Why do Torpedoes rarely explode near the target?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Most of the times you see torpedoes ram a ships shield and the shield sparkles.

Yet everytime I've seen them detonate a Torpedo near a ship and let the shockwave do it's damage, it seems far more effective. Not to mention that that is closer to how modern air to air missile works.

Every standard photon torpedo has the power to be stronger than a modern day H-Bomb with the blast radius to back it, yet they never portray the torpedoes like that.

I know there is a VFX budget issue, but with modern CG, adding appropriate size explosions should be easy once you've created the explosion.

So why don't they do protray Torpedoes as giant explosions near it's target?

 

[R. Star]

I would suspect it has something to do with consistency. Changing the way photon torpedoes work half way through Trek would be a huge inconsistency even for Trek.

Not to mention a screen full of explosions would be very sloppy from a viewers standpoint.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yet everytime I've seen them detonate a Torpedo near a ship and let the shockwave do it's damage, it seems far more effective.

Could you provide some examples of this? Generally, I've only seen torpedoes used as direct-hit weapons on vessels.

Not to mention that that is closer to how modern air to air missile works.

Photon torpedoes may work differently, especially at high impulse or warp velocities against shielded starships.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZasBKig9v4

at 1:25 is one example.

at 2:30 is another example.

 

[6079SmithW]

I always found it a little grating when the torpedo would be absorbed by the enemy ship instead of exploding. It would act like a phaser bolt instead of a physical warhead. This was noticeable in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Best of Both Worlds". I understand the vfx problems of having multiple explosions occur on screen but it was still off putting. I mean, in the TOS movies the torpedoes were clearly physical and had discernible explosions.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Photon torpedoes may work differently, especially at high impulse or warp velocities against shielded starships.

Doubtful, they seem to have a relatively consistant portrayal.

They even proved that it can explode and create a nice shockwave.

The question is why ram the torpedo against the shield and have it distribute energy in that fashion, versus just detonating the torpedo near the target and let the Area of Effect cover larger chunks of the shield or even temporarily blind the target for that 1-2 seconds while the explosion is going off.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I always found it a little grating when the torpedo would be absorbed by the enemy ship instead of exploding. It would act like a phaser bolt instead of a physical warhead. This was noticeable in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Best of Both Worlds". I understand the vfx problems of having multiple explosions occur on screen but it was still off putting. I mean, in the TOS movies the torpedoes were clearly physical and had discernible explosions.

At least Gundam / Macross got the concept right when you have explosions. They're supposed to be big, numerous, and powerful looking, not little whimpers like a shield glow after impact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOws0VLg6k&feature=relmfu

Macross Frontier knows how to do a large scale battle =D.
Whether or not the explosion did massive damage to the ship / shields is a secondary concern. At least make it look correct IMO.

 

[MacLeod]

Well shields have multiple projectors, so spreading a destructive force over a wider area means that each projector has to take less load. Which could mean that a ship could hang in a fight longer.


I'm no maths expert but with a direct hid there is less area in which the energy can be disapted. Meaning more of the destrucitve power is in use against the shields.

Torpdeo's are generally shown to detonate with a spherical area of impact, energy when travelling gets weaker the further it has to travel.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Photon torpedoes may work differently, especially at high impulse or warp velocities against shielded starships.

Doubtful, they seem to have a relatively consistant portrayal.

I think there's a difference between air-to-air missiles and subspace-propelled torpedoes fired between shielded starships moving at either warp or impulse.

The two examples you provided are instances in which torpedoes are used to scatter multiple smaller craft rather than take out vessels of comparative size. Such tactics might not work on bigger or stronger vessels which may be able to better withstand or deflect such blasts.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Well shields have multiple projectors, so spreading a destructive force over a wider area means that each projector has to take less load. Which could mean that a ship could hang in a fight longer.


I'm no maths expert but with a direct hid there is less area in which the energy can be disapted. Meaning more of the destrucitve power is in use against the shields.

Torpdeo's are generally shown to detonate with a spherical area of impact, energy when travelling gets weaker the further it has to travel.

