Sulu mentions that they've hit the Gorn ship with their phasers, and later they hit them with their photon torpedoes, but they can't see them because they are out of visual range. That's ridiculous. Every other instance has ships in visual range long before they are in weapons range.
This always bothered me about Arena
- Thread starter Phantomshark
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Except there's really no such thing as "weapons range" in space. Anything moving in space will just keep going indefinitely until it hits something. So it's a hard concept to justify. I suppose the functional range of a phaser beam would be the distance at which it becomes too diffuse to do significant damage -- since any beam in space is going to spread out with increasing distance. A torpedo should be able to keep maneuvering toward its target until it runs out of fuel, at which point the target ship could successfully dodge it, so that could be considered its maximum range. But that's variable.
"Visual range" is even harder to ascribe meaning to in space. There are no horizons in space, hardly any obstacles, very little intervening matter to absorb light. Powerful enough telescopes can image planets in other star systems, parsecs away. So visual range could be quite distant. But it would depend on the sensitivity of the ship's telescopes and the size/brightness of the target object. If the ship has a way of minimizing its profile and its thermal emissions, then it might need to be fairly close before it could be detected.
So there's your answer. Visual range isn't a fixed radius around the ship, but varies depending on the thing being viewed. So it could be greater or less than effective weapons range.
Another way to define weapons range -- and perhaps visual range as well -- is in terms of observational lag. If you're using lightspeed sensors and the ship is, say, a few light-seconds away, then you aren't seeing it where it is, but where it was a few seconds ago. So if you aim at where it was heading, it might've dodged already. That shouldn't be a problem for torpedoes, since they can presumably maneuver to pursue the ship, but beam weapons like phasers would be effectively useless beyond a certain distance, since there'd be no reliable way to aim them.
"Visual range" is even harder to ascribe meaning to in space. There are no horizons in space, hardly any obstacles, very little intervening matter to absorb light. Powerful enough telescopes can image planets in other star systems, parsecs away. So visual range could be quite distant. But it would depend on the sensitivity of the ship's telescopes and the size/brightness of the target object. If the ship has a way of minimizing its profile and its thermal emissions, then it might need to be fairly close before it could be detected.
So there's your answer. Visual range isn't a fixed radius around the ship, but varies depending on the thing being viewed. So it could be greater or less than effective weapons range.
Another way to define weapons range -- and perhaps visual range as well -- is in terms of observational lag. If you're using lightspeed sensors and the ship is, say, a few light-seconds away, then you aren't seeing it where it is, but where it was a few seconds ago. So if you aim at where it was heading, it might've dodged already. That shouldn't be a problem for torpedoes, since they can presumably maneuver to pursue the ship, but beam weapons like phasers would be effectively useless beyond a certain distance, since there'd be no reliable way to aim them.
One could get rich counting the "every others" at $1 apiece. Screenwriters had a Star Trek bible, but there's no way this can cover so many contingencies. The Enterprise's weapons didn't have much effect at the extreme range in any event. Also unlikely is a successful cannon with a bamboo barrel. There's no reason to think it could withstand the pressures inside: The thing doesn't quite have the reinforcing hoops that early iron cannon barrels used before the tougher brass was introduced, though wrapping rope around it lends a suggestion such a need was considered.
Overlooking the lapses, one is rewarded with the sight of a bipedal humanoid reptile who has compound eyes like an insect. Whom Kirk respectfully declines to finish off at the end.
If they are lapses at all. The poster above me has apparently invoked Newton's First Law and some optics in vacuum to help fill us in. I thought the episode was fun, if a bit hoky with the '50s allusions.
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It was never stated onscreen(probably an oversight by the script editor) but the bamboo was supposed to be as durable as a steel pipe. Kirk whacking the smaller diameter pieces on the ground was undoubtedly meant to get this across, but it didn't do so very well.
ARENA Final Draft November 3, 1966
The script specifies that the Gorn ship is never inside visual range. There is nothing to indicate it should ever be shown (as was added in the TOS-R version).
Also, the "bamboo" isn't really bamboo. It's described this way:
Spock also rattles off the proportions of the elements of the gunpowder as Kirk mixes it. "75. 15. 10."
Orion Press article on "Arena" (link)
The script specifies that the Gorn ship is never inside visual range. There is nothing to indicate it should ever be shown (as was added in the TOS-R version).
