I'm still trying to figure out rhe gravitational forces and newtonian physics of Darth Vader lifting that rebel soldier.

But Vader didn't lift the rebel soldier. He directed the force and the force lifted him :-) :-) :-)

Clearly the mission was Contested Outpost and the Imperial player had slowed his ISDs down to continue keeping his guns on the rebels for as long as possible. With BCC on all those GR 75s, getting three crits in a row is not too difficult, and if the new Ywing ace was there those shields would have dropped FAST. With no shields the Imp saves his contain for a worse barrage from the MC75 yet to come rather than the last Ywing crit, only for the Rebel to pull Comm Noise as the face up. Now speed zero, the ISD has no defense tokens, and Nav was buried too far down in the stack.

As for the hammerhead tug maneuver I got nothing. Hollywood, I guess?

Consider this. Its been 20 years since the Clone wars. You've had two entire generations of officers who's combat experience might be a stopping pirates or a rebel raid. Using probably fighters, modified freighters, maybe a corvette at most. All a destroyer captain would generally have to do is show up and what ever he was fighting would scatter to the winds. This time though the rebels committed to the fight. Between the arrogance and inexperience of the destroyer captains, add in they were defending a fixed installation. Initiative goes to the attackers. Makes sense that they could knock out those two ships and the shield gate.

As for Devastator, remembering she was being commanded by one of the greatest generals of the clone wars and she was coming in hot and ready for a fight. The rebels were spent and beginning to withdraw, they didn't have a chance at that point.

Not to mention that this is precisely what you get after decades of political infighting. A bunch of KNOW nothing martinets in charge of your navy because they have all undercut one another in order to attain power, while the real capable officers have long since been replaced by their politically savvier (but strategically moronic) rivals. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/12/2/fleet-command/

Pfft, I don't have him ..... yet.

Having just sort of gotten back from another showing, I look at a lot of the complaints and sort of think, "Ah, thou enthralled brethren. What little sight is there, when such glory exists before thine eyes. For mine were as well, until lo', I picked but a moment to focus, and the ether did part." All this has been said before, but I kinda went to it again just to see if I could pick out a few points. So bear with me, or go to the TL;DR.

The two star destroyers were caught flat-footed. Not only were they not really moving to start with, they weren't even facing the Rebel fleet, as Beatty correctly suggested. What we did see was also one other 'issue', the lapse in situational awareness all over Scarif was disastrously bad. It looked like minutes went by before anything accurate was ever relayed, and the crews reacted as it shocked. As Tizzo pointed out, "What are you, blind?! Deploy the garrison!" And that wasn't even the most egregious example. If the Scarif shields were more closed by personal initiative of their immediate minders than by central command, and only after the attack began, how quickly would orders filter down to a stationary garrison ship with 36,000 crew? This wasn't a pitched battle, this was early in the war and the Rebels seized the initiative with a full warfleet (even mon Mothma was saying the Alliance wasn't condoning much overt military action, others in their council even said for them not to turn it into a military conflict).

As for the 'the ships weren't firing at each other', I didn't think so on first viewing either. But then I looked, and sure enough, the destroyers were firing a -lot- in quite a few scenes. Even the rebel corvettes and Dorenean gunships were attacking. The only ones I didn't see fire was the Nebulon B's and the MC75. Frankly, a lot of the effect was lost by ships firing 'into the edge of the screen' where we didn't see much in the way of point A to point B impacts to confirm which green lasers hit which rebel ships and what red beams blipped off Imperial hulls. We have no idea how many Rebel ships were lost prior to the Devastator's arrival, and we probably won't know till it's released to home video so we can count them. But, we know that they lost at least one corvette well before the Devastator showed up (its spine exploded mid-shot). I seem to remember a GR-75 either hit or having been screened by another ship that was hit in the same scene.