I think you mean shields have multiple large surface areas? Cause I don't understand what you mean by projectors.

Unless you're talking about shields that are established by an array of small projectors instead of one large deflector dish?

Yes energy does dispate at a non linear rate when there is a larger spherical explosion. The question is what area do you want to take damage.

Lets use a simple analogy for spherical shield surface area.
Let's say you have 10 surfaces with 100 Shield Points each.
If you have the torpedo crash into the shield, it does 80 points to 1 surface.
However if you let it explode near the shield and let the damage spread out across multiple surfaces, lets say it'll do 60 on shield A, 50 on shield B, 30 on shield C, 20 on shield D, 10 on shield E.
In total it would do 170 damage.

Wouldn't it be more advantageous to spread the damage out so that your enemy has more Shield Points to regenerate?

I know I'm simplfying the math by alot, but the point of exploding near the enemy is doing more total damage. It makes more sense when enemies have bubble shields too. They have to recharge the shield energy which eats up more of their energy supply.

Shields have already been established in ST that Starfleet Vessels has multple sections. From what I can tell there is at least 6 sections
Forward
Back
Left
Right
Top
Bottom

You can divert energy from any one section to another for extra re-inforcement based on the situation.

Who knows if an alien has more sections or even sub sections within one piece.

Star Wars has thier shields divided into very small chunks that can take damage independently which is smart. If one piece goes down, you don't have a gaping hole for enemies to hit you with.

With Starfleet vessels, if you knock down one section and you don't transfer energy to it, you leave a gaping hole for the enemy to do direct damage to your vessel.

If you have a bubble shield that has only 1 piece, if you just keep wailing on the shields, eventually they'll go down. Then you're free to do direct damage.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I think there's a difference between air-to-air missiles and subspace-propelled torpedoes fired between shielded starships moving at either warp or impulse.

The two examples you provided are instances in which torpedoes are used to scatter multiple smaller craft rather than take out vessels of comparative size. Such tactics might not work on bigger or stronger vessels which may be able to better withstand or deflect such blasts.

See above post for what I mean in exploding torpedoes near it's target vs crashing torpedoes into the shields.

BTW, photon torpedos either travel in normal space with small impulse thrusters or maintains a warp bubble from the vessel it was launched or generates it's own.

Torpedoes don't use a warp bubble all the time, it's situational based on how it needs to travel to hit it's target.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Photon torpedoes may work differently, especially at high impulse or warp velocities against shielded starships.

Doubtful, they seem to have a relatively consistant portrayal.

They even proved that it can explode and create a nice shockwave.

The question is why ram the torpedo against the shield and have it distribute energy in that fashion, versus just detonating the torpedo near the target and let the Area of Effect cover larger chunks of the shield or even temporarily blind the target for that 1-2 seconds while the explosion is going off.

Most of the times you see torpedoes ram a ships shield and the shield sparkles.

Yet everytime I've seen them detonate a Torpedo near a ship and let the shockwave do it's damage, it seems far more effective. Not to mention that that is closer to how modern air to air missile works.

Every standard photon torpedo has the power to be stronger than a modern day H-Bomb with the blast radius to back it, yet they never portray the torpedoes like that.

I know there is a VFX budget issue, but with modern CG, adding appropriate size explosions should be easy once you've created the explosion.

So why don't they do protray Torpedoes as giant explosions near it's target?

Why would you waste energy exploding near the target when you can actually hit the target and deliver far more energy?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Did you not read my above posts for why I made the argument for exploding near the shield instead of ramming it? I'm not going to bother restating it again.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Did you not read my above posts for why I made the argument for exploding near the shield instead of ramming it? I'm not going to bother restating it again.

Yeah I read them, but they don't make any sense. 50 isotons will do more damage at target than 2 km from target. It's that simple. You provided couple of videos to say that away from target does more damage, but that's really just very inconclusive. Based on what logic would they do more damage is what I'm trying to ask? You didn't explain it very well

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Lets use a simple analogy for spherical shield surface area.
Let's say you have 10 surfaces with 100 Shield Points each.
If you have the torpedo crash into the shield, it does 80 points to 1 surface.
However if you let it explode near the shield and let the damage spread out across multiple surfaces, lets say it'll do 60 on shield A, 50 on shield B, 30 on shield C, 20 on shield D, 10 on shield E.
In total it would do 170 damage.

