Star Wars, Lightsabers, and submachine guns

[Zipa]

Wait... since when did sub machine guns not exist in star wars?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blaster_carbine
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/E-11_carbine

 

[spartan231490]

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

Yeah, human reaction time is not that fast.
So, once more, WHY ARE THERE NOT AS MANY BULLETS!

Jedi's have precognition. It's not human reaction time, it's jedi reaction time, which is fast enough. This has been said.

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

Also, Jedi don't block blaster bolts because they can react to the shots. They block them because they can see a fraction of a second into the future and tell where the shot will be before the trigger is even pulled.

Besides, there's plenty of sci-fi that uses slug throwers -- even Star Wars has a few examples in the EU. It's just in the higher technology settings, the energy weapons have some sort of advantage -- usually more destructive power, frequently fewer problems with things like ammunition and weight. In the lower technology settings, they're usually quite common. Look at Gundam, Battletech, Firefly, the Battlestar Galactica reboot -- all of them have primarily gunpowder and bullet based hand weapons, despite most of them having energy weapons at the vehicle level. For that matter, the Stargate franchise is full of situations where humans with modern guns triumph over aliens with energy weapons, especially in the movie and the early seasons of SG-1.

I remember a bit in SG1 where the humans are delivering guns to a bunch of Jaffa resistance, and O'neill makes a point about a P90 being a weapon of war, while a DE weapon was a weapon of terror. can't find a youtube clip or i'd post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ps9iMH1N4
It's towards the end, around 2:50
However, it's not entirely accurate. The staff only needs one or two hits to kill a jaffa or even a goauld, a whole p90 clip might not do the trick. Also, that's specifically about the staff weapon, it's not an indictment of all energy weapons. Look at the asgard beam weapons.

"... a lightsaber could just vaporize what few bullets would find their mark even if the Jedi didn't feel like reflecting them."

Alright, this is just minorly annoying, but I'll just quote This article [http://what-if.xkcd.com/16/], basically replacing lightning with lightsaber:

What would happen if lightning A lightsaber struck a bullet in midair?
The bullet won't affect the path the lightning takes. You'd have somehow to time the shot so the bullet was in the middle of the bolt when the return stroke happened.
The core of a lightning bolt is a few centimeters in diameter. A bullet fired from an AK-47 is about 26 mm long and moves at about 700 millimeters every millisecond.
The bullet has a copper coating over a lead core. Copper is a fantastically good conductor of electricity, and much of the 20,000 amps could easily take a shortcut through the bullet.

Surprisingly, the bullet handles it pretty well. If it were sitting still, the current would quickly heat and melt the metal. But it?s moving along so quickly that it exits the channel before it can be warmed by more than a few degrees. It continues on to its target relatively unaffected. There are some curious electromagnetic forces created by the magnetic field around the bolt and the current flow through the bullet, but none of the ones I examined changed the overall picture very much.

So, deflecting it isn't all that much of an option, so... Yeah, Ballistic Gunslinger against Jedi, gunslinger would win, because lightning bolts are basically bolts of plasma. So, I suppose against Jedi, it's the most valuable weapon... I suppose it wouldn't be as useful to anything else.

A lightsaber is not a lightning bolt. Lightning bolt is electrical, lightsaber is plasma-based. Electrical vs heat, and the lightsaber is hot enough to cut through virtually anything, including several feet of blast door in just a few seconds(phantom menace), this is easily hot enough to vaporize a bullet in the time it takes for the bullet to pass through the plasma beam.

 

[RandV80]

Also, the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy

Even bullet guns wouldn't help when they can't aim, and the ammo requirements would just make things worse.

It's kind of funny and a bit ironic, but despite being a mainstay icon 80's action hero that helped start this kind of silly combat there's one entry missing from the movies in that Wiki list: Rambo. If you actually pay attention to the combat in the movies, Rambo actually fights a lot like JC Denton in Deus Ex, utilizing both stealth and of cover, with only the occasional exception.

Anyways, for the Star Wars topic. One of the benefits of the blaster is it doesn't seem to have a recoil. So couldn't you make an intentionally large gun with a bigger blaster shot for killing Jedi's? Blaster shots are always conveniently roughly the same size or smaller than a light saber. So what would happen if you made the shot bigger than the light saber?