Also, the "bamboo" isn't really bamboo. It's described this way:
The production failed to convey that detail. That'd change the Mythbusters test a bit.
Spock also rattles off the proportions of the elements of the gunpowder as Kirk mixes it. "75. 15. 10."
Orion Press article on "Arena" (link)
One might consider that the failure of our heroes to hurt the Gorn ship is exactly because she is outside weapons range, in addition to being outside visual range.
That is, Sulu wants to beam up the landing party, despite no doubt very well knowing that not raising shields is suicide when confronting even the feeblest enemy warship. Kirk has to specifically insist that Sulu raise the shields. So the goal of the Gorn very well might have been to threaten the Starfleet vessel from afar, rather than to confront her outright, in the hopes that this would give the surface team time to capture (and, failing that, eliminate) the main heroes. Sulu is now forced to stand prepared for a fight, keeping up the shields and firing hopeless, out-of-range shots to warn off the opponent: tactical goal scored!
It doesn't seem as if the Gorn would be willing to actually engage in an open and fair fight: they flee despite not being badly hurt. So their ship probably is at least slightly inferior to begin with. Other opponents such as Klingons want to close the distance, even in TOS, suggesting that the optimal range for Trek weapons indeed is "as short as you can possibly make it, and then some".
Timo Saloniemi
That is, Sulu wants to beam up the landing party, despite no doubt very well knowing that not raising shields is suicide when confronting even the feeblest enemy warship. Kirk has to specifically insist that Sulu raise the shields. So the goal of the Gorn very well might have been to threaten the Starfleet vessel from afar, rather than to confront her outright, in the hopes that this would give the surface team time to capture (and, failing that, eliminate) the main heroes. Sulu is now forced to stand prepared for a fight, keeping up the shields and firing hopeless, out-of-range shots to warn off the opponent: tactical goal scored!
It doesn't seem as if the Gorn would be willing to actually engage in an open and fair fight: they flee despite not being badly hurt. So their ship probably is at least slightly inferior to begin with. Other opponents such as Klingons want to close the distance, even in TOS, suggesting that the optimal range for Trek weapons indeed is "as short as you can possibly make it, and then some".
Timo Saloniemi
Blish's narrative version of "Arena" mentions the metallic content of the bamboo, which he suggests is a result of metals absorbed from the soil. I don't remember whether the idea comes from his story, the script or another source that the Metrons created this planetoid specifically for the combat - that accounts for all the peculiarities of the place.
How do the Gorn beam their crew up?
Well, the old non canical version of phaser ranges said that the phasers could possibly hit a target as far away as 750,000km. effective range was more like 100,000 km, but when depicted, the ships seem like less than 1 km apart. But the first season was more consistent about ranges, even if not explicitly stated. Some of that was undone by TOS-R because of lack of understanding by those who came later. Keep in mind, with battleships, those never actually "see" each other, the curviture of the Earth prevents a straight line sighting over 6 miles on the ocean, so many fights were outside of "visual range" and I think that's what some people had in mind, also, today's weapons certainly do not need "visual range" as the missles can track targets.
This is especially bad in the spinoffs where it seems like the ships are close enough to smell them.
What crew? Kirk killed them all!
It's a bit of a mystery why the Gorn initiate transport at all. Sulu's wording might suggest they were about to evacuate their crew via transporter when Kirk fired his mortar shell and made the action unnecessary. That is, the Gorn simply decided to do what Sulu was itching to do all along, and drop shields in the middle of combat - but when they did that, it was a second or two too late, and they turned tail and ran instead.
Timo Saloniemi
It's a bit of a mystery why the Gorn initiate transport at all. Sulu's wording might suggest they were about to evacuate their crew via transporter when Kirk fired his mortar shell and made the action unnecessary. That is, the Gorn simply decided to do what Sulu was itching to do all along, and drop shields in the middle of combat - but when they did that, it was a second or two too late, and they turned tail and ran instead.
Timo Saloniemi
The Metrons explicitly say in the episode that they have "prepared" the planet with the necessary elements for their combat. The word "prepared" makes it pretty clear that they didn't just find it as is. And it's pretty self-evident that the necessary constituents for gunpowder wouldn't just randomly be lying around on the surface within walking distance of Kirk. You certainly don't find large clumps of diamond just sitting there on the open ground. Let alone charcoal, which is an artificial substance (the result of burning wood in a specific, controlled way) rather than a naturally occurring one. (Which makes Spock's line about "a charcoal deposit" sound rather odd. But then, he's aware the site has been artificially prepared.)
