Phasers vs torpedoes
- Thread starter cwl
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Plecostomus
Commodore
Depends on the situation.
The question, as you phrase it, is kind of meaningless.
For any weapon system, the "powerfulness" of it is based upon how much power is pumped into it, or how large the payload is defined as being during the design.
That said... for a given ship in a given situation, you'll typically have torpedoes and phasers on that ship, and they are designed to fill two different roles.
A torpedo delivers a big instantaneous punch. But you can't continuously "stream" torpedos. By contrast, a phaser puts out a continuous, or nearly-so, beam of energy.
So if you miss with a torpedo, you lose a lot. If you miss, momentarily, with a phaser, you can "track" the beam back onto the target.
Potentially, a phaser beam held in continuous contact at a single point on an object is FAR more powerful, overall, than a torpedo. But you have to be able to do that, and in combat, that's not always an option.
The way to think of this is that "per unit of time, the torpedo is more powerful" but that the phaser can exercise itself over longer periods of time.
So, say (hypothetically, that a photon torpedo puts out 100 "space units" of energy in the case of a hit. A phaser beam puts out 10 "space units" of energy per second. It would take 10 seconds worth of phaser contact to put out the same amount of energy as that one torpedo. However, it might take 20 seconds to reload a torpedo tube, so "per unit time" the phaser is the more effective weapon.
Get it?
I've wondered this, too.
Both must have roles in which they are superior to the other--if this were not the case, then only one would be carried. We can say this with certainty.
Now, to determine how they compare we need to know what they are.
Photon torpedoes are easy to describe--they are a delivery mechanism for a matter/antimatter warhead, which itself consists of dozens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of discrete packets of matter and antimatter which are synchronized to be slammed into each other at exactly the same moment in time for the highest possible reaction efficiency. We can calculate with some exactitude the yield of a photon torpedo warhead, based on assumptions about the amount of matter and antimatter in the warhead and the efficiency of the reaction. In an orbital bombardment scenario, for example, we can assume nearly 100% reaction efficiency if a photon torpedo is launched into an atmosphere. Almost definitely photon torpedoes are the weapon of choice for indiscriminate planetary bombardment. In a vacuum, significantly less than all the antimatter and matter will be reacted to produce gamma rays--the high-energy photons will tend to blow the remaining reactant out of the area. The smaller the reaction packets, and the better synchronized they are, the greater the efficiency will be, but will never be 100% efficienct--even at in the perhaps unlikely situation that every atom of reactant is kept in its own Penning trap triggered in the same Planck time as the rest, I think quantum effects would still prevent total annihilation. However, even with generosity, we can perhaps assume an efficiency no greater than 50%. Further, the gamma rays produced will, in the absence of some sort of reflective surface to concentrate them, bloom on average omnidirectionally. Thus, whatever the efficiency of the reaction, still only about 50% of the energy converted from mass is going to be received by the target, even detonated right next to it. Of course, detonated kilometers out, even less is going to hit the target mass--the starship.
The great thing about photon torpedoes is that under these constraints, their exact yields can be calculated, and compared to real life WMDs.
Phasers (and disruptors, which are no doubt basically identical), by contrast, are inconsistently described, even more inconsistently shown in the VFX, and are hard to understand. They may be energy or they may be mass. There may be some sort of subspace effects going on. They involve something called a "nadion" which, as far as our science knows, does not exist.
Personally, I like to think of them as a simple neutral particle beam, comprised of "nadions" if you demand it, generated by accelerating arbitrarily large amounts of charged "nadions" to significant fraction of c, then spit through an electron or positron cloud to neutralize the beam. The nadions have to be charged in order to accelerate them; they have to be neutralized later in order to overcome the effects of electrostatic bloom. (Unlike what Balance of Terror would have us believe, a plasma weapon is a terrible idea.) A neutral particle beam will still repel itself by thermal bloom, but this is less severe. At any rate, the yield of a neutral particle beam can, like a matter-antimatter warhead, be calculated pretty well. The yield is ultimately the aggregate kinetic energy of every "nadion" that finds its way to the target. Unlike a pho-torp, this yield will drop off with distance, due to the aforementioned blooming effects.