This is especially true in the prequel trilogy where you have Jedi's being common place on one side and killer death droids who could carry larger weaponry than a human trooper. The shielded gatling gun robots are a good idea, but instead of gatling gun blaster why not a bazooka blaster?

 

[Thaluikhain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ps9iMH1N4
It's towards the end, around 2:50
However, it's not entirely accurate. The staff only needs one or two hits to kill a jaffa or even a goauld, a whole p90 clip might not do the trick. Also, that's specifically about the staff weapon, it's not an indictment of all energy weapons. Look at the asgard beam weapons.

Magazine. Also, depends on the writer and how big a character the target is.

Early on, jaffa armour gave very good protection against sustained M16 fire. Later on, they'd become less scary, and the same armour was easily penetrated by pistol calibre bullets from MP5s and pistols.

 

[Darknacht]

In Star Wars even the most basic armor can render slugthrowers useless and they are very bulky, inaccurate, and expensive and blasters are cheap, light, accurate and far more powerful.
One thing to remember is that Star Wars physics is not the same as our physics so you can't assume our tech would work the same as it does here.

 

[spartan231490]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ps9iMH1N4
It's towards the end, around 2:50
However, it's not entirely accurate. The staff only needs one or two hits to kill a jaffa or even a goauld, a whole p90 clip might not do the trick. Also, that's specifically about the staff weapon, it's not an indictment of all energy weapons. Look at the asgard beam weapons.

Magazine. Also, depends on the writer and how big a character the target is.

Early on, jaffa armour gave very good protection against sustained M16 fire. Later on, they'd become less scary, and the same armour was easily penetrated by pistol calibre bullets from MP5s and pistols.

Yes, but it still takes a large portion of a magazine to kill even a jaffa, except for the few times when daniel actually needs to fight, but that's just daniel breaking the show. Also, clip is colloquial for magazine and completely appropriate. It's not like it's an internal mag.

 

[Something Amyss]

Here's the thing why are all of you assuming that the laser weapons in star wars move at the speed of light. We can clearly see the laser bolts fly through the air with the naked eye; considering you can see the individual bolt fly through the air it would definitely indicate that it is sign of it traveling far slower than the speed of light. If it were traveling at the speed of light it would travel from barrel to target far faster than you would be able to perceive.
Where as you don't see bullets travel through the air with the naked eye, thus it would stand to reason that in this scenario bullets would indeed be faster.

It's a convention of the movies? Speeders aren't really translucent, they don't fly on clouds of vaseline, and blaster fire is visible to the naked eye because the alternative wouldn't be cool.

 

[Rednog]

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

Yeah, human reaction time is not that fast.
So, once more, WHY ARE THERE NOT AS MANY BULLETS!

Jedi's have precognition. It's not human reaction time, it's jedi reaction time, which is fast enough. This has been said.

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

Also, Jedi don't block blaster bolts because they can react to the shots. They block them because they can see a fraction of a second into the future and tell where the shot will be before the trigger is even pulled.

Besides, there's plenty of sci-fi that uses slug throwers -- even Star Wars has a few examples in the EU. It's just in the higher technology settings, the energy weapons have some sort of advantage -- usually more destructive power, frequently fewer problems with things like ammunition and weight. In the lower technology settings, they're usually quite common. Look at Gundam, Battletech, Firefly, the Battlestar Galactica reboot -- all of them have primarily gunpowder and bullet based hand weapons, despite most of them having energy weapons at the vehicle level. For that matter, the Stargate franchise is full of situations where humans with modern guns triumph over aliens with energy weapons, especially in the movie and the early seasons of SG-1.

I remember a bit in SG1 where the humans are delivering guns to a bunch of Jaffa resistance, and O'neill makes a point about a P90 being a weapon of war, while a DE weapon was a weapon of terror. can't find a youtube clip or i'd post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ps9iMH1N4
It's towards the end, around 2:50
However, it's not entirely accurate. The staff only needs one or two hits to kill a jaffa or even a goauld, a whole p90 clip might not do the trick. Also, that's specifically about the staff weapon, it's not an indictment of all energy weapons. Look at the asgard beam weapons.

