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Imperial Star Destroyer vs. USS Enterprise


Jae Onasi

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Doesn't anyone have a sort of size comparison ?

 

StarDestroyers are larger ? A lot I think :p

 

They might not be so nimble like the enterprise, but they got some heavy laser turrets, not to mention a truck load of Tie Fighters to spew out.

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This is really hard to judge, really, because Star Wars and Star Trek feature two very different styles of space combat. Star Trek focuses almost all the firepower and combat on the main ships, while Star Wars is more small-range fighters and dogfighting than actual large ship combat. Long range, I'd say the Enterprise, because it's packing more heat by itself and can reach farther, but short range, a Star Destroyer, because it could overwhelm the Enterprise with a swarm of fighters.

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StarDestroyers are larger ? A lot I think

 

ISD II = 1600m in length

Ent E = 685m

 

Just a slight size difference! :xp:

 

But, something I've always thought would help decide the outcome was an exchange in The Next Generation (Season 2 - 'The Outrageous Okona'), where laser weapons were mocked as completely ineffective:

 

Worf, Picard & Riker

 

"Captain, they are now locking lasers on us."

"Lasers!?"

"Yes, sir."

"Lasers can't even penetrate our navigation shields. Don't they know that?"

"Regulations do call for yellow alert."

"Hmm, a very old regulation. Well, make it so Number One. And, reduce speed... drop main shields, as well."

"May I ask why, sir?"

"In case we decide to surrender to them, Number One... "

 

Also in that episode they mentioned that the opponent could fire lasers until they ran dry and still not damage the Enterprise.

 

That, if it applied to Star Wars physics, would probably eliminate the effectiveness of the bulk of an ISDs weaponry...

 

...but, of course, the argument about differing physics is important, and probably squashes any chance of a good conclusive comparison. :(

 

EDIT: Just now saw J7's post...ignore last sentence! :lol:

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I'm gonna say...Enterprise! It has phasers and photon torpedoes. Plus...I don't think Star destroyers are that manuverable when In combat.

 

Unless it is Archer's Enterprise, I'd have to say the Enterprise.

 

For Example the Enterprise E compared to a Star Destroyer.

 

The Star Destroyer has the size and mass advantage.

 

Hyperdrive rates above warp 9.9 so the Hyperdrive probably can be faster, however that said ships in Hyperspace are blind and stuck going in a straight line, ships with Warp Drive can maneuver while at warp, can see, and fire weapons, it may even be possible for a trek ship to detect a ship in Hyperspace.

 

Sublight maneuverability, favors the Enterprise at sublight speeds it appears the Enterprise is faster and more maneuverable than a star destroyer.

 

Power Output, a Star Destroyer's main reactor is impressive in size, but it appears it is fusion based, while every Enterprise we've seen uses Matter/Antimatter giving enormous amount of power that makes the Star Destroyer look underpowered. So power efficiency and power output favors the Trek ship.

 

Firepower: This is a tough one, in number of weapons the Star Destroyer has the advantage, but in raw firepower the Enterprise holds the advantage, also holds the advantage in targetting as well. Photon Torpedoes pack an enormous punch, and tactics we've seen using phaser arrays would potentially make short work of an ISD's shields since unlike Turbolasers, you can modulate weapon frequencies and phasing to punch through the other ship's shields.

 

Shields/Armor: From a shielding standpoint the Enterprise has the advantage (except for Archer's ship), from an armor standpoint the ISD has the advantage. However ISDs apparently don't have Structural Integrity Fields to my knowledge and can't use force fields to seal off various parts of the ship. Further as seen in Best of Both Worlds Part II, we've seen that if all else fails you can use the navigational deflector as a weapon (of course the Borg had already adapted to it but it is argued that the attack would have worked).

 

The Issue of Fighters: Arguably, TIE fighters would be irrelevant in the fight due to their lack of shielding. A common tactic in star trek is to release an antimatter spread to react to the small amounts of matter in space and cause all kind of electromagnetic distortions to throw off targeting locks, the issue with this is that since a TIE has no shields the matter that makes up the TIE interacting with the antimatter = the TIE pretty much being destroyed as matter and antimatter annihilate each other.

