Observable Effect vs Stats: Reflex Cannon/Dimension Beam

[Alrik Vas]

TL;DR: Trying to figure out weapon yield for "Heavy Particle Beam" or Reflex Cannon, or Dimension Beam, or whatever you want to call it. I know they might all be a little different.

So...we see Zentradi ships do some nasty things to mother earth's complexion in the Macross series. They also did some naughtiness to an unnamed planet as a demonstration to their captives earlier in the series. Even earlier than that, they obliterate some kind of planetoid (in script it's called a planet, even in the original Macross version, I believe).

This seems to show a pretty big difference in firepower between various Zentradi ships and units. The early showing, when they explode the planetoid, is arguably done without the use of a gunboat. I don't even think we see a monitor until the attack on earth.

We also know that flagships having a destroy everything beam is a palladium convention, not from the source material.

We know the SDF-1 can do some serious damage, the main gun in the first episode sinking 2 ships in one shot. They also take out a few in their running engagement to to get to earth. We never see it hit a planet though. We know the general effect a monitor's main gun will have on the surface of a planet though, and it's well accepted, if not 100% fact, that the Macross' gun was more equivalent.

All of that is kind of moot though. Because without a heavy planet destroying cannon, the zentraid still blow up planetoid with combined fire and it happens pretty much instantly.

I am not in love with the idea of calculating weapon yield off of narration, as it tends to be wildly inaccurate, but I don't know of any other observable or listed sources for this.

Any help is most welcome.

[eliakon]

This is classic cinematic damage.
The Death Star can blow up a planet into flaming debris... or pop a single space ship (but has NO blow through)
In Robotech the example is that the Zentradi can destroy a scrub planet (and apparently quickly with no fuss no muss)... but a sustained bombardment on Main Character Earth only leaves it heavily damaged.

[Seto Kaiba]

TL;DR: Trying to figure out weapon yield for "Heavy Particle Beam" or Reflex Cannon, or Dimension Beam, or whatever you want to call it. I know they might all be a little different.

Technologically they couldn't be more different, but since it's the same animation it's six of one half a dozen of the other since we're considering blast effects alone.

This seems to show a pretty big difference in firepower between various Zentradi ships and units. The early showing, when they explode the planetoid, is arguably done without the use of a gunboat. I don't even think we see a monitor until the attack on earth.

While it's true the Zentradi Army Medium-Scale Gun Destroyer didn't debut in animation until the 27th episode of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series, it's one of the most common models of warship used in the 118th Boddole Zer Main Fleet, so it seems a safe assumption that the fleet in the recording included many of them and we just don't see up close enough for them to be visible.

We also know that flagships having a destroy everything beam is a palladium convention, not from the source material.

The DYRL? version of the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command battleship and its Mardook equivalent in Macross II do, in fact, have that kind of heavy converging energy cannon. The version in Macross's original series, and thus Robotech, does not.

The RT2E stats correctly do not list a reflex cannon.

We know the SDF-1 can do some serious damage, the main gun in the first episode sinking 2 ships in one shot. They also take out a few in their running engagement to to get to earth. We never see it hit a planet though. We know the general effect a monitor's main gun will have on the surface of a planet though, and it's well accepted, if not 100% fact, that the Macross' gun was more equivalent.

All of that is kind of moot though. Because without a heavy planet destroying cannon, the zentraid still blow up planetoid with combined fire and it happens pretty much instantly.

In Macross, the power of a heavy quantum reaction beam cannon depends on the amount of heavy quantum the weapon collects before firing. In practical terms, that means the weapon has a variable yield and can fire a beam that is less powerful if they don't need a range of a light second or don't have time to charge up all the way. The maximum yield depends on the size of the weapon itself (the intensity and size of the resonance fold effect), the energy that the ship's fold reactors can provide to the cannon, and what the intended range, spread, and stopping power of the beam is.

It's also worth remembering that, in Macross, the shipboard gun turrets on Human and Zentradi ships alike are the same technology as the "main gun" systems... just scaled down.

It's not clear if Boddole Zer's little video of planetary bombardment includes a time lapse, but if the fleet didn't defold right before firing the way they did when they attacked Earth they probably had more energy available for their beam cannons to achieve a higher firepower.

The big bow-firing heavy converging beam cannons on medium-scale warships like the Macross-class, Zentradi medium-scale gun destroyer, and Meltrandi gun destroyer display destructive potential that easily matches or beats the highest-yield thermonuclear warheads humanity ever constructed. Tens, if not hundreds of megatons, enough that they flatten cities and dig craters hundreds of meters deep. The bigger cannons on larger ships have a decent firepower increase on that. The individual gun turrets seem to be dealing fractions of a kiloton, or maybe a couple kilotons worth of damage at close range... which adds up really quick when most ships have 18 or more turrets all able to fire simultaneously and several times a minute. Spread that out across 4,795,122 ships...

[ShadowLogan]

So...we see Zentradi ships do some nasty things to mother earth's complexion in the Macross series. They also did some naughtiness to an unnamed planet as a demonstration to their captives earlier in the series. Even earlier than that, they obliterate some kind of planetoid (in script it's called a planet, even in the original Macross version, I believe).