"... a lightsaber could just vaporize what few bullets would find their mark even if the Jedi didn't feel like reflecting them."

Alright, this is just minorly annoying, but I'll just quote This article [http://what-if.xkcd.com/16/], basically replacing lightning with lightsaber:

What would happen if lightning A lightsaber struck a bullet in midair?
The bullet won't affect the path the lightning takes. You'd have somehow to time the shot so the bullet was in the middle of the bolt when the return stroke happened.
The core of a lightning bolt is a few centimeters in diameter. A bullet fired from an AK-47 is about 26 mm long and moves at about 700 millimeters every millisecond.
The bullet has a copper coating over a lead core. Copper is a fantastically good conductor of electricity, and much of the 20,000 amps could easily take a shortcut through the bullet.

Surprisingly, the bullet handles it pretty well. If it were sitting still, the current would quickly heat and melt the metal. But it?s moving along so quickly that it exits the channel before it can be warmed by more than a few degrees. It continues on to its target relatively unaffected. There are some curious electromagnetic forces created by the magnetic field around the bolt and the current flow through the bullet, but none of the ones I examined changed the overall picture very much.

So, deflecting it isn't all that much of an option, so... Yeah, Ballistic Gunslinger against Jedi, gunslinger would win, because lightning bolts are basically bolts of plasma. So, I suppose against Jedi, it's the most valuable weapon... I suppose it wouldn't be as useful to anything else.

A lightsaber is not a lightning bolt. Lightning bolt is electrical, lightsaber is plasma-based. Electrical vs heat, and the lightsaber is hot enough to cut through virtually anything, including several feet of blast door in just a few seconds(phantom menace), this is easily hot enough to vaporize a bullet in the time it takes for the bullet to pass through the plasma beam.

You really might want to brush up on your science. Lightning is a form of plasma.
Also, in the star wars universe there are plenty of materials that are lightsaber resistant, one of them functions by short circuiting the arc in the lightsaber.

 

[StashAugustine]

"Slugs only go one way. They don't bounce."
"Off a vibroshield they will."
"Not off a lightsaber."

Except it doesn't look like he reflects the blasts. It's more that he blocks them with his hands. The Force may guide them into the path of the shots, but it are his hands that do the rest. As to why he can just take blaster shots, well, that may actually not be due to the Force.

Let's not forget that at this point Vader is mostly a cyborg and the number 2 in the Empire. It stands to reason that his armor and cybernetic components are made of the best and strongest materials available and thus quite capable standing up to some punishment from a common blaster like Han's. I also couldn't help noticing that Vader took all but one of the shots with his right hand, i.e. the one that was already fully robotic before Anakin became Vader.

Maybe I'm just over-analyzing this, but it just strikes me as odd that the only Force user in the movies that directly blocks blaster shots without a lightsaber is also the one that is half robot.

Corran Horn in the EU has the power to absorb blaster bolts with his body, but it's mentioned as fairly rare.

 

[Spade Lead]

I'm well aware of the reasons for not going full auto Rambo style in real life. However, we're talking about an entirely different situation, where you're facing a single enemy with no gun of his own, in open ground, with nothing but a lightsaber blade a couple of inches across for cover. And even firing full auto for just two or three seconds would surely lay down enough rounds that the Jedi wouldn't be able to block it? In that case it seems like a better option to light him up and hope that he doesn't get a chance to deflect any of the bullets back at you than just plink uselessly at him and stand a very high chance of him bouncing your shots back, with a fairly low chance of actually hitting him.

It could work, but how many troopers are going to burn up their blaster in the process, and if they don't kill him, then the Jedi is unopposed.

An energy based weapon must build heat much faster than a kinetic weapon, and have you ever seen what happens to an M16 when you fire it continuously for a minute straight? There is an episode of Sons of Guns where they water cool an M16 to be mounted on a boat, and the effect of just thirty seconds of continuous fire on the unmodified rifle is amazing. The effect on a blaster rifle has to be way worse.

