Galactic Empire vs Federation redux

[Khas]

You're not kidding about superior range, Mith. If we use the stats provided by SW: the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, we find out this about SW weapons ranges:

Turbolasers
Optimum Range: 15 km
Maximum Range: 100 km

Proton Torpedoes
Optimum Range: 200 meters
Maximum Range: 600 meters

Concussion Missiles
Optimum Range: 300 meters
Maximum Range: 700 meters

Oh how I wish I was making these ranges up.

[Praeothmin]

It's a typo, of course, they forgot the word "millions" before each range given...

Like this:

Million Turbolasers
Optimum Range: 15 km
Maximum Range: 100 km

Million Proton Torpedoes
Optimum Range: 200 meters
Maximum Range: 600 meters

Million Concussion Missiles
Optimum Range: 300 meters
Maximum Range: 700 meters

[Khas]

Doesn't change the fact that the Imperial ships are going to be getting pounded long before they get in firing range.

[Praeothmin]

Imperials use jamming as well, so ST ships may not be able to fire effectively at their maximum ranges...

[Khas]

Still, when ST ship weapons ranges are in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, that doesn't really change the fact that the Imperials are going to be getting sniped.

[Praeothmin]

You know, while SWST was a sutbborn and ignorant fool, he did have a point:
MOST of ST's battles occur at short ranges...
Why?
Most likely because of Jamming, since we know it exists, so assuming that fights between ST and SW will go ST's way because of longer ranges when we know SW also uses jamming is using double standard, IMO...

[Khas]

But let's consider the fact that SW's jamming tech might be less effective than ST's, due to the fact that weapons ranges are naturally shorter.

[Praeothmin]

Or they may be shorter because, as the movies have shown us, they aim and shoot guns manually...

Which may be because their jamming tech is so great that no aiming computer can help...

[Khas]

Given some of the tech we see in SW, I REALLY doubt that it's fantastic jamming.

[Mith]

Most likely, it's just for people to see and go "ooh!" and "aww!" at. Hence why I put so little in visual range displays over stated ranges. It's how American space battles work. It's a pity, because I believe I've seen anime that's done range pretty well for space battles. Of course, that wouldn't have been available for TNG.

[sonofccn]

Look at Mon Calamari. It kept churning out warships despite the Empire having millions of ships at its command. And those ships were either equal or superior to Mon Calamari in most cases.

True but not too surprising. The Imperial Source Book does make clear that "there are planets in every sector...which cause more than their share of problems" so much so that the Emperor created priority sectors controled by Grand Moffs to contain and control the problem (ISB second edition page 10-11) so it is fair to say there are a lot of issues fighting for attention. However ROTJ does show us the Empire can at express will of the Emperor essentially drag togather 30 ISDs and a SSD to a single system. A non trivial force easily comparable to a "fleet" as defined by the sourcebook, 6 Star Destroyers and 390 other combat vessels, which could have been used to assault Mon Calamari had the Emperor had differnt priorities. Lastly it is unlikely Mon Calamari itself poses as great a conventional threat as the Federation. Not to say they could spare the ships needed of course but it isn't impossible.

Add into the mix that the Federation has superior weapons range

Starfleet has a tendency to engage at ranges comparable to the Imperial Navy through for reasons we can't truly explain. And if we discard visuals we'd have to do the same for Star Wars.

superior weapon capabilities

True. Starfleet's weapons are more powerful and far more accurate. Conversely I'd argue Imperial top end ships are "rugged" and far more hardy, able to absorbe comparatively more damage, than their Federation counterparts.

"Why does [Palpatine] remain on this ship at all? He should be hidden. He should be guarded. We should have had him outsystem hours ago!"

as taken from here

Indicating the Seppie fleet had been stuck, by the Republic fleet, over Coruscant for at least a couple of hours by this point and there were still Seppie ships left at the close of the battle shown in the actual movie who presumbly couldn't be replenished in numbers.

Taking the "The shining hairlines are light-scatter from turbolaser bolts powerful enough to vaporize a small town. The planetoids are capital ships." quote typically worked out to be a megaton and assume that such a weapon was only being fired once a minute that still work out to 120 implying a clone war era heavy should be able to tank a photon torpedo or two, assuming the 50-100 meg spread of course, through obviously that doesn't take into wattage, hitting all at once instead of stretched out over a battle, but then War's ships do fire faster than a shot a minute and we don't have definative proof the "hairlines of light-scatter" are even heavy guns as opposed to mediums so I feel I left myself fair wiggle room.

an overall far more advanced (not to mention modern) combat doctrine both in space

Forgive me but I'm not sure I follow. I didn't think the battles depicted in DS9 were radically differnt from Star Wars battles. They both kind of appeared to close next to each other and slug it out or at least that is how it appeared to me at any rate.

plus the hampering that the Empire is going to face in needing to find hyperlanes that can properly hold the sort of traffic that they need to invade such an area

Hyperlanes are going to be a real problem I agree and a known unknown in relations to the conflict but there are methods to, slowly, build lanes. Obviously mapping would be one, taking map data from captured ships/Derelicts, obtaining it from a netural third party through the latter two do have the issue that since we don't know preciesly what Hyperlanes are starcharts may not be overly helpful.