I should point out that only at very high fractions of c would (what began as) two kilograms of phaser "nadions" remotely approach the destructive force of two kilograms of antiparticles slammed together, and who knows how much antimatter would have to be spent and how many inefficiencies endured in pumping the "nadions" up to a high relativistic mass. Pho-torps are almost definitely cheaper per striking power per particle in terms of antimatter fuel.
If deflector shields work like I think they do--by expanding and contracting space through a nonpropulsive warp field--then phasers should be more useful in striking the target mass inside. A photon torpedo is a very sensitive mechanism, and different rates of acceleration applied to the device by a changing warp field would produce stress on its insides, leading to a breach in containment around one of the antimatter packets, and one broken packet would almost certainly cook off all the rest, and probably at a greatly diminished efficiency from its normal operation. Gamma rays would still strike the target, but at less than killing intensity. Phasers are far more robust in comparison--a warp field would have relatively little effect on the kinetic energy contained in the "nadions," which would move through the deflectors toward the target, although possibly through expanded space which would diffuse the stream through thermal bloom.
So, if this is all correct, photon torpedoes are better at blowing things up, and phasers are better at hitting an object behind shields. This gives them each a vital role to play as part of a starship's armament. The pho-torp is definitely "more powerful," and longer ranged, but the phaser, if it has the shield-penetrating properties I ascribe to it, is actually the more indispensible weapon.
Both must have roles in which they are superior to the other--if this were not the case, then only one would be carried. We can say this with certainty.
Now, to determine how they compare we need to know what they are.
Photon torpedoes are easy to describe--they are a delivery mechanism for a matter/antimatter warhead, which itself consists of dozens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of discrete packets of matter and antimatter which are synchronized to be slammed into each other at exactly the same moment in time for the highest possible reaction efficiency. We can calculate with some exactitude the yield of a photon torpedo warhead, based on assumptions about the amount of matter and antimatter in the warhead and the efficiency of the reaction. In an orbital bombardment scenario, for example, we can assume nearly 100% reaction efficiency if a photon torpedo is launched into an atmosphere. Almost definitely photon torpedoes are the weapon of choice for indiscriminate planetary bombardment. In a vacuum, significantly less than all the antimatter and matter will be reacted to produce gamma rays--the high-energy photons will tend to blow the remaining reactant out of the area. The smaller the reaction packets, and the better synchronized they are, the greater the efficiency will be, but will never be 100% efficienct--even at in the perhaps unlikely situation that every atom of reactant is kept in its own Penning trap triggered in the same Planck time as the rest, I think quantum effects would still prevent total annihilation. However, even with generosity, we can perhaps assume an efficiency no greater than 50%. Further, the gamma rays produced will, in the absence of some sort of reflective surface to concentrate them, bloom on average omnidirectionally. Thus, whatever the efficiency of the reaction, still only about 50% of the energy converted from mass is going to be received by the target, even detonated right next to it. Of course, detonated kilometers out, even less is going to hit the target mass--the starship.
The great thing about photon torpedoes is that under these constraints, their exact yields can be calculated, and compared to real life WMDs.
Phasers (and disruptors, which are no doubt basically identical), by contrast, are inconsistently described, even more inconsistently shown in the VFX, and are hard to understand. They may be energy or they may be mass. There may be some sort of subspace effects going on. They involve something called a "nadion" which, as far as our science knows, does not exist.
Personally, I like to think of them as a simple neutral particle beam, comprised of "nadions" if you demand it, generated by accelerating arbitrarily large amounts of charged "nadions" to significant fraction of c, then spit through an electron or positron cloud to neutralize the beam. The nadions have to be charged in order to accelerate them; they have to be neutralized later in order to overcome the effects of electrostatic bloom. (Unlike what Balance of Terror would have us believe, a plasma weapon is a terrible idea.) A neutral particle beam will still repel itself by thermal bloom, but this is less severe. At any rate, the yield of a neutral particle beam can, like a matter-antimatter warhead, be calculated pretty well. The yield is ultimately the aggregate kinetic energy of every "nadion" that finds its way to the target. Unlike a pho-torp, this yield will drop off with distance, due to the aforementioned blooming effects.
