Which ship would win in a fight

[brazilianjiujitsu1979]

Which ship would win in a fight.  A Galaxy Class Starship or an Imperial Star Destroyer.

I think the Galaxy every time.  I don't think any of the SD weapons could dent a Galaxy's shields.

My opinion

Andy

[Blackride]

lol funny topic. They really do not talk about shield capabilty too much in star wars so this is a WAG but I would have to say a Galaxy class ship because its fast and it can manuver around so fast.

[Geekyfanboy]

Yeah I agree with Blackride... Galaxy class could fly circle around the Star destroyer. But the Star Destroyer uses laser cannons and the Galaxy class uses phaser and toredos. Can a shield stop a laser cannon?

[brazilianjiujitsu1979]

I believe a shield can stop a laser turrent because in one episode in Early TNG when that smuggler/thief guy gets that girl pregnant and two ships show up......the engineer said they can shoot till their lasers run out and it will not dent the shields.

Andy

[X]

Yeah, the D went up against ships with lasers and tried not to laugh. Also, the standard weapons of a galaxy class could in theory destroy a planet. That makes it death star scale but much smaller. Let's not even consider the transporters.

[Geoff G.o.B]

Ahh but a SD has fighters, which means you've got multiple attack options and a possible screen for torpedoes. Obviously a tie fighter wouldn't even scratch a Galaxy class ship, but mass attacks could drain shields..possibly  :dstar

[wraith1701]

LOL - it's the eternal debate-- Star Trek vs Star Wars...

Anyone seen this?

Star Trek vs Star Wars

The Star Destroyer outmasses the Galaxy Class Starship by a huge margin, but the Starfleet ships have the advantage of computer-aided targeting and weapons controll.  Star Wars tech seems to rely a lot more on manually targeted and operated weaponry.  Computers>human reflexes.

[Dan M]

That clip was fun.

"Captain, the enemy vessel is firing 400 gigawatts of particle energy!"
"Let's get the hell out of here, Warp 8."

Starfleet needs shorter commands for emergency situations.  I'd suggest a code word.  Jean-Luc could just yell "vamoose" and the crew would know what to do.  And there should just be a vamoose button which the helmsman can hit which computes safest trajectory and gets the ship out of danger. 

In fact, the senior bridge crew (except for Deanna) should have the discretion of declaring a vamoose without waiting for authorization.

The exchange would've gone like this.

"VAMOOSE!!!"
[ warp trail ]
"Mr. Worf, why did we just run."
"Captain, the enemy vessel was firing a burst of 400 gigawatts of particle energy!"
"Good call, Mr. Worf.  Ready all weapons.  Mr. Crusher, lay in a course back to the battle, Warp 8.  Let's try that again.  Engage."

[Dan M]

This has been a long-standing geek debate going back to my childhood.  I've probably had this conversation 30 times with different groups of friends.

Like Rico said, the computer-aided targeting of Trek tech is so far beyond what we see in Star Wars.  Back in the 80s, I read that an F-18's computers could track 10 targets on radar (and that was with little more than stone knives and bearskins).   Obviously, the every TIE Fighter in the Imperial navy would be little more than a nuisance to the Enterprise-D.  30 seconds of a sustained phaser attack would solve that problem.

There's nothing to indicate that shields on Star Destroyers offer the same level of protection as Starfleet shields.  The Star Destroyer's weaponry also doesn't seem to be in the same league as the phasers and photon torpedoes at Jean-Luc's command.  Add to that the far superior maneuverability of Federation starships, and you end up with a fairly one-sided contest.

As to the Death Star, you have to remember the sophisticated sensors of the Federation flagship.  Upon detecting the moon-sized station, Data would run some scans.  Not only would he detect the massive weaponry within it, putting the crew on alert for the power buildup of the main gun, but he would be able to analyze its shields, if they exist, and detect a frequency to penetrate them, or some other vulnerability.

And if there happened to be some small thermal exhaust port on the Death Star, Data would find it, program a photon torpedo for the journey, and that'd be the end of that.

Of course, there's always the danger of Vader choking Jean-Luc while they're speaking on the viewscreen.

Put in other terms, if this was boxing, the Federation punches harder, reacts faster, moves around the ring better, has better stamina and is just a smarter fighter.  KO in the first round.

[Jen]

Wow...what an incredibly geeky topic. I love it!

I think the Galaxy ships are more manuverable and could avoid the cannons. But after seeing the size of the Executor in comparison to the Enterprise, in Kenny's ship comparison post, I would have to say that the Star Destroyer could not be defeated. Geoff is right, the Galaxy class ship would have to fight Ti Fighters in addition to the Laser cannons. Pickard made a good point too—Vader could choke the captain of the Federation ship.  To top it off the Galaxy ship would have to avoid the mega gigando tractor beam. They had enough trouble with the Borg Cubes, and those bad boys are still much smaller than a Star Destroyer.

Maybe as a part of an armada, a Galaxy ship could whoop 'em... but not solo. He-he-he I got to say "Solo".

[Dan M]

If the fight got dirty, the Enterprise could launch remote-piloted shuttlecraft at vulnerable points on the Star Destroyers, mimicking the successful kamikaze attacks we saw from rebel pilots.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Ahhh I've had this topic bounced off of everyone ik and there still is no conclusion.  We need George Lucas to get in with Paramount and have the final war with the Federation and the Empire.  It would be soooooo sweet :)

King Linksr

[3 Ducks in a Man Costume]

Instead of just saying that laser cannons are outmatched by phasers, you do have to take into account the actual, physical damage done by each. In Star Wars, the evidence points to their turbo lasers being more than powerful enough to destroy asteroids. In the "Knights of the Old Republic" video games, one ship was enough to wipe out a planet's population from orbit. So maybe the SD's lasers aren't really as weak as we might want to think. After all, you've got to do a little cross-series language translation. "Laser" in Star Wars might not mean the same thing as it does in Star Trek.

Also, yes, there are something like 60 fighters of one kind or another aboard a SD. In a massive assault, they would be too numerous and maneuverable to target effectively with only a couple phaser banks. And torpedos are just too slow to be effective, unless you were to detonate them in the midst of a cluster of fighters and hope for splash damage.

But, given the sheer obviousness of the SD's shield generators, it wouldn't exactly take a super intelligent android to figure out how to take out the shields.

EDIT: Also, the ships in Star Wars are much, much faster (at least in hyperdrive) than Star Trek ships. You've got Star Wars ships routinely crossing from one side of the galaxy to the other in a matter of days or weeks, whereas in Star Trek, to get from the outer edge of the Delta Quadrant to the Alpha it would take Voyage 70 years to get back, using their normal warp capabilities. We've got to assume the Galaxy ship in this battle doesn't have transwarp or any of that nonsense. If the SD needed to run away and regroup, it would have no trouble in doing so.

[Jen]

YEAH...what he said...  :D

And shuttle craft wouldn't match the speed and agility of a Ti...they're not built for the same purpose.

[Rico]

The main trouble with this discussion is Star Trek tries to be Science Fiction and loosely based on scientific concepts.  Star Wars is pure space fantasy and therefore can do pretty much whatever it wants.  I love both franchises dearly, but I will have to side with Starfleet vessels winning every time.