While Earth wasn't reduced to a lunar landscape by the Grand Fleet like the "demonstration" planet it is important to remember that:
-the Zentreadi are in an energy crisis when they attack Earth, which could impact tings
-we don't know how old the images are (live, pre-recorded, etc)
-we don't know how Earth and Demo compare, yes pre-bombardment they look similar, but they could be different sizes and compositions (which effect gravity, some of that energy could have heated the atmosphere to escape velocity)

Blowing up the planet Pamir (in RT) is possible, and wouldn't require a reflex cannon. Pamir is likely a Minor or Dwarf planet (by IAU definition). One method of asteroid defense that has been proposed is to superheat part of an asteroid so that it expel matter to create thrust and alter its trajectory (over the long run it should add up if there is enough time). Detonating nukes is also a defense option that will deliver varying results (it is even possible that a nuke won't have any effect at all).

Also keep in mind that masses that are involved. We can put an upper limit on the mass involved (Eriss IINM is the most massive Dwarf Planet), but it will be lighter than the Earth.

We also know that flagships having a destroy everything beam is a palladium convention, not from the source material.

Which might be a human retro-fit to the flagship since we don't see it used previously (FoA or the Wedding Attack when the gloves are off).

[Alrik Vas]

I think, because of energy work requirements to explode a plenatoid, and since the beams that finally shatter said planetoid continue on their way...that the turrets on zentradi warships must have some serious, serious business going on.

Asteroids/planetary bodies and the such aren't all one element, which is why it's easier to make them explode than something that was, for example, pure iron. While that's true, it's still an absurd amount of energy, like...ol' Captain Backstabber's ships, who were doing the shooting that day, in their first volley, produced more energy than the entire human race over the course of their existence. We're talking thousands, if not millions of terwatts came out of the furnaces of the these ships, into the guns and straight to this planetoid, blasting it apart within about a second and the beams kept going.

I was recently reading about another...scifi...thing... >.>

That claimed their bobo pew pews of middling power were about equal to 4 Hiroshima bombs per bolt based off them 1 shotting asteroids in various scenes of a certain 3 part series.

So if they're going to science it up, I was curious as to what we could find. Because most people, to figure out the power of a converging beam/reflex cannon, look to the Earth bombardment scene in Ep27, and decide that the zentradi have about as much punch as an early atomic bomb when at their best.

Which i'm not so certain about.

[Seto Kaiba]

I think, because of energy work requirements to explode a plenatoid, and since the beams that finally shatter said planetoid continue on their way...that the turrets on zentradi warships must have some serious, serious business going on.

There's no denying the Zentradi Army's ships are carrying some serious firepower... what they hit was asteroid Pamir, and only a few kilometers across. Calling it a planetoid, let alone a planet, would be stretching the truth to a comical extent... but then Robotech never was particularly good with terminology. (I'd think astronomers may notice a planet or dwarf planet chilling out between Mars and Earth...)

The telling point is that the fire from the regular guided beam cannon turrets on the Zentradi ships was causing no small amount of damage with just a near miss... causing hull damage, buckling turret armor, and shaking the ship badly enough to feel like an earthquake in the city block and open ravine-like holes in the deck.

While that's true, it's still an absurd amount of energy, like...ol' Captain Backstabber's ships, who were doing the shooting that day, in their first volley, produced more energy than the entire human race over the course of their existence.[ We're talking thousands, if not millions of terwatts came out of the furnaces of the these ships, into the guns and straight to this planetoid, blasting it apart within about a second and the beams kept going.

To be fair, that would probably still be true if they weren't operating at combat power...

In the original Southern Cross and MOSPEADA, and indeed many other mecha anime titles like the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, a megawatt is still a lot of power for something as small as a giant robot. In Macross, a megawatt is a rounding error on the right side of the decimal place. The combined output of a Block 4 VF-1A's two thermonuclear reaction turbine engines at their normal operating power is not quite seven times the peak combined output of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier's reactors, or roughly as much as the peak output of the entire Manitoba hydroelectric generator station. The combined output of the reactors of the SDF-1's airwing, excluding Ghosts and other non-VF-1 craft comes in at 460% of the peak electrical consumption of the entire nation of France... and that's from reactors roughly the size of an innertube. A single VF-2SS produces almost as much energy in its two main engines as the largest coal-fired power plant on Earth.

The lightest laser weapon in the Macross setting puts out over ten times the power of the most powerful publicly known weapons-grade chemical laser system meant for IBCM interception... or 166.6 times as powerful as the laser weapons currently used on a trial basis for missile interception on Navy ships, and it's not even powerful enough for the setting to consider it a main weapon. Some fighter-mounted beam weapons available during the First Space War were rated in the hundreds of megawatts... and that's mounted on fighters. Imagine what the implications for ship-mounted beam weaponry are, when a fighter can cruise around with a pair of 750MW beam cannons.

