| Subject: Re: Imperial fleet Vs Federation fleet |
Author:
Warspite
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Date Posted: 08:45:57 10/04/02 Fri
Author Host/IP: ipd54b1fba.free.wxs.nl/213.75.31.186
In reply to:
capn hayes
's message, "Re: Imperial fleet Vs Federation fleet" on 15:00:51 10/03/02 Thu
>>Okay, I will try one last time. It doesn't matter what
>>distance the ships were apart when the firing took
>>place. Look, let's consider a real world example. You
>>are 10 meters away from another person. That person is
>>walking directly away from you at a speed of 1 meter a
>>second. You start walking to catch them up. You walk
>>at a speed of 2 meters a second. How far do you have
>>to walk before you catch them? after five seconds you
>>would have covered the inital 10 meter distance, but
>>they are not there anymore. They are now five meters
>>away from you, because they are moving at 5 meters a
>>second. You would have to walk for another five
>>seconds before you caught them. Your total distance
>>covered would therefore be 20 meters, even though you
>>started off just 10 meters apart. You can calculate
>>this easily. It the same for these trek examples. The
>>target ship was moving away. Once we know the speed of
>>the ship, and the flight time of the torpedo, we can
>>would out the distance the torpedo must have covered.
>>In the Dreadnought example, the flight time was around
>>1.5 seconds, and the speed 1516 times lightspeed. If
>>we assume light speed to be 300,000km, the distance
>>the torpedo covered (regardless of initial firing
>>distance) would therefore be ((1516*300,000) + 1.5)
>>well over 600,000,000km.
>
>That distance COVERED is not relivent to the CLOSING
>distance between the ships while traveling at warp.
>Yes from a point outside the battle from another ship
>sitting still observing the battle the ships and the
>torpedo might have covered that 600 million klicks
>distance as you point out. BUT the realitive distance
>between the ship's can still be well within 4 million
>klicks and when they fire the torpedo it may travel
>600 million klicks per second but so is everybody else
>so the speed is not what I'm talking about its the
>realitve distance between the two ships which can
>still be in the TM stated ranges. Nothing onscreen has
>disproven what the TM's say about range. Your correct
>in the speed the weapons travel its the distance
>covered that you have wrong. Look at it like this Both
>ships are going warp 9 and are 3,000,000 km apart,
>ship A fires at ship B the torpedo is also going warp
>9, all it has to close is the distance between the two
>ships which is 3,000,000 kilometers. Now everything
>you state about the distance COVERED is correct, it
>the CLOSING distance that I'm talking about. If I were
>to discount anything it would be the references about
>the torpedoes speeding away at 175% the speed of the
>ship that fired them. Not the ranges. Besides in all
>of the shows they have made many references to being
>in or out of weapons ranges. Perhaps it is possible to
>fire torpedoes based on sensor info from 5 light years
>away. But the torpedo uses the same antimatter for
>fuel as it does for warhead detonation. This would
>limit the range. Probes don't have to worry about
>using their feul in a warhead, hense greater range, on
>the order of 750 light-years. Torpedoes can coast
>indefinetly although I doubt at Warp. Now it they were
>used as kinetic kill weapons the antimatter depletion
>of the warhead wouldn't matter. But I doubt this would
>cause much damage to a ship equiped with Particle
>shields or Nav deflectors. If you take into
>consideration that the weapon must use feul to travel
>at warp this would give a limit to its effective
>range. At higher warp the drain would also be higher.
>While the distance covered at warp would be
>considerable even, hundreds of millions of kilometers!
>The ship's could still be within the TM established
>ranges while firing at each other at these speeds. As
>soon as think of examples from the show I'll post'em.
>Most battles occur onlt a few kilometers apart anyway
>so it will take so time to give a good example of long
>range firing.
Okay, I see what you are saying. It seems to me that the calculations of the actual distance a torpedo can travel are correct as shown from Flashback and Dreadnought, but you are suggesting that the ship can only 'lock on' if they are within 4 million km?
If that is the case, we can agree that a torpedo can travel over 600,000,000km at warp speeds. We also know that after the torpedo had travelled that distance, they were able to guide themselves to impact (all torpedoes fired hit!). They also exploded forcefully (no less than normal), which would imply that they had not eaten too much into their warhead antimatter to extent their range.
I also agree that the 1.75% speed is debatable, but you'll notice that in my original calcs (way back at the start of the thread), I rounded everything down (losing at least 16 * light speed), and assumed that the torpedoes were only travelling at the speed of the target ship. Therefore the 1.75% is not an issue for these calcs, and the 675,000,000km is an extremely conservative low end figure. If we used the 1.75% calculation (or any torpedo increase in speed), range estimates would be MUCH higher!
So much for what we can now agree on. What about the rest?
What about the 4.05 million km range from the TM? Well it seems to me that the reference in the TM is refering to the torpedo range, and not the sensor range. It says...
"3,500,000km for midrange detonation yield"
That implies that at 3.5 million km, the torpedo has already started to eat into its warhead, and that implies that the 3.5 million km range refers directly to physical range, and not sensor lock on range. Furthermore, it then goes on to say that...
"If required, maximum effective range can be extended, but with loss of detonation yield, as the sustainer draws reactants from the M/AM tanks."
Again, this suggests that the range of the torpedo is determined by the physical fuel, rather than the sensors range. The range CAN be extended, but at the loss of yield. If the range CAN be extended, then the sensor lock on problem cannot be an issue!
The DS9:TM says...
"The warp sustainer engine benefits somewhat from increased tankage in the form of increased range, to an upper limit of 4,050,000km."
Again, the M/AM tankage is the limiting factor in weapons fire, NOT the sensor range of the firing platform. This actually makes sense if you think about it. After all, torpedoes are fired from a variety of platforms. Anything from a runabout, to an Oberth, to a Galaxy class, to DS9 or a starbase. Not all those platforms would have the same sensor capability. If range was determined by sensors, each platform might have a different torpedo range. The fact that the range is supposed to be standard implies that it is the torpedo that is the limiting factor.
If that is correct, then the only limit to 'lock on' that we know, would be the maximum range of the high resolution scanners, and that is stated to by 5ly for a Galaxy class. 675,000,000km is only 2,250 light seconds (about 37,5 light minutes). This means that the maximum torpedo range we have seen, is VASTLY less that the maximum high resolution scan range of the ship (a light year is around 31 million light seconds!)
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