I should point out that only at very high fractions of c would (what began as) two kilograms of phaser "nadions" remotely approach the destructive force of two kilograms of antiparticles slammed together, and who knows how much antimatter would have to be spent and how many inefficiencies endured in pumping the "nadions" up to a high relativistic mass. Pho-torps are almost definitely cheaper per striking power per particle in terms of antimatter fuel.
If deflector shields work like I think they do--by expanding and contracting space through a nonpropulsive warp field--then phasers should be more useful in striking the target mass inside. A photon torpedo is a very sensitive mechanism, and different rates of acceleration applied to the device by a changing warp field would produce stress on its insides, leading to a breach in containment around one of the antimatter packets, and one broken packet would almost certainly cook off all the rest, and probably at a greatly diminished efficiency from its normal operation. Gamma rays would still strike the target, but at less than killing intensity. Phasers are far more robust in comparison--a warp field would have relatively little effect on the kinetic energy contained in the "nadions," which would move through the deflectors toward the target, although possibly through expanded space which would diffuse the stream through thermal bloom.
So, if this is all correct, photon torpedoes are better at blowing things up, and phasers are better at hitting an object behind shields. This gives them each a vital role to play as part of a starship's armament. The pho-torp is definitely "more powerful," and longer ranged, but the phaser, if it has the shield-penetrating properties I ascribe to it, is actually the more indispensible weapon.
The new movie seems to support that idea. In the Kobayashi Maru simulation, when Kirk orders photon torpedoes someone (McCoy?) points out that the Klingons' shields are up. It sounded to me like he was implying that phasers would be more effective against a shielded ship.
It's worth noting that for decades, as a generally-accepted "fictional fact" in the Trek universe, torpedos were the weapon used to "blow holes in shields," but once the shields were penetrated, phasers were better used to "cut through" the target ship. In other words, exactly the opposite of what you guys seem to be assuming.
Yeah... all fiction... but it's just strange to hear people say what's being said here, since it's sort of like hearing someone say "look up at the floor, or down at the ceiling."
^That's weird, I always thought it was the other way around.
What was the rationale behind the torpedoes vs. shields/phasers vs. object paradigm?
What was the rationale behind the torpedoes vs. shields/phasers vs. object paradigm?
The rationale is pretty simple... a torpedo puts out a lot of energy at one instant... a phaser beam puts out energy distributed over time.
If you want to overload something... say, an electrical circuit... which is more effective? A sudden "shock" or a continuous increase above baseline current and/or voltage?
There's a reason that "surge protectors" are the rule of the day for protecting your computer, not "current limiters" (which are a different technology altogether).
The "surge" of energy from a torpedo hit is more likely to instantaneously overwhelm the shield. But once the shield is down, if you can train a phaser beam on the target (without a shield in-between) you can do as much, and perhaps more, damage than a torpedo might... and you can control it better, to boot.
Think "laser scalpel" versus "hand-grenade."
Omega_Glory
Commodore
In TOS the Enterprise's shields absorbed energy equal to 90 photon torpedos (The Changeling), yet was losing shields fast from "standard phasers" in Journey to Babel.
For what its worth.
For what its worth.
Also, Kirk preferred to engage with phasers when the going got really tough. "Balance of Terror" was written before photon torpedoes were invented by the writers, but that limitation doesn't hold in-universe. Phasers were used against the Doomsday Machine, although there it could be argued that the machine's weird damping field rendered antimatter-based weapons inoperable (and again, it doesn't matter whether the writers thought of photorps as "antimatter-based" or not).
OTOH, a spread of torpedoes was thought to be effective against an enemy Kirk wanted to deter, not necessarily destroy. The Orions never slowed down enough for this to work, but "Elaan of Troyius" had Kirk utilize a torp spread - and when one torp out of six hit the enemy, this brought down part of his shields and deprived him of maneuvering power.