So if they're going to science it up, I was curious as to what we could find. Because most people, to figure out the power of a converging beam/reflex cannon, look to the Earth bombardment scene in Ep27, and decide that the zentradi have about as much punch as an early atomic bomb when at their best.

Which i'm not so certain about.

I may have actually grossly understated it... for the size of many of those craters, if you use bolide impacters as a yardstick (which is only approximate, but still) I was off by a few orders of magnitude. The energy necessary to create some of those craters was in the tens of thousands of megatons (TNTe), and even the smaller craters the shipboard guns produced would require hundreds of kilotons.

(I was actually a little shocked by how much energy it takes to make a crater even a hundred or so meters across... there's probably something to the claims about the "other" sci-fi series you were looking into as well, if that's any indication.)

[ShadowLogan]

I think, because of energy work requirements to explode a plenatoid, and since the beams that finally shatter said planetoid continue on their way...that the turrets on zentradi warships must have some serious, serious business going on.

The beams could have continued on their way if it was repeated fire from each beam turret and not a single beam, which is implied in the animation.

The energy work requirements though will vary by the mass and composition of the object. Neither of which we know.

So if they're going to science it up, I was curious as to what we could find. Because most people, to figure out the power of a converging beam/reflex cannon, look to the Earth bombardment scene in Ep27, and decide that the zentradi have about as much punch as an early atomic bomb when at their best.

I think that would be a fair estimate of the individual beam's destructive yield to compare them to nuclear weapons (though the WW2 bombs only really establish a minimum, they could still be more potent than that as more powerful nuclear devices have been constructed).

There's no denying the Zentradi Army's ships are carrying some serious firepower... what they hit was asteroid Pamir, and only a few kilometers across. Calling it a planetoid, let alone a planet, would be stretching the truth to a comical extent... but then Robotech never was particularly good with terminology. (I'd think astronomers may notice a planet or dwarf planet chilling out between Mars and Earth...)

I agree for the time it was written Pamir would be considered an asteroid or minor planet (they are synonymous). So seeing minor planets treated as "planet" is probably understandable in terms of shortening terms/names, though why they went with Minor Planet and not Asteroid in writing is any ones guess. Though given Scott's Venus reference in TNG (and other oddities), maybe the RT Solar System was never "our" Solar System (circa '85) to begin with.

By modern standards (set by the IAU) though Pamir could be considered a potential Dwarf Planet*. Pamir's shape is basically spherical (IINM) before it gets shattered (so it has sufficient mass to do this), we know it travels around the sun (presumably), and it isn't considered to have a clear path around the sun (as other objects appear to be in orbit with it, but may not be moons given what little info we have on this "planet").

I'd be hesitant to claim a few kilometers across for Pamir since there is no reference object on screen with it, the closest we get is a sensor display on the Flagship which appears to show it in relation to the SDF-1 (@ ~7:55), but we don't even know if the image is to scale or not (if it is to scale the diameter would be ~1/3 the length of the ship at best). The mass and composition will also determine its size and shape. Which can also impact how easy it is to detect**, not to mention its orbital parameters. The largest NEO asteroid is 32km, and less than 10% of the estimated number for 1km or bigger NEOs have yet to be discovered (which Pamir could be considered in).

As for location, when the SDF-1 receives its message from Earth one might notice the other asteroids outside Lisa's viewport (in background @ ~3:05 & ~3:18) and on monitors prior to this show they are tracking Mars (possibly, red body) and/or some other body(s). Khyron's monitor also suggests Pamir isn't the only celestial body (@~5:30). This might indicate that the SDF-1 is actually close to Trojan Asteroids*** at Mars or some other NEO asteroids, unless they had time to cross back into the Main Asteroid Belt after being ordered away from Earth (I know that was the case in the Novels, but that is also the novels and not the series).

*http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf/indepth

**Interesting historical tidbit, Ceres is the largest body in the Main Belt it was discovered first, but the second larget object (volume/mass), Vesta, was actually the third body discovered after the slightly smaller Pallas. Pluto and the other 3 Dwarf Planets are also larger than Ceres, but where discovered later, and Pluto and Eris have changed size relationships over the years (at one point Eris was thought to be bigger than Pluto).

***Trojan Asteroids orbit Jupiter at L4 and L5 Lagrange points (60deg ahead/behind orbit, where Planet and Sun gravity balance), but Mars, Earth, and Neptune also are known to have similar objects in their orbits but are far less known. Though Mars/Earth/Neptune's TOTAL known numbers pale in comparison to just the numbers at Jupiter's.

[Alrik Vas]

Okay...maybe we're underestimating what it takes to obliterate a few kilometers of asteroid. Even simply shattering it with precision attacks would still need far more energy than what the stat damage suggests.

I think the near miss damage Seto mentioned, which is consisted with their ship guns at all levels, is something to consider as well. They clearly work different to lasers, as I don't think they would do anything if they miss their target.

Hmmmmm...if the asteroid is a few km, like...what, maybe 5 across at most? And it's core might mostly be iron, as most asteroids are have high amounts of iron, then just guessing, I think i'm right in the amount of directed energy the zentradi dole out with their turrets.