A tradition that pretty much started with The Wrath of Khan and its absurdly close-quarters ship combat. Everything since then has been trying to emulate it (or Star Wars, which was copying WWII aerial dogfights in the same way that TWOK copied Age-of-Sail battleship fights).
I was going to mention Wrath of Khan, but I didn't because that was not a typical encounter, Khan hiding in one of the Federation's own ships. But you're right that did seem to set the tone, for many things in fact as in some ways almost every Star Trek movie after it has tried to emulate it in some way.
Well, of course TWOK was trying to imitate Star Wars too, and got ILM to do the effects. Pretty much every space movie and show since SW has tried to emulate its completely fanciful approach to space battle scenes. It's only recently that we're starting to get movies like Interstellar that treat spaceship scenes more authentically. Personally, I found the emergency docking scene in that movie far more exciting than all the Lucas-esque fantasy dogfights in other movies, because it felt so realistic. (I'd list Gravity too, since it handled most aspects of space quite realistically, but it had the classic problem of compressing the scale of space to an absurdly compact degree.)
To be fair, many a "fight" in the TNG era actually is the continuation of bolstering that began as mere exchange of threats with two ships "peacefully" facing each other. Ships fairly seldom close in for a kill - instead, they approach menacingly in the hopes of making their target agree to their demands, and if that doesn't work, then they start firing.
With the Romulans, this is especially common. But they and the Klingons also like to use the cloaking device to get very close to their victim before delivering their first shot. Yet how close is close? It isn't often that we would actually see the villains decloak in a picture framed to also include their victim; such imagery more typically involves the villains decloaking in order to threaten and demand.
When both escalating disagreements and surprise attacks feature a "justification" for proximity, there are actually very few fights left where the two sides would approach each other unrealistically close while firing or in order to fire. We see unopposed slaughter at close ranges (say, the Klingons swarming around Dukat's ship in "Way of the Warrior"; "Yesterday's Enterprise" fits that category as well), but that's a safe thing to do as long as it really is unopposed. Although if it were too safe, Klingons wouldn't do it...
It could be argued that there are "realistic" space fights in Star Trek, too - but since they all involve one ship firing a realistically superior opening volley from a realistically great distance, and the other one ceasing to be, there's no drama involved, as obviously the hero ship cannot be involved.
The fleet battles of DS9 are another matter altogether, as there at least is the justification of swarming around a point target (planet or space station) that is not to be destroyed outright but rather captured as intact as possible.
Timo Saloniemi
With the Romulans, this is especially common. But they and the Klingons also like to use the cloaking device to get very close to their victim before delivering their first shot. Yet how close is close? It isn't often that we would actually see the villains decloak in a picture framed to also include their victim; such imagery more typically involves the villains decloaking in order to threaten and demand.
When both escalating disagreements and surprise attacks feature a "justification" for proximity, there are actually very few fights left where the two sides would approach each other unrealistically close while firing or in order to fire. We see unopposed slaughter at close ranges (say, the Klingons swarming around Dukat's ship in "Way of the Warrior"; "Yesterday's Enterprise" fits that category as well), but that's a safe thing to do as long as it really is unopposed. Although if it were too safe, Klingons wouldn't do it...
It could be argued that there are "realistic" space fights in Star Trek, too - but since they all involve one ship firing a realistically superior opening volley from a realistically great distance, and the other one ceasing to be, there's no drama involved, as obviously the hero ship cannot be involved.
The fleet battles of DS9 are another matter altogether, as there at least is the justification of swarming around a point target (planet or space station) that is not to be destroyed outright but rather captured as intact as possible.
Timo Saloniemi
We don't know they were all killed, only that the blast would be "a lot closer for them." Nobody said they were all wiped out. There could have been at least one Gorn barely alive, like the dude at the outpost.
We also don't know how many Gorn were on the planet or exactly where they were when Kirk fired the bomb thingy. Spock's tricorder was destroyed at that point, so Kirk relied on Kelowitz's guess.
KELOWITZ: If I were them, I'd go to the high ground on the right. I make it twelve hundred yards, azimuth eighty seven.
There is plenty of room to allow that Kirk didn't get them all and the Gorn ship beamed up the remaining landing party. I never thought otherwise.