That is what everyone keeps forgetting. Yeah, I could go all Rambo on him with an M60, but if the Jedi avoids it for long enough, I burn up the barrel and then I am defenseless. M60s are designed for that type of fighting, and they still only get about a minute of continuous fire before the barrel is destroyed.

If you build a faulty lightsaber, the blade will eat through the hilt and explode, causing you to lose an arm, if you are lucky. (*Cough*Tenel Ka*Cough*) If we all agree that Blasters and lightsabers are similar technology, obviously you have the same limitations as far as building the barrel and firing chamber, and overheating either of those ends catastrophically.

 

[Random berk]

It could work, but how many troopers are going to burn up their blaster in the process, and if they don't kill him, then the Jedi is unopposed.

An energy based weapon must build heat much faster than a kinetic weapon, and have you ever seen what happens to an M16 when you fire it continuously for a minute straight? There is an episode of Sons of Guns where they water cool an M16 to be mounted on a boat, and the effect of just thirty seconds of continuous fire on the unmodified rifle is amazing. The effect on a blaster rifle has to be way worse.

That is what everyone keeps forgetting. Yeah, I could go all Rambo on him with an M60, but if the Jedi avoids it for long enough, I burn up the barrel and then I am defenseless. M60s are designed for that type of fighting, and they still only get about a minute of continuous fire before the barrel is destroyed.

If you build a faulty lightsaber, the blade will eat through the hilt and explode, causing you to lose an arm, if you are lucky. (*Cough*Tenel Ka*Cough*) If we all agree that Blasters and lightsabers are similar technology, obviously you have the same limitations as far as building the barrel and firing chamber, and overheating either of those ends catastrophically.

But if a properly made lightsaber can produce a continuous beam of energy without melting, or even getting too hot to hold, then who's to say that they don't have similarly effective cooling technology for a blaster or blaster rifle? And yeah, even if they don't and the troopers burn out a few guns, the whole point is that the Jedi isn't going to be able to block all those rounds for more than a second or two. They may be able to see the future, but they can't slow down time. A wave of blaster bolts coming in faster the jedi is able to move has to be able to take him down (assuming he doesn't just run.) Even if he could hold off that fire for the few seconds that the weapon was capable of maintaining it, it would give the other troops in a squad time to widen their firing line and set up a much wider angle to keep pressuring him as soon as the MG goes. It seems like having one or two of them in a squad that expects to have to fight a Jedi would be a much better tactic than sending waves of repeater-blaster carrying, easily dismantled stormtroopers.

 

[Spade Lead]

But if a properly made lightsaber can produce a continuous beam of energy without melting, or even getting too hot to hold, then who's to say that they don't have similarly effective cooling technology for a blaster or blaster rifle? And yeah, even if they don't and the troopers burn out a few guns, the whole point is that the Jedi isn't going to be able to block all those rounds for more than a second or two. They may be able to see the future, but they can't slow down time. A wave of blaster bolts coming in faster the jedi is able to move has to be able to take him down (assuming he doesn't just run.) Even if he could hold off that fire for the few seconds that the weapon was capable of maintaining it, it would give the other troops in a squad time to widen their firing line and set up a much wider angle to keep pressuring him as soon as the MG goes. It seems like having one or two of them in a squad that expects to have to fight a Jedi would be a much better tactic than sending waves of repeater-blaster carrying, easily dismantled stormtroopers.

What about the laser-Gatling guns wielded by the Clone Commanders? Those should have been even more effective, and yet the were never used that way.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Jedi's reflexes are too fast.
And bullets are way too expensive.
Not to mention, energy cells for blasters rarely run out.

Except that one time when you're a Mandalorean, stuck in a jungle on some moon, making you climb on a rock to be safe from the animals until some asshole comes along to blow you up with the explosives you placed yourself.

 

[Random berk]

But if a properly made lightsaber can produce a continuous beam of energy without melting, or even getting too hot to hold, then who's to say that they don't have similarly effective cooling technology for a blaster or blaster rifle? And yeah, even if they don't and the troopers burn out a few guns, the whole point is that the Jedi isn't going to be able to block all those rounds for more than a second or two. They may be able to see the future, but they can't slow down time. A wave of blaster bolts coming in faster the jedi is able to move has to be able to take him down (assuming he doesn't just run.) Even if he could hold off that fire for the few seconds that the weapon was capable of maintaining it, it would give the other troops in a squad time to widen their firing line and set up a much wider angle to keep pressuring him as soon as the MG goes. It seems like having one or two of them in a squad that expects to have to fight a Jedi would be a much better tactic than sending waves of repeater-blaster carrying, easily dismantled stormtroopers.

