for when you were taking fire (although many commanders would stay in the vulnerable bridges, regardless, there would at least be people down the chain of command in the conning towers to assume command if the bridge was wiped out). The ship could be commanded from either one, and having two means that even if one is destroyed, the other can command the ship, which is kind of the point. And yes, there are cases (like with Johnston during the Battle off Samar, where the captain had to evacuate the bridge and was operating the ship from the stern deck yelling orders at the rudder crew directly) where captains (or surviving senior officers) have commanded ships from irregular locations, as well, although tits were definitely up at those points.
And this is all part of the big criticism of Star Wars capital ships, where there's zero reason for an exposed bridge at all. A star destroyer's bridge doesn't even offer great sight lines, anyway, and just setting up cameras on the hull to give a panoramic view in a holographic display to a conning tower deep within the hull that looks like that Ender's Game VR thing would be both more sensible and look balls awesome to boot.
Also, in Rogue Squadron (which that opening turbolaser-destroying scene was overtly ripped off from), the laser turrets always had a notable crippling weakness in that their minimum depression angle was 0 degrees, meaning that flying even just slightly lower than the turrets made them incapable of firing upon you, allowing for effortless destruction of turrets. Sure, on unelevated turrets, that meant absolutely kissing ground, but that's exactly what Poe was doing. Or in other words, that scene was taken pretty much shot-for-shot from a Rogue Squadron game with a halfway decent player (which is exactly what I noted when watching the movie in the theater), which I presume is EXACTLY where they got the idea for that scene. (Minus the "smash your head-plate into a circuit board to fix it" thing that would be WAY too much bullshit for something as "serious" as a game where they fully expect one pilot to wipe out whole enemy squadrons solo on a regular basis.)
Also, in Rogue Squadron (which that opening turbolaser-destroying scene was overtly ripped off from), the laser turrets always had a notable crippling weakness in that their minimum depression angle was 0 degrees, meaning that flying even just slightly lower than the turrets made them incapable of firing upon you, allowing for effortless destruction of turrets. Sure, on unelevated turrets, that meant absolutely kissing ground, but that's exactly what Poe was doing. Or in other words, that scene was taken pretty much shot-for-shot from a Rogue Squadron game with a halfway decent player (which is exactly what I noted when watching the movie in the theater), which I presume is EXACTLY where they got the idea for that scene. (Minus the "smash your head-plate into a circuit board to fix it" thing that would be WAY too much bullshit for something as "serious" as a game where they fully expect one pilot to wipe out whole enemy squadrons solo on a regular basis.)
Yeah, taking inspiration from video games which are supposed to make the player feel inordinately powerful and skilled, while performing tasks that are actually very easy is...not a good idea. When your characters are written and placed into scenarios where they make player characters from video games seem reasonable, things have gone horribly wrong with your movie's story and direction.
It's like, several degrees of separation. The people who made the OT studied old war movies, which were based on real life. They also studied pulp science fiction, which often took inspiration from real-life space exploration. Concepts and designs originating from the imaginations of people who really believed these sorts of things might one day be possible and wanted to make them happen.
The people who made the video games from the 90s studied the OT and made games that were accessible to children and teenagers. Games that granted the illusion of ability and skills they didn't actually possess in an unrealistic interpretation of an already unrealistic fantasy movie.
Now those children and teenagers are making the new movies based on the games they played, creating unfulfilling scenarios that make the bad guys look stupid, the good guys look like tools, and just a bunch of nonsense.