Romulan Plasma Torps, Failure?

[Icy_Penguigo]

OT here for a sec.

solariabsg25: Where did you avatar come from? I do lots of art for SFB, and I'm always curious when I see some that I haven't seen already.

 

[Timo]

Agreed that the "BoT" weapon was an obviously customized anti-installation weapon. Perhaps we should think in terms of warheads here: in the real world, naval guns have armor-piercing ammunition for use against other warships, and shrapnel ammunition for use against shore targets. The "BoT" weapon might simply have been a standard torpedo weapon of some sort firing an anti-installation warhead (the equivalent of a battleship gun firing gigantic shrapnel ammo), or more probably a modified weapon optimized for this kind of ammo (the equivalent of an immense howlizer on a monitor-type vessel, basically useless for antiship use no matter what ammo, but optimal for firing shrapnel rounds ashore).

However, I'm not generally fond of the idea of the "BoT" weapon being a classic guided torpedo as such. After all, it's never referred to as such in the episode. IMHO, "plasma torpedo" is a classic Trek torpedo with a plasma warhead (whatever that is), just as shown in DS9 for the Cardassian planetary defense platforms. The weapon in "BoT" in turn is an entirely different type of weapon - although having the same basic sort of warhead, it scales it up to ridiculous proportions and uses a different delivery method for it.

The guidance and acceleration properties are quite possibly separate from the warhead. I see an analogy to the SARH air-to-air missiles of today, such as the widely used AIM-7 Sparrow: the mothership has to keep a beam of sorts locked to the target to deliver the warhead which is incapable of independently tracking the enemy.

The firing procedure could be like this: generate the deadly plasma by activating/detonating a standard "plasma warhead"; spit it out; accelerate it using a forward-projected warp field; if the enemy tries to dodge, turn the accelerating warp field like a flashlight beam, and the warhead slavishly follows within the beam.

Such technology would seem quite practical and fitting for the Trek milieu: the navigational deflectors already behave much like this putative accelerating field.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Solariabsg25]

OT here for a sec.

solariabsg25: Where did you avatar come from? I do lots of art for SFB, and I'm always curious when I see some that I haven't seen already.

I've no idea to be honest - a friend of mine emailled it to me, and I've tried searching but haven't found it's location yet - wish I could, cos I think whoever did it is awesome, and love to see more of his/her work. It's certainly SFB/Fed Commander-cover worthy!!

 

[Unicron]

I was thinking about that possibility too, Timo - the BOP could have been responsible for guiding the plasma weapon.

 

[Icy_Penguigo]

I was thinking about that possibility too, Timo - the BOP could have been responsible for guiding the plasma weapon.

SFB postulates that plasma torpedoes are somehow self-guiding weapons...mainly because they continue to track after the firing ship cloaks. The reason why this matters is that when a ship cloaks, it ceases radiating as many emissions as it can, and this includes active scanning. Which it seems the ship would need to accurately track a target moving at FTL speeds to guide the device.

SFB wisely stays away from trying any harder than that to explain how the heck a plasma torpedo works though.

 

[Icy_Penguigo]

I've no idea to be honest - a friend of mine emailled it to me, and I've tried searching but haven't found it's location yet - wish I could, cos I think whoever did it is awesome, and love to see more of his/her work. It's certainly SFB/Fed Commander-cover worthy!!

Yeah...I'd like to see a higher-res version if possible.

 

[Timo]

SFB postulates that plasma torpedoes are somehow self-guiding weapons...mainly because they continue to track after the firing ship cloaks. The reason why this matters is that when a ship cloaks, it ceases radiating as many emissions as it can, and this includes active scanning. Which it seems the ship would need to accurately track a target moving at FTL speeds to guide the device.

To be sure, we never learn that the ship in "BoT" becomes untrackable after firing. Invisible, sure, but mere visual-range pseudo-transparency never stopped Spock from tracking it. It might just as well be that the ship takes whatever partial measures it can while still maintaining the targeting lock and the guidance/propulsion beam. No reason not to do partial stealth, after all.

...Except if the cloak eats up a lot of energy or fuel. But then again, "BoT" never claims this. Spock's ill-founded speculation is our only reason to think that the cloak would be power-intensive. For all we know, the true reason the Romulans run out of fuel is because their weapon consumes all that power.

The cloak is great for sneaking up to the enemy. But the cloak would be vital if one needs to stay put after launching the weapon. It would be the only way for the attacker to avoid return fire, when both maneuverability and the ability to put distance between the target and the ship are taken away.

Timo Saloniemi