What about the laser-Gatling guns wielded by the Clone Commanders? Those should have been even more effective, and yet the were never used that way.

I remember using those on Battlefront 2, but I don't remember seeing them in the movies. Are you talking about Extended Universe media? Was it just a case that they were never shown being used that way, or were they specifically held back while clones were fighting Jedi? (And was the Jedi killed? Because if they were supposed to survive, then plot armour. The enemy can't use tactics that would be effective.)

 

[Spade Lead]

I remember using those on Battlefront 2, but I don't remember seeing them in the movies. Are you talking about Extended Universe media? Was it just a case that they were never shown being used that way, or were they specifically held back while clones were fighting Jedi? (And was the Jedi killed? Because if they were supposed to survive, then plot armour. The enemy can't use tactics that would be effective.)

They were in Episode 3, I believe.

 

[Random berk]

I remember using those on Battlefront 2, but I don't remember seeing them in the movies. Are you talking about Extended Universe media? Was it just a case that they were never shown being used that way, or were they specifically held back while clones were fighting Jedi? (And was the Jedi killed? Because if they were supposed to survive, then plot armour. The enemy can't use tactics that would be effective.)

They were in Episode 3, I believe.

Ah. Like I say, I don't remember, its years since I last saw it.

 

[Sacman]

So, I have just one small thing that really bugged me about the star wars series...
Why is it always plasma weapons or lightsabers (Which can reflect Blaster Fire), and never, oh, lets say... Ballistic weapons, like a Submachine gun!? I mean, honestly, it seems to make sense, and it'll probably go faster then Blaster Fire it'll probably fire more then Blasters, leaving no time to respond, and can't be blocked! Why the hell does nobody REALIZE that!?

Just something that really bugged me.

Well actually it's because they're basically useless against the vast majority of armies in star wars... considering droids would be unaffected, and most organized armies have armor capabilities that are more than capable of protection against ballistic weapons... Jedi are really the only people in the universe that ballistic weapons would preferable for... and they're typically not on top of anyone's priority list, considering there's not many of them and are rather non confrontational... especially after the clone wars...<.<

and actually they do make an appearance in Republic Commando... among Trandoshan slavers, where it makes sense considering they're a mercenary group and A) don;t have much money and B) usually don't go up against droids or anyone with armor...<.<

Not to mention blasters are more versatile, not needing ammo and not restricted by the strength of a planets gravitation or any planetary forces and say wouldn't cause massive explosions in environments that would typically facilitate such things, since blasters aren't actually laser weapons and don;t work through combustion... <.<

 

[Thaluikhain]

So, I have just one small thing that really bugged me about the star wars series...
Why is it always plasma weapons or lightsabers (Which can reflect Blaster Fire), and never, oh, lets say... Ballistic weapons, like a Submachine gun!? I mean, honestly, it seems to make sense, and it'll probably go faster then Blaster Fire it'll probably fire more then Blasters, leaving no time to respond, and can't be blocked! Why the hell does nobody REALIZE that!?

Just something that really bugged me.

Well actually it's because they're basically useless against the vast majority of armies in star wars... considering droids would be unaffected, and most organized armies have armor capabilities that are more than capable of protection against ballistic weapons... Jedi are really the only people in the universe that ballistic weapons would preferable for... and they're typically not on top of anyone's priority list, considering there's not many of them and are rather non confrontational... especially after the clone wars...<.<

Except, of course, Ewoks throwing rocks are a serious threat.

(BTW, modern firearms are quite good at penetrating things that seem like they should be bullet-proof, I don't see body armour and droid shells automatically stopping them.)

Blasters would be affected by gravity same as anything else, they just throw something noticeably slow moving at the target. Dunno about their ammunition capacity and what planetary forces would affect bullets that would'nt affect slow red things.