A full power blast would probably flash boil the great lakes and flatten all the cities around it.

No, not the main converging beam cannon. A turret, like you find on any ship in the fleet. Which makes me agree with eliakon's assessment of narrative damage

[ShadowLogan]

Hmmmmm...if the asteroid is a few km, like...what, maybe 5 across at most? And it's core might mostly be iron, as most asteroids are have high amounts of iron, then just guessing, I think i'm right in the amount of directed energy the zentradi dole out with their turrets.

C-Type asteroids are the most common, not metallic, in the asteroid belt. Moving in they are about 1/2 as common, but then S-type are the most common here. So if we are playing percentages, there is a much better chance that it isn't Iron rich than it being such.

As I've said there isn't enough information on Pamir to really use it as gauge. It is pure speculation when it comes to its size, mass and composition. We don't even know its orbital position (other than maybe passing between Earth and Mars). For all we know Pamir could actually be a loose rubble pile, IF that is the case then it isn't that the beams shattered a solid body, but rather imparted enough momentum to bits of the rubble pile to overcome their mutual gravity causing them to appear to "break up".

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space ... _asteroids
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/asteroids/indepth

[Alrik Vas]

And I thought I was being conservative.

I understand what you're saying, ShadowLogan, and that you're speaking only as a general "maybe", but I think a little supposition is okay for the point of naming some factors that get the ball rolling.

Also you're no fun.

[glitterboy2098]

when i tried to estimate the effects of the beams in the bombardment of earth, i decided to use the crater sizes they left as my guide, and compared those to different ground bursts via the nukemap site. this gives a minimum equivalency of 20-25 megaton ground bursts. i say minimum equivalency, because the beams may well have had greater secondary effects (thermal and shockwave effects for example) than such ground bursts would. (the craters may be equal to a 20 megaton ground burst, but the shockwaves and thermal pulse might be closer to an airburst of a more powerful weapon due to it passing through the atmosphere first. i basically split the difference by assuming a crater equal to a 25MT blast, but shockwaves and thermal equal to an equal size airburst. since i was looking mainly to figure out what effects each beam would have on the map, rather than trying to put a megajoule value to it, it has generally worked for me.

my estimate for the numbers of hits is in the 800,000 to 1,000,000 range.. only the reflex cannon toting gunships seem to have fired, and then only once. my (admittedly unsystematic) estimate was about 1 gunship for every 4-5 other ships in the grand fleet. while this is far less that would be required to completely cover every square inch of earth's land surface, it is enough to ensure a fairly high amount of destruction.. it just leaves chances for places ot be missed in the initial volley. presumably had the grand cannon not fired (destroying and distracting a good chunk of the grand fleet), and the SDF-1/Imperiocas fleet's attack not started, the grand fleet would probably have kept firing volleys until every inch of the surface was hit at least once.

[Seto Kaiba]

I agree for the time it was written Pamir would be considered an asteroid or minor planet (they are synonymous).

Ah, you misunderstood me... I was saying that, in the original dialog, Pamir is explicitly an asteroid.

Okay...maybe we're underestimating what it takes to obliterate a few kilometers of asteroid. Even simply shattering it with precision attacks would still need far more energy than what the stat damage suggests.

Oh, absolutely... but then, all of Palladium's mega-damage values for weapons are essentially arbitrary rather than being accurately scaled.

I think the near miss damage Seto mentioned, which is consisted with their ship guns at all levels, is something to consider as well. They clearly work different to lasers, as I don't think they would do anything if they miss their target.

It's hard to account for that effect in Robotech, given that they're supposed to be ordinary particle beams (and thus, ought to be very tightly collimated).

In Macross, those gun turrets are firing beams of fusion plasma produced by gravitationally-collapsing matter from super dimension space. As such, there are a couple potential explanations for why being near the beam and not getting hit is still a lethal propostion. The first, obviously, is that it's a beam of fusion plasma that's carrying an enormous amount of heat... the infrared radiation coming off the beam would be fairly deadly on its own in close proximity, like the corona of a tiny star. The second and third both involve the incredibly vast mass of the exotic matter the beam was made up of... heavy quantum has a mass so vast it cannot exist in the material universe in large quantities, so a beam of heavy quantum's fusion byproducts moving at a not-insignificant fraction of light speed is going to communicate enormous amounts of kinetic energy, even from the slowly defocusing periphery of the beam. Also, the beam itself probably carries bit of gravitational pull as the result of the mass of heavy quantum's fusion byproducts... heavy quantum being instrumental in providing gravitational fuel compression and containment in reactors, and used in fold systems to breach the barriers into higher dimensions in small quantities.

A full power blast would probably flash boil the great lakes and flatten all the cities around it.

No, not the main converging beam cannon. A turret, like you find on any ship in the fleet. Which makes me agree with eliakon's assessment of narrative damage

Nah... the asteroid Pamir wasn't destroyed by one gun turret, it was destroyed by a barrage fired by all the forward-facing gun turrets on Quamzin's command ship and a number of its escorts from the 109th Branch Fleet. If only 5 ships participated that's still over a hundred gun turrets contributing to the destruction of the asteroid. The beam would vaporize buildings and cause a pretty hefty explosion that might flatten a small town, but it wouldn't boil an entire lake or anything that dramatic.