We know that in a lot of situations, ISD's don't just have their shields up all the time (Needa specifically ordered them up in ESB only after he personally saw the Falcon reorient from escape to attack. We also don't know how long it takes to raise shields), so it's hard to say what effect they had. But the major ion torpedo attacks happened after the shield generator/emitter (the domes have always included at least the shield emitters) was toast. That one ship was definitely at a disadvantage. When that Hammerhead nailed the stricken ship, it bounced into the trench lip and gashed that, but didn't breach the main hull, then it seemed to have jumped and skidded down the trench lip until getting caught in the corner lip nearer to the prow. That same bloody corvette kept pushing it even after the second ISD was sliced in two. We see it right up until the moment the ISD impacted the gate where that part of the ship isn't shown, but that Hammerhead had full burn right near the front third of the ship to push its bow and orient it as it needed (just like the previously mentioned tugs do to larger vessels). Those ISD's were deployed close, almost one on top of another, so I can't see how that would have been avoided. And it did certainly strike the plate armour and direct it up into the batteries, then the upper decks. I'd wager Norsehound is entirely correct; the inter-deck armour is likely quite a bit weaker than the external plating, made all the worse at them being caught at a 90 degree angle like a trap rather than being able to deflect the force of the impact away.

TL;DR: A full Rebel war fleet got the jump on a non-battle ready garrison force before the Galactic Civil war really began in earnest. Results were as expected.

This overt military action gave Palpatine the political impetus to dissolve the Senate, and with it any chance of a peaceful resolution. The battle of Scarif ignited the Galactic Civil War.

This overt military action gave Palpatine the political impetus to dissolve the Senate

I'm pretty sure that, battle or no battle - he'd have dissolved it anyway - he doesn't need political impetus to do things - he's a dictator. All he needed was a completed Death Star for the Tarkin Doctrine to work (he thought).

It's spectacle creep. I had a similar discussion over Romulan War Birds and how they were the big bad ships on TNG only to go splat and easy victims for the Jem'hdar in DS9.

To give Disney Credit, at least they didn't blow up another Super Star Destroyer.

Maybe its a background in astrophysics and rocket design, but the hammerhead corvette was actually not the part that bothered me about the battle.

1)once the two ISDs collided, they would just come apart. They are outside of atmosphere (assuming that shield can't be penetrated by anything) so they would just keep orbiting. Them dropping is a painfully stupid gimmick in space movies.

2)if atmosphere does escape that shield, then they would de-orbit... Over a few months or years depending on altitude.

I assumed that the transferred force from the collision was what brought them into a downward trajectory.

More viewings, erm I mean, research is required.

Any one good at writing a research grant to do this?

This overt military action gave Palpatine the political impetus to dissolve the Senate

I'm pretty sure that, battle or no battle - he'd have dissolved it anyway - he doesn't need political impetus to do things - he's a dictator. All he needed was a completed Death Star for the Tarkin Doctrine to work (he thought).

Possibly. Someone had to hold power. Remember in Ancient Rome the senate remained even though Ceaser became Emperor. The Battle of Scariff showed Palpatine that the Galaxy was in open revolt, and that the Senate could no long be counted on to maintain control of their people. So he transferred power to the regional Governors and Moffs, and put his faith in the Death Star to cow the Galaxy to submit to his authority.

Maybe its a background in astrophysics and rocket design, but the hammerhead corvette was actually not the part that bothered me about the battle.

1)once the two ISDs collided, they would just come apart. They are outside of atmosphere (assuming that shield can't be penetrated by anything) so they would just keep orbiting. Them dropping is a painfully stupid gimmick in space movies.

2)if atmosphere does escape that shield, then they would de-orbit... Over a few months or years depending on altitude.

Check how far away from the planet those ships would need to be to actually be in unpowered geosynchronous orbit. Once you figure that out, you'll be surprised that the disabled ISD didn't fall straight into the shield sooner. It is also why the the second ISD didn't bounce when hit but rather got tore up. They would need to be using a lot of energy to be standing right over that shield gate making the second ISD more immovable than an object in a natural unpowered orbit.

That... isn't how orbits work at all. You mean geostationary. That is an orbit with a period equal to the planet's (sidereal) day and at the planet's equator so that it doesn't appear to move at all from someone on the ground. Geosynchronous just means an orbital period equal to the sidereal day so that it returns to its original position and speed relative to the ground each day. It is like comparing a square to a quadrilateral.

I will use Earth as a reference since the planet looked similar mass and size. They were not in geostationary orbit. They were in what is called Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (Low Scariff orbit?). It is about 300km up and there is still an extraordinarily thin atmosphere up there. An object in LEO with maintain its orbits for long periods of time, but the thin atmosphere will eventually slow the satellite (ISD in this case). This takes months. The International Space Station requires boosting to its orbital velocity every few months because of this or it would deorbit. This movie portrays this effect as happening in minutes or seconds. That is absolutely wrong. A ship that loses power while in orbit will just stay in that orbit until drag due running into matter (like an atmosphere) slows it down. As it slows, the periapsis ends up lower than the surface of the planet and it crashes.