On the Federation side of things their fleet appears more spread out/less concetrated than later. Compare struggling to get 40 odd ships to meet the Borg in BOBW to getting 27 or so ships on basicly five minutes notice in Endgame. At the very least during this period its going to take longer for the Federation to bring a taskforce togather to dislodge the Empire giving them more time to chart routes/fortify their position.

Any attempt the Empire makes to destroy the Federation is going to require hundreds of thousands of ships just to overwhelm the UFP's defensive fleet

I don't know while a early TNG Galaxy class is still going to own an ISD would a Miranda or a Excelsior only teched up to the TNG era?

and hundreds of thousands of more if the Romulans and the Klingons get into the mix

I very much don't think the Empire could defeat all three through I think both of the above's interests would be best served waiting for the Empire to extend itself and then strike hitting them when they'd be at their weakest.

The only other means they can have of competing is buying second rate Trek technology and slapping them onto their ships.

An interesting endeavor but a time consuming one as well as expensive as you pointed out. has long term potential but I'd wager would take years before the Empire could even began to make worthwhile gains in even knock off 24th century systems.

[KSW]

The problem is with the Empire invading the Federation, is that the Federation is very well equipped in terms of a fleet. Even for Star Wars. Look at Mon Calamari. It kept churning out warships despite the Empire having millions of ships at its command. And those ships were either equal or superior to Mon Calamari in most cases.

They simply could not spare the military assets to send the relatively small amount of ships to destroy the Calamari. That is canon fact.

Add into the mix that the Federation has superior weapons range, superior weapon capabilities, an overall far more advanced (not to mention modern) combat doctrine both in space and on the ground, and the slew of other technological advantages that they hold, plus the hampering that the Empire is going to face in needing to find hyperlanes that can properly hold the sort of traffic that they need to invade such an area--and the Empire simply cannot compete.

I think it's also worth mentioning cloaking, phase-shifting and time-travel among those "other technological advantages;" we know that ISD's don't normally have their shields up, and anyway they won't work against phase-shift; and likewise there's always "The Year of Hell" option, or simply slip Palpatine some prozac when he's a child etc.

As Captain Red Forman said, "I can put my foot in the ass of a molecule-- or a civilization" LOL

Likewise, let's look at Starfleet's reverse-engineering capability; in "The Enterprise Incident," Scotty is able to hook up a stolen cloaking-device in 30 minutes flat, and make it WORK. Likewise, they made a big caper of stealing the Breen energy-dissipater weapon for reverse-engineering purposes. Likewise it seemed like Janeway was able to copy just about everything she came across, to the point that she was practically half-Borg.

Now if hyperdrive technology is so common that every Fred-Sanford junk dealer like Watto deals in it, and Han Solo is likewise able to make special mods to the Falcon by himself, making it one of the fastest ships in the galaxy. So how hard would it be for officers like Spock and Scotty to hook hyperdrive up to a ship like the Enterprise? In "To the Nth Power," Barclay is able to warp the Enterprise to the center of the galaxy just using the warp-engines alone, using his newly-acquired knowledge; so it's impossible to say "no stealing."
Also with Trek's advanced stellar-cartography, they should be able to plot nav-point calculations even better; in "Generations," we can see how they can instantly plot grav-stream deviations from the destruction of a star.

On the flip-side, it shouldn't take much time for the Empire (or the Federation) to map our galaxy's hyperlanes, simply by the use of use of hyperdriven probes which jump to various points, and then report their location and data-- either by jumping back, or using long-range subspace transmitters.

[Lucky]

You know, while SWST was a sutbborn and ignorant fool, he did have a point:
MOST of ST's battles occur at short ranges...
Why?
Most likely because of Jamming, since we know it exists, so assuming that fights between ST and SW will go ST's way because of longer ranges when we know SW also uses jamming is using double standard, IMO...

That assumes Star Wars uses more then EM sensors.

[Lucky]

Star Wars loses because they purposely engineer massive flaws into their things.

[KSW]

You know, while SWST was a sutbborn and ignorant fool, he did have a point:
MOST of ST's battles occur at short ranges...
Why?
Most likely because of Jamming, since we know it exists, so assuming that fights between ST and SW will go ST's way because of longer ranges when we know SW also uses jamming is using double standard, IMO...

That assumes Star Wars uses more then EM sensors.

It's also non-sequitur to compare battles between ST ships, when they're more evenly matched. Just because they fight each other at short range, doesn't mean they would do it against Imperial ships which have STL sensors and short range weapons-- and no mention of graviton-based shields, only magnetic shields which can be overcome by simple IONS.