Ok so this is super cool and incredibly in depth. I know approximately 0 about math, so all the numbers are WAAAY beyond my knowledge to back up or refute, but the model is pretty neat.

For those that say it's impossible, now is your chance to argue! (after reading the article of course) For those that can't wait for your ramfleet of Hammerheads, be in the know before you go!

The Physics of Ramming an Imperial Star Destroyer, Explained https://www.wired.com/2017/05/rogue-one-hammerhead-star-destroyer/

While a fun mental exercise, it is important to remember that Star Wars has always worked on different laws of physics when it comes to space flight. Most notably, the "space" in Star Wars is more akin to the "Aether" of Victorian era science and science fiction. Most notably embodied by the movement of starfighters during the dogfights in the Orige Trige, R1, and the Prequels. (All the dogfights in Force Awakens occurred inside an atmosphere.)

I'm also a bit confused as to what the final conclusion was. . . I mean, all I got from the article was 'Something unknown happened at impact', 'Debris moved correctly', and 'The ships didn't quite turn as I estimated [guessed] they would'. . . not much of an explanation, nor much of a conclusion. . .

Oh yeah, I totally understand the "space with mass" concept and such, but this is still a good read with a lot of work into it.

That said, in the star wars universe if you push something it still falls down, so I think we can safely assume exerting that kind of force would still would work in roughly the same way, we just don't know what kind, if any, of resistance that "aether" would contribute.

1 minute ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I'm also a bit confused as to what the final conclusion was. . . I mean, all I got from the article was 'Something unknown happened at impact', 'Debris moved correctly', and 'The ships didn't quite turn as I estimated [guessed] they would'. . . not much of an explanation, nor much of a conclusion. . .

I don't think there needs to be? It's more of a recognition that the people who planed this scene put *some* thought into how it occurred, the paths the various objects would take, and the force required to get that big hunk of space junk to move.

Also, it does nothing to address the problem of how the star destroyer initially appears to have relatively little inertia when pushed upon by the Hammerhead initially, but then a TON of inertia when it rips apart the other Star Destroyer.

Nothing really to explain. Have you ever seen a tug boat move a ship 1000 times its size?? Its done 100s of times every day in every port on earth. and if they hit the dock to fast "lots of damage"

and on another note: people bring up star wars ships falling, Its because they are not in orbit, they are held up/in place by re-pulsars/anti grave and when they are damaged the ship falls to the ground even at 1000 miles up.

1 hour ago, cynanbloodbane said:

While a fun mental exercise, it is important to remember that Star Wars has always worked on different laws of physics when it comes to space flight. Most notably, the "space" in Star Wars is more akin to the "Aether" of Victorian era science and science fiction. Most notably embodied by the movement of starfighters during the dogfights in the Orige Trige, R1, and the Prequels. (All the dogfights in Force Awakens occurred inside an atmosphere.)

My theory on this comes from the Prequels!

Rule 1) Regarding the Force: It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.

Rule 2) The Force is midichlorians.

Posit 1) Space is made of midichlorians as they bind the galaxy together. This gives space mass and resistance to fly through in the way starfighters are shown in the movies and shows.

Posit 2) When lasers, ion blasts move through space, they are moving through midichlorians which either... A) The expansion and collapse of midichlorians after a blast of laser has passed through creates 'Bwap' and other noises or... B) The death of many midichlorians as a blast of energy sears through them creates the 'Bwap' and other noises.

Conclusion: Midichlorians answer not only why do ships fly like they do in Star Wars space but also why there is sound in space. George Lucas is truly a visionary.

This post may contain massive quantities of snark. Please treat it accordingly.

Did the Hammerhead Ram need explanation though? They were in a zero G/low G environment, the Star Destroyer was disabled, the hammerhead pushed, and the laws of physics did the rest.

Made sense to me the first time I saw Rogue One.

31 minutes ago, Derpzilla88 said:

Did the Hammerhead Ram need explanation though? They were in a zero G/low G environment, the Star Destroyer was disabled, the hammerhead pushed, and the laws of physics did the rest.

Made sense to me the first time I saw Rogue One.

Did it also make sense that one ISD ripped through another based on the hammerhead pushing it? And the hammerhead didn't take anything bear the same damage.

12 minutes ago, ryanabt said:

Did it also make sense that one ISD ripped through another based on the hammerhead pushing it? And the hammerhead didn't take anything bear the same damage.