The notion of "narrative damage" expressed above ignores the fundamentally obvious explanation that an energy weapon is not a gun... its output power isn't constrained by physical ammunition. An energy weapon designed by anyone halfway competent would have variable output, just as today's modern directed energy weapons do. The Death Star wouldn't need to exert the same amount of energy to destroy a battleship that it would to annihilate a planet, so why waste energy on overkill... especially if it meant you could increase the rate of fire by reducing the energy delivered in each shot. We know, canonically, that Macross's dimension beam weaponry can fire at less than full power to decrease the downtime between shots.

[Sambot]

Just looked and from the animation in Episode 11 it looks like the Zentraedi fleet fired all their energy weapons not just the big guns. In Episode 27 they fired the big guns only. Episode 11 also looks like a sustained bombardment over a period of time going by the time lapse effect. Episode 27 seems to be a single bombardment with a few individual follow up blasts. The Grand Canon and the counter attack by the SDF-1 and Breetai's fleet preventing a more thorough moonscaping of Earth.

Episode 27 also show's Breetai's flag ship firing a main cannon type gun. Several large ports/mechanisms open up and then fire multiple beams that could be as big as the monitors single beam.

[Alrik Vas]

Yes, but there doesn't seem to be a "collection" of the energy that fires that kind of beam. I'm content to say the weapons firing from Breetai's ship in ep27 are the standard turret, animated up for the cool factor of the episode.

[guardiandashi]

my two cents on energy. of weapons, and completely disregarding "exotic" material considerations.

there was on old Sci-fi series of novels where the fleet of main ships of the "good guys" were so powerful that they rarely worked together (they were by choice acting more like pirates or privateers) used "conversion" systems, their reactors took in water basically pure h[sub]2[/sub]o and converted the mass of the fuel to energy.

their main weapon was a "conversion cannon" that on a full powered shot took 6 kilograms of water, and did that matter to energy conversion along with additional power from the reactors, and "threw" the energy of 6kg of matter at a target. where this becomes somewhat relevant is that when I did my energy conversion calculations at the time, I got that the energy output if it was all delivered as "heat" should have roughly raised the temperature of the entire mass of the planet earth about 1/10th of 1 degree centigrade. so there was a certain merit to the authors statement/claims that those conversion cannons could destroy the planet.

obviously the zentradi fleets weapons aren't THAT powerful (at least based on their effects on the earth bombardment) unless they were operating at significantly less than their full maximum power.

[Seto Kaiba]

their main weapon was a "conversion cannon" that on a full powered shot took 6 kilograms of water, and did that matter to energy conversion along with additional power from the reactors, and "threw" the energy of 6kg of matter at a target. where this becomes somewhat relevant is that when I did my energy conversion calculations at the time, I got that the energy output if it was all delivered as "heat" should have roughly raised the temperature of the entire mass of the planet earth about 1/10th of 1 degree centigrade.

That's only 1.08 exajoules, which is a LOT of energy for a weapon but not so much in terms of natural phenomena. That's about 1/5th the energy a typical hurricane releases in the course of one day's rain, or 1/9,722th of the energy the planet receives from the sun in a single day. It'd probably cause some storms in the area the beam hit, and it'd make a hell of a mess of the impact site, but a worldwide temperature increase is going to require a lot more power.

so there was a certain merit to the authors statement/claims that those conversion cannons could destroy the planet.

The radiation from the annihilation of 6 kilograms of matter and the blast pressures would do a lot of damage, that's for sure... that's about 258 megatons of TNT, or five times the output of the largest fusion warhead ever detonated.

obviously the zentradi fleets weapons aren't THAT powerful (at least based on their effects on the earth bombardment) unless they were operating at significantly less than their full maximum power.

Actually, that'd be middling among the Zentradi's bombardment-grade weapons if we go by the amount of energy necessary to create a crater of a certain size.

[ShadowLogan]

Ah, you misunderstood me... I was saying that, in the original dialog, Pamir is explicitly an asteroid.

As for the original dialogue, that really is irrelevant to RT really since we know dialogue cues and such can change. I'm just looking at the RT writers, who explicitly used "planet" and why it can still work, even from circa 1985 astronomy mindset (which would explain why Pluto is still a planet in RT, even though Pluto was demoted).

The term asteroid has several synonyms though: Planetoid, and Minor Planet (and either one could be shortened to planet). Size wise asteroids can exist at under 1km in size, the smallest asteroid on record is ~6meters across (yes that is meters, not kilometers).

I understand what you're saying, ShadowLogan, and that you're speaking only as a general "maybe", but I think a little supposition is okay for the point of naming some factors that get the ball rolling.

I don't mind the open speculation, I've engaged in it on more than a few occasions. But there are so many unknowns here that everything is literally a shot in the dark in terms of gauging the firepower of the ships in question based on the bombardment of Pamir because there is so much we don't know about Pamir that will affect the result.