Wouldn't it be more advantageous to spread the damage out so that your enemy has more Shield Points to regenerate?

I know I'm simplfying the math by alot, but the point of exploding near the enemy is doing more total damage. It makes more sense when enemies have bubble shields too. They have to recharge the shield energy which eats up more of their energy supply.

Since there are multiple shield sections, you can explode the torpedo right next to the shield instead of colliding it into the shield. You can do more total damage against a larger surface area of the shield then instead of lots of damage to a small section of the shield.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I never said anything about exploding it 2 KM away from the target.

Most modern AA missiles explode about 1-2 meters away from the target.

You can probably rig torpedoes to explode 1-2 meters away from the shield.

As a small side benefit, the explosion will temporarily blind the target for a small section of their ship board cameras.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Even if that were true (which I'm not sure it is), that wouldn't necessarily be tactically sound. The idea is to punch a hole in the shields so you can damage the enemy vessel directly. The ship is the target, not the shield. You only need to collapse one section of the shield to score a direct hit on your target.

Also, as Emperor Tiberius (no relation) said, the torpedo does more damage when it hits the target directly.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Lets use a simple analogy for spherical shield surface area.
Let's say you have 10 surfaces with 100 Shield Points each.
If you have the torpedo crash into the shield, it does 80 points to 1 surface.
However if you let it explode near the shield and let the damage spread out across multiple surfaces, lets say it'll do 60 on shield A, 50 on shield B, 30 on shield C, 20 on shield D, 10 on shield E.
In total it would do 170 damage.

Wouldn't it be more advantageous to spread the damage out so that your enemy has more Shield Points to regenerate?

I know I'm simplfying the math by alot, but the point of exploding near the enemy is doing more total damage. It makes more sense when enemies have bubble shields too. They have to recharge the shield energy which eats up more of their energy supply.

Since there are multiple shield sections, you can explode the torpedo right next to the shield instead of colliding it into the shield. You can do more total damage against a larger surface area of the shield then instead of lots of damage to a small section of the shield.

Ok sorry I missed this post. And that's where the trouble lies:
If you detonated it near, why would it do "60 on shield A, 50 on shield B, 30 on shield C, 20 on shield D, 10 on shield E." ?

If it can only do 80 damage on one shield when fully detonated on it, it would only do something like 30 at A, 20 at B, 15 on C, 10 on D and 5 on E.
That would be more like it. You can't go above 80 and create more energy simply by detonating it couple of meters away.

If you are targeting a tank, you need to deliver a tremendous amount of energy on the smallest possible point, not spread the damage all over the tank - that's not going to penetrate the armor.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

I never said anything about exploding it 2 KM away from the target.

Most modern AA missiles explode about 1-2 meters away from the target.

You can probably rig torpedoes to explode 1-2 meters away from the shield.

As a small side benefit, the explosion will temporarily blind the target for a small section of their ship board cameras.

AA missiles explode near a target because there is a good chance they'll miss if they don't. It would be much more effective if they actually hit the target.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Even if that were true (which I'm not sure it is), that wouldn't necessarily be tactically sound. The idea is to punch a hole in the shields so you can damage the enemy vessel directly. The ship is the target, not the shield. You only need to collapse one section of the shield to score a direct hit on your target.

Also, as Emperor Tiberius (no relation) said, the torpedo does more damage when it hits the target directly.

I agree on the fact that punching a hole so you can do direct damage to a ships hull is the optimal strategy.

But if the enemy is not a moron and is willing to rotate their vessel, re-distribute energy from multiple sections, or rotate their ship to have the stronger shields face the enemy. You won't get a clean shot through the weaker side.

Ergo you spread damage as far as you can to as much surface area as you can so you make the enemy expend more energy on shields.

War of attrition.