"Unpowered" and "powered" orbits are not a thing. Either it is in orbit, or it is undergoing a "burn" and is changing orbits. There is no such thing as a powered orbit.

If you want a crash course in orbital mechanics, go buy Kerbal Space Program and have fun. It is remarkably accurate at representing orbital mechanics.

Tl;dr: The ISDs would have sat in orbit after being torn apart. The shield base doesn't stay above the Imperial installation. KSP is awesome.

You are right about the orbit terminology. They are not in orbit at all. They are in burn to stay in position above the shield gate which was very close to the planet. Their speed parallel to the planet isn't anywhere close to obtaining an orbit and would fall as soon as their burn was disabled. This wouldn't take days or weeks, but probably minutes considering their slow speed and mass and proximity to the planet. Which was my point all along. Think of how fast those ships would need to be moving around the planet to be in an actual orbit compared to how they were actually moving.

-The ISDs mass doesn't matter from a fall speed perspective. Only from a momentum POV for how much damage is done to during collisions. A feather and an ISD in the same situation will accelerate at the same speed. Gravitational force is directly proportional to mass.

-LEO at that height would be about 7.7km/s. They were traveling about 0.5km/s.

- Accelleration due to gravity at that height is roughly 9 m/s^2. That ISD looked around 1km or so above the station. So the fall time would be roughly 15 seconds.

My argument is coming from the idea that they are in LEO and traveling at the needed 7.7km/s. Mostly because it would be unfathomably stupid to put it hovering at 300km. You would be spending a similar amount of energy that it would take to to hover the whole station a meter off the ground. It didn't even occur to me that someone would engineer it that way.

I'm still trying to figure out rhe gravitational forces and newtonian physics of Darth Vader lifting that rebel soldier.

You know: F=ma

Maybe its a background in astrophysics and rocket design, but the hammerhead corvette was actually not the part that bothered me about the battle.

1)once the two ISDs collided, they would just come apart. They are outside of atmosphere (assuming that shield can't be penetrated by anything) so they would just keep orbiting. Them dropping is a painfully stupid gimmick in space movies.

2)if atmosphere does escape that shield, then they would de-orbit... Over a few months or years depending on altitude.

Check how far away from the planet those ships would need to be to actually be in unpowered geosynchronous orbit. Once you figure that out, you'll be surprised that the disabled ISD didn't fall straight into the shield sooner. It is also why the the second ISD didn't bounce when hit but rather got tore up. They would need to be using a lot of energy to be standing right over that shield gate making the second ISD more immovable than an object in a natural unpowered orbit.

That... isn't how orbits work at all. You mean geostationary. That is an orbit with a period equal to the planet's (sidereal) day and at the planet's equator so that it doesn't appear to move at all from someone on the ground. Geosynchronous just means an orbital period equal to the sidereal day so that it returns to its original position and speed relative to the ground each day. It is like comparing a square to a quadrilateral.

I will use Earth as a reference since the planet looked similar mass and size. They were not in geostationary orbit. They were in what is called Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (Low Scariff orbit?). It is about 300km up and there is still an extraordinarily thin atmosphere up there. An object in LEO with maintain its orbits for long periods of time, but the thin atmosphere will eventually slow the satellite (ISD in this case). This takes months. The International Space Station requires boosting to its orbital velocity every few months because of this or it would deorbit. This movie portrays this effect as happening in minutes or seconds. That is absolutely wrong. A ship that loses power while in orbit will just stay in that orbit until drag due running into matter (like an atmosphere) slows it down. As it slows, the periapsis ends up lower than the surface of the planet and it crashes.

"Unpowered" and "powered" orbits are not a thing. Either it is in orbit, or it is undergoing a "burn" and is changing orbits. There is no such thing as a powered orbit.

If you want a crash course in orbital mechanics, go buy Kerbal Space Program and have fun. It is remarkably accurate at representing orbital mechanics.

Tl;dr: The ISDs would have sat in orbit after being torn apart. The shield base doesn't stay above the Imperial installation. KSP is awesome.

You are right about the orbit terminology. They are not in orbit at all. They are in burn to stay in position above the shield gate which was very close to the planet. Their speed parallel to the planet isn't anywhere close to obtaining an orbit and would fall as soon as their burn was disabled. This wouldn't take days or weeks, but probably minutes considering their slow speed and mass and proximity to the planet. Which was my point all along. Think of how fast those ships would need to be moving around the planet to be in an actual orbit compared to how they were actually moving.