Game mechanically speaking, megaversally, we know how much MDC a nuclear device can do (Rifts CS Navy, SB4). Which the main anti-ship/planet weapons are comparable to when used on Earth, some falling into the main blast and others the secondary radius effect, but they still do given both are city destroyers.

If you are asking though how such "weak" weapons can shatter something like Pamir, there are assumptions that can be used that would cut down on the required energy. I think the easiest explanation for Pamir's destruction is that the various energy beam impacts expelled matter in various directions, since this was a burst from multiple beam cannons.... Another easy explanation might be that the beams (which are particle based) initiated a nuclear fission reaction within the target causing an explosion(s).

Episode 27 also show's Breetai's flag ship firing a main cannon type gun. Several large ports/mechanisms open up and then fire multiple beams that could be as big as the monitors single beam.

Canonically (from the RT.com infopedia) though those aren't Reflex Cannon Heavy Particle Beams, the ship is said to have x6 main particle cannons (which the 2E RPG has them as), but these are not turret mounted. The SDF-1 itself is also supposed to have 8 "main particle cannons".

[Sambot]

Yes, but there doesn't seem to be a "collection" of the energy that fires that kind of beam. I'm content to say the weapons firing from Breetai's ship in ep27 are the standard turret, animated up for the cool factor of the episode.

The things that move/open appear to be much larger than the average laser turret. And why must the energy have to converge into a single beam? Not that we can't tell if it does not not from that shot but it might from the next shot with all the beams coming towards the screen.

so there was a certain merit to the authors statement/claims that those conversion cannons could destroy the planet.

The radiation from the annihilation of 6 kilograms of matter and the blast pressures would do a lot of damage, that's for sure... that's about 258 megatons of TNT, or five times the output of the largest fusion warhead ever detonated.

obviously the zentradi fleets weapons aren't THAT powerful (at least based on their effects on the earth bombardment) unless they were operating at significantly less than their full maximum power.

Actually, that'd be middling among the Zentradi's bombardment-grade weapons if we go by the amount of energy necessary to create a crater of a certain size.

Not that I disagree but are you sure you're quoting me?

Episode 27 also show's Breetai's flag ship firing a main cannon type gun. Several large ports/mechanisms open up and then fire multiple beams that could be as big as the monitors single beam.

Canonically (from the RT.com infopedia) though those aren't Reflex Cannon Heavy Particle Beams, the ship is said to have x6 main particle cannons (which the 2E RPG has them as), but these are not turret mounted. The SDF-1 itself is also supposed to have 8 "main particle cannons".

I said main gun type weapon. I didn't say that it was.

What RT.com infopedia?

[ShadowLogan]

Episode 27 also show's Breetai's flag ship firing a main cannon type gun. Several large ports/mechanisms open up and then fire multiple beams that could be as big as the monitors single beam.

Canonically (from the RT.com infopedia) though those aren't Reflex Cannon Heavy Particle Beams, the ship is said to have x6 main particle cannons (which the 2E RPG has them as), but these are not turret mounted. The SDF-1 itself is also supposed to have 8 "main particle cannons".

I said main gun type weapon. I didn't say that it was.

What RT.com infopedia?

Main Gun refers to the SDF-1's maingun, which is a reflex cannon. We know that in 2E/current canon Zentreadi ships don't have said weapons as common (unlike in 1E, where 4 of 6 types had it, 4of5 if the command ship sections are counted together).

The RT.com Infopedia was a section of RT.com that contained informative entries on various characters/hardware. It wasn't perfect or complete, but mecha and ships that had entries (plenty don't) list their official dimensions, weapons, limited aspects of their performance (though not weapon performance), along with some background information. When the site become nothing more than a webstore a while back (about mid 2015), that part wasn't restored (though some aspects can be found in AotSC book, but not all of them). You have to use an Internet Archive to explore, and not all of it is accessible without logging in (which you can't do).

Below is an archive link (Mar 2015) for RT.com, note the "Robotech Infopedia" link on the left edge between Community and Gallery. Click it. Some sections might not work for that date, so you'll have to move farther back (and in some cases an entry can be shown to have changed between 2001-ish and 2015). These are HG's official takes on the unit (circa 2015), and are in part done by the uRRG writers (though HG did edit them and has different takes IINM, like on the Condor/Slyphid being Veritechs in the animation for ex where uRRG says yes, HG says no)

https://web.archive.org/web/20150316150 ... otech.com/

The Current RT.com is pretty bare in comparison to the older RT.com, which had community and informational resources in addition to the store and news (which is all the current one is good for, and news I use the term pretty lightly).

[Seto Kaiba]

Just looked and from the animation in Episode 11 it looks like the Zentraedi fleet fired all their energy weapons not just the big guns. In Episode 27 they fired the big guns only.

Actually, we see them firing the regular gun turrets and even missiles.

Episode 27 also show's Breetai's flag ship firing a main cannon type gun. Several large ports/mechanisms open up and then fire multiple beams that could be as big as the monitors single beam.