 

 

Another key advantage is Transporter Technology which can cause all sorts of havoc including potentially beaming a torpedo on to the bridge of the ISD, so it looks like the Enterprise holds most of the advantages despite being smaller.

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ISD. All in all I think it's massive size advantage over the Enterprise would be the determining factor in a battle. The Enterprise may have a maneuverability over the ISD, but to be honest I don't know that it's weapons would even penetrate the ISD's shields.

 

Actually I'd say the power output is what would determine who would win, and the Enterprise has the advantage.

 

E=mc^2 is the deciding factor, in short real life physics can give one a measure of power output for a Star Destroyer vs the Enterprise, and real life physics indicates the Enterprise makes the ISD look like a joke.

 

Another analogy would be a Romulan Warbird which uses and artificial singularity (an artificial blackhole) to power their ships, a Romulan Warbird is 5x the size of a Galaxy Class Enterprise-D, yet a Galaxy class can stand toe to toe with a Warbird.

 

The only way I can see an ISD winning was if it were just versing the Saucer Section, because then it would be fusion reactor vs fusion reactor. Once the Stardrive section is involved, the ISD would be in big trouble because of the much higher energy output that one sees with a matter/antimatter reaction.

 

Energy = mass * the speed of light^2

 

An ISD doesn't get near that kind of power, while the Enterprise does, it's basic real life physics that come into play, and if in Star Wars the speed of light is much higher than in real life, that makes the Enterprise even more powerful than it is in the Star Trek Universe, for the simple reason of E=mc^2.

 

We in short have a smaller ship, that generates more power than a ship several times it's size. Bigger isn't always better.

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But that power can only be directed to peaceful communications and holodeck fantasy programs. So it still loses.

 

There weren't any holodecks on the Enterprise NCC-1701, or Enterprise A, nor Enterprise B.

 

 

The Enterprise-D had several times the power of the NCC-1701, the communications systems do not take up that much power, considering they can run full communications on battery power if need be (if the subspace field generators aren't damaged), and transporters on auxilery power (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

 

Furthermore, the holodecks don't use nearly the amount of power that the Warp Core would be generating, in fact the warp core isn't even usually operating at full power because it would be more power than would be needed.

 

If you look at the Star Trek the Next Generation Technical Manual, you'd find that during Red Alert, the Warp core is brought to about 80% capacity if I remember correctly. The Defensive shields come online and the Navigational shields go to full power, the weapons systems power up, and all the SIFGs are powered up, the fusion reactors for the Impulse engines are also all brought online as are the backup fusion reactors. Also, during a Red Alert, Holodecks are normally taken offline as are some other systems, in case that power is needed elsewhere.

 

For reference the SIFGs are what reinforce the outer hull of a Starship, making the ship much stronger and better able to withstand impacts and stresses of acceleration, they are used in conjunction with the Interial Dampening Field Generators. Then to top that off you have the navigational shields at full power, and then on top of that you have the defensive shields up at full strength.

 

Power from the M/ARC (Matter/Antimatter Reaction Chamber) is used to power the phaser arrays. Antimatter is loaded into the photon torpedos (which can be fired at near lightspeed velocities or FTL velocities if the ship is at Warp).

 

Furthermore, that is just the Enterprise-D, which was not intended to be a combat vessel, the Sovereign Class (Enterprise-E) was geared more for combat than the Galaxy Class.

 

The lack of damage done to the ships in Star Trek II, where they weren't pulverizing each other with one phaser hit, is more a testament to the Structural Integrity Field Generators than anything else. Another example can be seen in Star Trek: Nemesis, where the damage should have been far worse if not for the Structural Integrity Fields. A third Example would be Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and Star Trek: Generations.

 

ISDs have hyperdrives--not sure how that is less than warp drive in terms of physics--both go past lightspeed.

 

Hyperspace is more of shifting out of normal space where you still have mass shadows.

 

Warp drive actually literally warps space/time around a ship compressing the fabric of space in front of a ship and expanding the fabric of space behind the ship using that to propel the ship forward.

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