Perhaps there are pros and cons, but subtle ones, and highly dependent on the tactical situation - and for the most part it's fifty-fifty, explaining both kinds of choices.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, a spread of torpedoes was thought to be effective against an enemy Kirk wanted to deter, not necessarily destroy. The Orions never slowed down enough for this to work, but "Elaan of Troyius" had Kirk utilize a torp spread - and when one torp out of six hit the enemy, this brought down part of his shields and deprived him of maneuvering power.
Perhaps there are pros and cons, but subtle ones, and highly dependent on the tactical situation - and for the most part it's fifty-fifty, explaining both kinds of choices.
Timo Saloniemi
I always looked at it like this.. Think of jets.. Phasers are like the gun and torpedoes are like it's missiles.
The way I see it in TOS, torpedoes were long-ranged, heavy punch weapons. But they weren't particularly accurate. Kirk would fire a spread of six at a Klingon Battle Cruiser and hit with two or three of them. However, those two or three torpedoes would be enough to cripple an opponent.
Phasers on the other hand where shorter-ranged, with less punch, but far more accurate. They are also quicker to arm and fire, but draw power from the ship's power grid rather than the anti-matter reserves.
Phasers on the other hand where shorter-ranged, with less punch, but far more accurate. They are also quicker to arm and fire, but draw power from the ship's power grid rather than the anti-matter reserves.
I seem to recall torpedoes almost always being kept for the finishing blow. Which doesn't necessarily mean they're ineffective against shields. It could just mean that, by the time shields and other systems are failing, a ship is pretty much dead in the water, thus an easier target for the torps.
In the new universe we might want to think about changing convention even more. Phasers seem to be more of a defensive weapon, like the dual-purpose guns or standard missiles on modern destroyers, while torpedoes are more Harpoon/Tomahawk type weapons. Phasers would work for a soft kill "shoot his rudders off" attack while torpedoes would be good for overwhelming his defenses and blowing his ship in half.
Though we sitll have the option of doing a 'colony wars' type setup where the ship can literally set its phasers on stun--or some similar mode specifically designed to disrupt shields--and use it specifically to disable the other ship's shields. The anti-shield phasers would do almost no damage at all to the ship fired at them, while regular phasers would bounce off the shields without doing any damage at all.
But that's just a pipe dream of mine... all we've SEEN is that phasers can be used defensively against missiles or as a deterrent against other ships while photons are used only when you're really pissed.
Though we sitll have the option of doing a 'colony wars' type setup where the ship can literally set its phasers on stun--or some similar mode specifically designed to disrupt shields--and use it specifically to disable the other ship's shields. The anti-shield phasers would do almost no damage at all to the ship fired at them, while regular phasers would bounce off the shields without doing any damage at all.
But that's just a pipe dream of mine... all we've SEEN is that phasers can be used defensively against missiles or as a deterrent against other ships while photons are used only when you're really pissed.
^There was nothing in principle from keeping phasers from being used as defensive weapons in old Trek, really. I've always wondered why no starships have CIWS batteries, especially considering how freaking awesome their targeting computers must be...
However, the last outing in the original universe may have reversed that. It's possible and perhaps preferable to interpret the 54 or however ridiculously many disruptor banks there were on the Scimitar as being mostly lighter anti-torpedo weapons.
However, the last outing in the original universe may have reversed that. It's possible and perhaps preferable to interpret the 54 or however ridiculously many disruptor banks there were on the Scimitar as being mostly lighter anti-torpedo weapons.
Or like a modern naval heavy cruiser....guns & short-range missles for up close, accuracy work and cruise missles for long-range bombardment.
There is a scene in Star Trek II that seems to imply phasers are sometimes used in a defensive role. In the first encounter between Enterprise and Reliant, after his initial pass Khan fires a torpedo. Kirk sees it on the screen and tells Sulu to divert all power to phasers. Somebody says "too late" and then the torpedo hits. It sounds to me like the idea was to shoot at the incoming torpedo.
Marian
Marian
As for CIWS, in the early to mid 80's I played Star Fleet Battles (From 1979 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles) & the Gorn had them as Phasers that fired 4 times in the time that a Star Fleet's Phaser could fire once. I believe they were slightly less powerful as well but can not be accurately certain on that point. As I was planning to join the USN since around 81-82 & even had several editions of JFS, I was rather curious myself as to why Star Fleet would have not designed them as well taken from their use in our naval fleets except that they had not been used in TOS nor the movies to that pont.