Makes sense.
That the Gorn went sniping, instead of just firing a comparable munition at the outpost and killing the entire landing party with one shot, might suggest they wanted one or both of two things:
1) Capture of the top officers, once their escort was gunned down.
2) Keeping the orbiting starship occupied with efforts to save the landing party, thus protecting the Gorn mothership and increasing her odds of hurting the Starfleet vessel.
For the first option, though, there would probably have been Gorn much closer to our heroes as well, in addition to the well-positioned snipers. And if they realized that Kirk had obtained artillery, they would probably have rushed to save their comrades even if it cost them their element of surprise and their lives. (Unless there was just one sniper up there, and twenty Gorn in the building, waiting to subdue Kirk.)
Could Starfleet phasers stun people at that distance? Gorn death rays probably can't, or else that's how they could have achieved goal 1 without much ado.
Timo Saloniemi
That the Gorn went sniping, instead of just firing a comparable munition at the outpost and killing the entire landing party with one shot, might suggest they wanted one or both of two things:
1) Capture of the top officers, once their escort was gunned down.
2) Keeping the orbiting starship occupied with efforts to save the landing party, thus protecting the Gorn mothership and increasing her odds of hurting the Starfleet vessel.
For the first option, though, there would probably have been Gorn much closer to our heroes as well, in addition to the well-positioned snipers. And if they realized that Kirk had obtained artillery, they would probably have rushed to save their comrades even if it cost them their element of surprise and their lives. (Unless there was just one sniper up there, and twenty Gorn in the building, waiting to subdue Kirk.)
Could Starfleet phasers stun people at that distance? Gorn death rays probably can't, or else that's how they could have achieved goal 1 without much ado.
Timo Saloniemi
And two other posts which mention this: Thanks. It is new info to me.
Some other interesting things happen in the cannon sequence. Real-life gun failures almost always have the breech explode. After Kirk has fired, one end of his cannon is clearly damaged by the interior explosion, but which end? From the way the device lies on the ground, it seems it was the breech end. Yet the projectile was just able to make its exit even so. Note the rope wrapped around the barrel near its muzzle ends up missing. Why? And the touchhole was near the middle, as if the breech face were there instead of at the opposite end. Did the device flip end-over-end upon use?
These subtle details aside, I doubt the prop department at Desilu researched too extensively given the time pressure they operated under. There is a blog site on the props that discusses the Gorn's costume but not the gun:
http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/
From the way Kirk uses the ramrod to load his mortar, it looks as if the weapon isn't very deep: the breech might well be where the rope originally goes, at the second node in the "bamboo" from the muzzle, and no deeper. Perhaps this "shamboo" had bamboo-like internal dividing walls at each node, and Kirk was only able to pierce one of them near the muzzle?
What remains of the weapon after the explosion would then be its "stock", the empty parts aft of the dividing wall that Kirk was unable to pierce. The entire breech/barrel part would disintegrate, but not before giving enough kick for the gems to knock out the Gorn.
It looks as if there indeed is a solid wall right at the point where the breech/barrel disappears...
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x18hd/arenahd655.jpg
(Okay, that's not the original pipe at all, but a completely separate prop - the intact end doesn't match either end of the original. But still.)
Timo Saloniemi
What remains of the weapon after the explosion would then be its "stock", the empty parts aft of the dividing wall that Kirk was unable to pierce. The entire breech/barrel part would disintegrate, but not before giving enough kick for the gems to knock out the Gorn.
It looks as if there indeed is a solid wall right at the point where the breech/barrel disappears...
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x18hd/arenahd655.jpg
(Okay, that's not the original pipe at all, but a completely separate prop - the intact end doesn't match either end of the original. But still.)
Timo Saloniemi
You know, one possibility is that the Metrons lied about the arena being on some planet somewhere, and it was actually a holodeck all along. Then the cannon would've worked however the Metrons wanted it to. Which is really the only way Kirk could've gotten the gunpowder mix right on his first try. The Mythbusters had a lot of trouble with that when they tried to recreate the "Arena" cannon, IIRC. Or maybe that was some other "mix your own gunpowder" myth. Anyway, it's apparently very, very hard to get the ratios right.
Various ratios probably go boom in different ways, and Kirk got lucky in concocting one that would propel his projectiles directionally. What's left of the cannon shows his ratios were not perfectly spot on.
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