It's more along the lines of a large turret... but the only real difference between the turrets and the main guns is scale in the original. They're definitely much smaller than the smallest known system classified as the "main gun" type though (that being the bow-mounted cannon on the Queadol Magdomilla-class battleship that torched the SDF-1 Macross's main radar room.

Those gun ports aren't part of the line art though, and are never seen again after that one scene in Ep27.

[Alrik Vas]

Those gun ports aren't part of the line art though, and are never seen again after that one scene in Ep27.

Pretty much. New cool animation happens all the time in higher budget episodes. Just like...interesting...animation appears in lower budget.

[Sambot]

Main Gun refers to the SDF-1's maingun, which is a reflex cannon. We know that in 2E/current canon Zentreadi ships don't have said weapons as common (unlike in 1E, where 4 of 6 types had it, 4of5 if the command ship sections are counted together).

A ships main gun is it's main gun. What type of gun that is can vary ship to ship.

The RT.com Infopedia was a section of RT.com that contained informative entries on various characters/hardware. It wasn't perfect or complete, but mecha and ships that had entries (plenty don't) list their official dimensions, weapons, limited aspects of their performance (though not weapon performance), along with some background information. When the site become nothing more than a webstore a while back (about mid 2015), that part wasn't restored (though some aspects can be found in AotSC book, but not all of them). You have to use an Internet Archive to explore, and not all of it is accessible without logging in (which you can't do).

snip

Thank you. I kind of thought that's what you were referring to and what I thought was abandoned. It still seems abandoned though so I'm not sure how canon it is.

Just looked and from the animation in Episode 11 it looks like the Zentraedi fleet fired all their energy weapons not just the big guns. In Episode 27 they fired the big guns only.

Actually, we see them firing the regular gun turrets and even missiles.

Episode 27 also show's Breetai's flag ship firing a main cannon type gun. Several large ports/mechanisms open up and then fire multiple beams that could be as big as the monitors single beam.

It's more along the lines of a large turret... but the only real difference between the turrets and the main guns is scale in the original. They're definitely much smaller than the smallest known system classified as the "main gun" type though (that being the bow-mounted cannon on the Queadol Magdomilla-class battleship that torched the SDF-1 Macross's main radar room.

Those gun ports aren't part of the line art though, and are never seen again after that one scene in Ep27.

Sorry but these are not regular turrets. Those are about the size of a Valkyrie or Zentraeid mecha. The ones that open up on the Flagship are much much larger. From the animation you wouldn't see regular turrets. The ports that open are huge! The smallest are about the size of the Prometheus's height and width with some half as long. Those not a laser turrets. I'd post a picture if I knew how. In the same shot the Landing ship is also firing huge beams but I can't see the ports and they're a different color but they're not turret weapons either. Neither is the Queadol Magdomilla's. It's beam is several times larger than the others and a different color.

The guns are in the animation and they're not shown again because they're not needed.

[glitterboy2098]

IIRC the RPG labels them 'neutron cannons' and they are just very large particle beams.

[Seto Kaiba]

IIRC the RPG labels them 'neutron cannons' and they are just very large particle beams.

The RPG labels 'em "Anti-Ship Super Particle Cannon", but otherwise yeah... just a really big version of the same particle cannon tech used in the normal gun turrets.

IIRC, the "neutron cannon" thing was a line of dialog in the Robotech episode "Viva Miriya", used for one shot in which Breetai's ship destroys most of the small craft advancing on his position from the factory satellite's garrison. The visuals just showed a normal barrage from the ship's cannons, but the dialog treated it like a single weapon for reasons unknown.

[ShadowLogan]

IIRC the RPG labels them 'neutron cannons' and they are just very large particle beams.

The RPG labels 'em "Anti-Ship Super Particle Cannon", but otherwise yeah... just a really big version of the same particle cannon tech used in the normal gun turrets.

IIRC, the "neutron cannon" thing was a line of dialog in the Robotech episode "Viva Miriya", used for one shot in which Breetai's ship destroys most of the small craft advancing on his position from the factory satellite's garrison. The visuals just showed a normal barrage from the ship's cannons, but the dialog treated it like a single weapon for reasons unknown.

Neutron Cannon dialogue is from Ep30 "Viva Miryia" to wipe out the small defenders.

Visually you aren't too far off, but it should be noted that after Breetai's barrage is fired from his ship in the front view with the multiple blue beams (~16:46), it switches to an over the rear side 3/4 view point where we don't see the blue beams, but rather some type of "swirling contrails" (~16:49) that seems to focus down the line and then explode in a target area (~16:52) before we cut to see the mecha start spontaneously exploding without being struck by any apparent beam (~16:53, which IIRC is unusual).

It is the bits between ~16:49-53 that might give the impression that some other mode of attack is being used IMHO, so there is some basis for the writers adding in a "neutron cannon". Weather it is a human retrofit (unique to RT?) or an undisclosed operational mode (unique to RT?) already present is of course debatable.