Ah. Now i get where you are coming from. If we believe that the shield gate was built that stupidly (which i guess IS how it is shown), you are a lot closer to right. There are a few corrections though.

-The ISDs mass doesn't matter from a fall speed perspective. Only from a momentum POV for how much damage is done to during collisions. A feather and an ISD in the same situation will accelerate at the same speed. Gravitational force is directly proportional to mass.

-LEO at that height would be about 7.7km/s. They were traveling about 0.5km/s.

- Accelleration due to gravity at that height is roughly 9 m/s^2. That ISD looked around 1km or so above the station. So the fall time would be roughly 15 seconds.

My argument is coming from the idea that they are in LEO and traveling at the needed 7.7km/s. Mostly because it would be unfathomably stupid to put it hovering at 300km. You would be spending a similar amount of energy that it would take to to hover the whole station a meter off the ground. It didn't even occur to me that someone would engineer it that way.

Regardless of all the science, (remember this is starwars, and in starwars ships behave as if in an atmosphere. Which is why the ships can somehow work with only rear engines, and need to use their engines continually rather than just for accelerating) I personally think its a shame the space battle wasn't a proper capital ship clash with full on broadsides and ships getting heavily damaged left and right and the rebels overcoming the ISD's through simply having a better/larger/more powerful local force projection. The whole implausible situation of this tiny hammerhead corvette (I love the design of this ship btw, nice throwback to the knights of the old republic games) taking out 2 ISD's just doesn't feel right to me and the mary sue of it (also note the Hammerhead only took superficial damage from ramming the ISD) takes the achievement away from the Rebels.

I was mistaken about the shield/sensor domes. Now that they are actually confirmed as shield domes this confirms my original post, it makes the ISD design even more terrible! What lunatic designed these ships?

As for the crews not being prepared for battle: what the heck do they teach them in the Imperial Academy? The 2003 USA invasion of Iraq wasn't performed by hardened second world war or vietnam veteran officers, yet you didn't see them stumbling like rookies against the Iraqi forces.

If it makes anyone feel any better, this is probably the first movie showing Rebels ships actually blowing up in capital ship combat against another fleet. This honor belongs to a random ISD that blows up during ROTJ (if you don't count the Mon Cals blown up by the Death Star and the Tantive 4 was captured).

I know people love ISDs, I do too, but oddly enough throughout the original trilogy, ISDs are getting their butts handed to them. Ion Cannoned, asteroids, almost ramming each other, A-Wing (SSD), losing at chicken to the Millennium Falcon etc...

As for the crews not being prepared for battle: what the heck do they teach them in the Imperial Academy? The 2003 USA invasion of Iraq wasn't performed by hardened second world war or vietnam veteran officers, yet you didn't see them stumbling like rookies against the Iraqi forces.

https://mmj.vcu.edu/2010/12/06/non-hostile-deaths-common-in-iraq-afghanistan/

21% of deaths in Iraq were not from the enemy.

I had heard in the first gulf war, friendly fire and accidents killed more Americans than Iraqi forces did.

What we should all be complaining about is the fact that U-wing went into Hyperspace in atmosphere and thus inside the gravitywell of a freaking plannet at the first weapons test... remmember the whole need to get away from gravity wells for hyperspace to work discussions plus the whole reason interdictors work is that they project a gravity well?

I think this is far moire important a plot point to complain about...

Do you know how much energy it takes to shield a whole planet? And this isn't Earth, the amount of energy holding us back from doing things may be trivial to a society that can go faster than light.

It isn't that they can't. It is that it is a super inefficient and super dumb way to operate when there is an easier, more efficient solution right in front of them. Now, anyone who cuts power to the station can wipe that facility out when it crashes. If it was in proper LEO, it would be a lot harder to aim at the facility.

I personally have never seen anyone lay out the energy that goes i to shields in Star Wars. Just the weapons. So I have no clue. I am assuming the answer is "a lot"

Why does it matter? It's a movie.

And applying physics as we understand it doesn't translate well to a sci-fi series that says bacteria allow you to control the force. Who says physics are the same in the Star Wars universe? Why does turning off engines literally stop a ship from moving? What about inertia?

What about when a ship drops out of light speed? How is it stopping all of that momentum in a fraction of a second without killing everyone on board?

