Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
The thing about small aircraft is, they're harder to hit because of all that jockeying around in turbulent air. Remove the effect of air turbulence and introduce self-tracking weapons, and the dogfight loses its edge.
|
Being a pilot myself, although not licensed at this time, I disagree with this. Yes, the ride is rough up there due to turbulence, but that actually has very little effect on the way an aircraft goes. The only advantage an aircraft would have over a spacecraft is that it can use the air around it to help it turn. A spacecraft would have to use 360 degree 3 axis trust in order to make those same changes. Plus at the higher rates of speed the spacecraft could hit, it would be more practical to make your spaceship a meandering tri-directional turret than employ any kind of actual dog fighting. You have to remember, in a real air fight, you can't turn around and shoot at the guy on your 6 oclock. In space, you can.
Quote:
|
Shields. Huge silly sci-fi trope. Capable of deflecting energy weapons fire, but incapable of capturing some of that energy to direct back at the enemy. And should be useless against a physical weapon, but somehow they manage to take out projectile fire too. Wassup with that?
|
The concept of a deflector shield is that it places an energy barrier around the ship that is capable of deflecting not just energy, which in the concentrations it's being fired at would also possess considerable inertia of its own, but physical matter as well. It's already been scientifically proven that you can block physical matter with an energy field just as easier, if not more so, than energy. I don't have the name of the exact study, but it's out there. Google it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dworth
How do you target a ship if the distance is such that the light delay means that the ship that you're firing at isn't where it appears to be anyway and definitely won't be there when your missiles arrive?
|
The same way pilots hit moving targets today. You predict where the target will be when your bullet arrives, then aim for that spot. It's called "leading the target". Anyone who's had to fire at a moving target knows about that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
Heck, just Worf up front with a batt'leth and a few clean-up red-shirts with magnum revolvers and baseball bats would've done it.
|
Yeah, wondered about that myself, because Picard machine gunned that one borg to death in the holodeck. So why couldn't starfleet switch everyone to hard ammo? My only guess is that these are 24th century people and they just don't think like that anymore.