[Alrik Vas]

If i recall correctly, the 1E RPG listed special weapons on some of the zentradi ships that dealt thousands of damage, but their description was that of essentially combined weapons fire. I think the shot in Viva Miryia is what they were basing that off of.

[ShadowLogan]

If i recall correctly, the 1E RPG listed special weapons on some of the zentradi ships that dealt thousands of damage, but their description was that of essentially combined weapons fire. I think the shot in Viva Miryia is what they were basing that off of.

You do not recall correctly the 1E RPG.

They list five weapon systems for individual vessel types (present):
1. Heavy Particle Beam (classified as a Reflex Cannon, not present on all ships Command Ship 's Main/Beta section and Scout)
2. Main Laser Cannon (one), it does x1000 (present on all ships, except the Command Ship's Main/Beta section)
3. Retractable Laser Turrets (many), it does x100, this can be combined for volleys but no indication of short hand for volleys
4. Light Lasers (many), it does x20, volleys are possible, but no indication of short hand
5. Missile Turrets (many), LRM or MRM, but again no short hand

With regard to no indication of short hand for volleys I mean instead of rolling 10d6 x 20, you could roll 1d6x200 OR 2d6x100 instead. This does not mean a GM could not do it, or that most ships aren't capable of getting into that range for all practical purposes, but the 1E RPG really doesn't support the notion of a volley being a field clearing attack (well maybe Random Missile Assault, but that is completely different than a gun volley we are considering).

[Seto Kaiba]

Visually you aren't too far off, but it should be noted that after Breetai's barrage is fired from his ship in the front view with the multiple blue beams (~16:46), it switches to an over the rear side 3/4 view point where we don't see the blue beams, but rather some type of "swirling contrails" (~16:49) that seems to focus down the line and then explode in a target area (~16:52) before we cut to see the mecha start spontaneously exploding without being struck by any apparent beam (~16:53, which IIRC is unusual).

's not really all that unusual if you remember the main batteries of a Zentradi Army warship are using the same technology as the main gun... a direct hit isn't necessary to actually damage or destroy an enemy, the plasma beam is energetic enough that a near miss can still have deadly consequences. But I can see why Robotech's writers might be tempted to present the mass bombardment with the main gun batteries as a special weapon even though the original dialog leaves no doubt that it was just a saturation bombardment with the ship's normal guns. The rewriters working on that adaptation did have a bad habit of embroidering the dialog even if the verbal embroidery made no sense in context.

If i recall correctly, the 1E RPG listed special weapons on some of the zentradi ships that dealt thousands of damage, but their description was that of essentially combined weapons fire. I think the shot in Viva Miryia is what they were basing that off of.

You may be thinking of the "Main Laser Cannon" that were listed in the ship stats in the Macross II RPG's Deck Plans books.

Stats-wise, the "Main Laser Cannon" was presented as a single bow-mounted weapon that dealt multiples of 1,000 MD. The fluff, however, described the "Main Laser Cannon" as actually being multiple, fixed laser cannons separate from the turret-mounted guns that all fire in unison.

I can't say I'm inclined to draw a connection between that and the aforementioned scene in Macross's "Viva Maria" (RT: "Viva Miriya"), but there was certainly no precedent for any such weapons system in the Macross setting. Laser weapons in general are quite rare in Macross, and the Zentradi, Meltrandi, and Mardook only use them for the lightest mecha-mounted weapons.

[Alrik Vas]

If i recall correctly, the 1E RPG listed special weapons on some of the zentradi ships that dealt thousands of damage, but their description was that of essentially combined weapons fire. I think the shot in Viva Miryia is what they were basing that off of.

You may be thinking of the "Main Laser Cannon" that were listed in the ship stats in the Macross II RPG's Deck Plans books.

Stats-wise, the "Main Laser Cannon" was presented as a single bow-mounted weapon that dealt multiples of 1,000 MD. The fluff, however, described the "Main Laser Cannon" as actually being multiple, fixed laser cannons separate from the turret-mounted guns that all fire in unison.

I can't say I'm inclined to draw a connection between that and the aforementioned scene in Macross's "Viva Maria" (RT: "Viva Miriya"), but there was certainly no precedent for any such weapons system in the Macross setting. Laser weapons in general are quite rare in Macross, and the Zentradi, Meltrandi, and Mardook only use them for the lightest mecha-mounted weapons.

I may very well be thinking of that, as it explains exactly what my quote says. thousands of damage based off combined weapons fire.

I'm inclined to draw that connection because it seems exactly like the kind of crap HG and Palladium would go for.

[ShadowLogan]

@Seto
All I'm saying is that visually the writers have some precedent to "create" a new weapon system. Why it isn't used later is of course a valid question, but that angle can be applied in a lot of areas.

@Alrik Vas
Seto might be right, you could be thinking of the Macross2 RPG line, the 1E RT RPG description of the main laser cannon doesn't mention or suggest it is a combined fire weapon, but do mention it is "concealed". Though for all practical purposes the ship weapon systems between the two are otherwise identical in terms of stats for the standardized weapons IINM.