Photon Torps were hit or miss with large destructive power in their warhead only limited to their speed and fuel range as to hitting ship or shield. Just as naval Torpedoes were up to that point in our own development, where we had wire guided ones at the time, as well as the few that could be carried & the speed they could be reloaded into tubes (I do not recall if any energy was required to charge them or if they carried a pre-charged warhead & charged fuel). As to Myasishcev's opinion on the distribution of the Gamma Rays, I am fairly certain any Torpedo that would deliver such a warhead would have a deflector of a sort, be it energy or material based, to the rear of the torpedo focusing more of the energy reaction forward.
The Phasers were pretty much lust Phased Lasers, the phasing being needed to counter the phased frequencies of the enemies shields & though light speed attacks, limited to damage via range to target. They took large amounts of energy to charge them, most easily from the warp engines. Though there was obviously the idea of larger battery capacity then we we had then & even now, just as we knew from the batteries used in WWI to WWII Subs & to those of the then modern day subs, that they would continue to be smaller in size while holding larger amounts of energy.
I do not recall which of the 2 had the greatest range, though if it was the Pho-torps did, they would definitely have to have been fired in a spread even with our knowledge of smart weapons now even against the Impulse speeds capable to Star Ships.
Someone mentioned that Disruptors were similar to Phasers, I disagree here. I believe Disruptors were more similar to a Molecular Disruptor that would just atomize what it hits than a Phased Laser that cut away at what it hits.
Also mentioned & puffed off was the Plasma Weapon. That, I believe was also either a Gorn or a Romulan weapon & it could be more summarized as Coronal Mass Ejections. The release large quantities of matter and electromagnetic radiation into space, giving very large destructive damage closer in but they spread & dissipate in far shorter distances than Phasers & Disruptors. Weaker & slower CME's don't have the continuing energy which would be similar to a Stellar Flare but if a Plasma Charge form of weapon did then surely a Star Ships Shields would even more easily shrug it off than the Earth's Atmosphere, Ionosphere or Ozone Layer does.
Photon Torps were hit or miss with large destructive power in their warhead only limited to their speed and fuel range as to hitting ship or shield. Just as naval Torpedoes were up to that point in our own development, where we had wire guided ones at the time, as well as the few that could be carried & the speed they could be reloaded into tubes (I do not recall if any energy was required to charge them or if they carried a pre-charged warhead & charged fuel). As to Myasishcev's opinion on the distribution of the Gamma Rays, I am fairly certain any Torpedo that would deliver such a warhead would have a deflector of a sort, be it energy or material based, to the rear of the torpedo focusing more of the energy reaction forward.
The Phasers were pretty much lust Phased Lasers, the phasing being needed to counter the phased frequencies of the enemies shields & though light speed attacks, limited to damage via range to target. They took large amounts of energy to charge them, most easily from the warp engines. Though there was obviously the idea of larger battery capacity then we we had then & even now, just as we knew from the batteries used in WWI to WWII Subs & to those of the then modern day subs, that they would continue to be smaller in size while holding larger amounts of energy.
I do not recall which of the 2 had the greatest range, though if it was the Pho-torps did, they would definitely have to have been fired in a spread even with our knowledge of smart weapons now even against the Impulse speeds capable to Star Ships.
Someone mentioned that Disruptors were similar to Phasers, I disagree here. I believe Disruptors were more similar to a Molecular Disruptor that would just atomize what it hits than a Phased Laser that cut away at what it hits.
Also mentioned & puffed off was the Plasma Weapon. That, I believe was also either a Gorn or a Romulan weapon & it could be more summarized as Coronal Mass Ejections. The release large quantities of matter and electromagnetic radiation into space, giving very large destructive damage closer in but they spread & dissipate in far shorter distances than Phasers & Disruptors. Weaker & slower CME's don't have the continuing energy which would be similar to a Stellar Flare but if a Plasma Charge form of weapon did then surely a Star Ships Shields would even more easily shrug it off than the Earth's Atmosphere, Ionosphere or Ozone Layer does.
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