Come up with all the theories you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Star Wars does not need to obey all the laws of science humans have come up with.

What we should all be complaining about is the fact that U-wing went into Hyperspace in atmosphere and thus inside the gravitywell of a freaking plannet at the first weapons test... remmember the whole need to get away from gravity wells for hyperspace to work discussions plus the whole reason interdictors work is that they project a gravity well?

These days, while interdictors still exist (Rebels TV series) they work differently - a ship can jump to hyperspace next to an Interdictor, but, it immediately comes out of hyperspace again (Rebels Season 2)

Presumably the planet's gravity well works differently, without the "kick out" effect.

The interdictor's field also had effects in realspace - when it goes full blast, it's like a super-tractor beam - dragging its own escorts in to collide with it.

Why does it matter? It's a movie.

And applying physics as we understand it doesn't translate well to a sci-fi series that says bacteria allow you to control the force. Who says physics are the same in the Star Wars universe? Why does turning off engines literally stop a ship from moving? What about inertia?

What about when a ship drops out of light speed? How is it stopping all of that momentum in a fraction of a second without killing everyone on board?

Come up with all the theories you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Star Wars does not need to obey all the laws of science humans have come up with.

Star Wars is supposed to exist in our universe. Just Long Ago and Far Far Away. So normal physics should apply. They don't, but should.

Why does it matter? It's a movie.

And applying physics as we understand it doesn't translate well to a sci-fi series that says bacteria allow you to control the force. Who says physics are the same in the Star Wars universe? Why does turning off engines literally stop a ship from moving? What about inertia?

What about when a ship drops out of light speed? How is it stopping all of that momentum in a fraction of a second without killing everyone on board?

Come up with all the theories you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Star Wars does not need to obey all the laws of science humans have come up with.

Im arguing because I find it fun. I will argue right up until I get my CC and wave 5.

Star Wars is supposed to exist in our universe. Just Long Ago and Far Far Away. So normal physics should apply. They don't, but should.

Fair enough

Do you know how much energy it takes to shield a whole planet? And this isn't Earth, the amount of energy holding us back from doing things may be trivial to a society that can go faster than light.

It isn't that they can't. It is that it is a super inefficient and super dumb way to operate when there is an easier, more efficient solution right in front of them. Now, anyone who cuts power to the station can wipe that facility out when it crashes. If it was in proper LEO, it would be a lot harder to aim at the facility.

I personally have never seen anyone lay out the energy that goes i to shields in Star Wars. Just the weapons. So I have no clue. I am assuming the answer is "a lot"

The surface area of a sphere is equal to four times the radius squared, when you change to an efficient 2,000 or even 160 kilometer orbit from the 30 or so another poster suggested you end up having to shield over 28 times as much area at 160K. If you think that's less efficient than having two star destroyers use their already demonstrated ability to arbitrarily hang in place...well..um fine? I mean, Do star destroyers even need to refuel?

My thinking on the Hammerheads is this: they must have been designed from the keel up for this. Broad front surface, overpowered engines, and massive, MASSIVE reinforcements on the structural members. I could see it as a design for moving construction bits, or asteroids, or even disabled ships or space stations.

It's also the sort of thing the Rebellion might steal a few of, and slap guns and shields on. Anything that flies, after all.

The whole implausible situation of this tiny hammerhead corvette

As it's been said many times now in many places it's not at all implausible for that to happen.

As for the crews not being prepared for battle: what the heck do they teach them in the Imperial Academy?

The Academy like collage trains people in the basics but you really don't learn how to do your job until you're out in the real world. When I got out of US Army basic training and AIT, I was a green newbie who had to be trained how to actually do my job.

yet you didn't see them stumbling like rookies against the Iraqi forces.

That's due to the massive tech advantage we had and not because of training. It was also the US on the offensive which changes things drastically. An untested crew who have never seen battle would not react quickly to a surprise attack that catches them flat footed, and every shot that lands on the ISD's would further reduce their combat effectiveness. Because not only do they have to reach battle readiness, they have to contend with damage control on top of it.

Rogue One did a great job of showing the Empire as a military that can be slow to react but once it gets going is an unstoppable juggernaut.

It's also the sort of thing the Rebellion might steal a few of, and slap guns and shields on

Going by Rebels, they're civilian Alderaan vehicle that the Rebels have been "stealing" (wink wink nudge nudge) from the Alderaanians.