Yes it does make sense. The Hammerhead hit the Imperial after the latter was disabled, and from a motion from behind the Star Destroyer's velocity. The impact looks fast, and the Hammerhead was damaged, but it wasn't that fast. The point of impact was the most armored part of the Hammerhead against the heavy deck plating of the Imperial . By any understanding of warship design today, that plating is attached, firmly, to the ship's structural members, and force exerted on the armor is distributed over the ship as a whole. Unfortunately for the other, powered Imperial , both of the things that saved the Hammerhead aren't present. The angular velocity of the disabled ship is (close to) perpendicular to the powered ship's path. These energies are going to add up. Secondarily, the armor plating doesn't impact armor plating, it hits the superstructure. That part of the ship, while still not vulnerable to casual damage, is going to buckle before the main armor plating hitting it will.

Now, for Wired's article, I think his estimate of the mass difference is off, potentially by another half an order of magnitude, and the engine power figure I don't have offhand numbers to compare to, but I'll buy that a ship like that is capable of 6K Saturn Vs. It's reasonable. Probable, obeying our laws of physics? Probably not, but IMO still more than acceptably close. They didn't exactly set out to out-science The Martian .

22 minutes ago, ryanabt said:

Did it also make sense that one ISD ripped through another based on the hammerhead pushing it? And the hammerhead didn't take anything bear the same damage.

It wasn't the hammerhead pushing the ISD that did the damage, it was that the hammerhead had slowly increased the ISDs velocity over time. It was the ISDs own mass and accumulated velocity that did the massive damage.

Just now, homedrone said:

It wasn't the hammerhead pushing the ISD that did the damage, it was that the hammerhead had slowly increased the ISDs velocity over time. It was the ISDs own mass and accumulated velocity that did the massive damage.

And armor plate versus superstructure

12 hours ago, Grujav said:

My theory on this comes from the Prequels!

Rule 1) Regarding the Force: It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.

Rule 2) The Force is midichlorians.

Posit 1) Space is made of midichlorians as they bind the galaxy together. This gives space mass and resistance to fly through in the way starfighters are shown in the movies and shows.

Posit 2) When lasers, ion blasts move through space, they are moving through midichlorians which either... A) The expansion and collapse of midichlorians after a blast of laser has passed through creates 'Bwap' and other noises or... B) The death of many midichlorians as a blast of energy sears through them creates the 'Bwap' and other noises.

Conclusion: Midichlorians answer not only why do ships fly like they do in Star Wars space but also why there is sound in space. George Lucas is truly a visionary.

This post may contain massive quantities of snark. Please treat it accordingly.

Awesome oh SpinMeister!

Do you work in sales?

The first ISD didn't cut the second in half it delaminated it.

Just like when you split a slab of slate.

Star Wars was never meant Science Fiction . It's Space Opera , mixing elements of Western, Eastern, Fairy Tales, and much more genres. So why bother with physics, when I'm ready to accept laser swords or the existence of battle platforms on legs ( AT-AT )? (Hoovering Tanks also are a very bad idea, when it comes to recoil!) They are cool and that's why they exist.

The only little problem I have with this scene is, that all rebel tactics rely on complete incompetence on imperial side. The crew on the functioning ISD 1 is not capable, to see the disabled ISD coming or to make evasive action in time. It should be possible to move an ISD with its own engines faster and more accurate, than with that of an Hammerhead clinced to the side. It would have been more convincing, when a dialogue stressed out, that there was an order that forbid to move away from the gate. The victory would have been out of creativity against law abiding stubborness and not out of funny idea against stupidity.

But on the other side all films ever relied on imperial incompetence. Or did any stormtrooper ever succeed in hitting anything or anybody? No! They only die when hit with sticks by teddybears. But it was always fun to see them fail. And that's for what they really exist.

16 minutes ago, Triangular said:

Star Wars was never meant Science Fiction . It's Space Opera , mixing elements of Western, Eastern, Fairy Tales, and much more genres. So why bother with physics, when I'm ready to accept laser swords or the existence of battle platforms on legs ( AT-AT )? (Hoovering Tanks also are a very bad idea, when it comes to recoil!) They are cool and that's why they exist.

The only little problem I have with this scene is, that all rebel tactics rely on complete incompetence on imperial side. The crew on the functioning ISD 1 is not capable, to see the disabled ISD coming or to make evasive action in time. It should be possible to move an ISD with its own engines faster and more accurate, than with that of an Hammerhead clinced to the side. It would have been more convincing, when a dialogue stressed out, that there was an order that forbid to move away from the gate. The victory would have been out of creativity against law abiding stubborness and not out of funny idea against stupidity.

But on the other side all films ever relied on imperial incompetence. Or did any stormtrooper ever succeed in hitting anything or anybody? No! They only die when hit with sticks by teddybears. But it was always fun to see them fail. And that's for what they really exist.

The Ewoks were just lame...the first hint that Lucas had gone down the fruitcake path...

In R1 at least there is some excuse for Imp incompetence: they've never really experienced a full-scale military challenge. They are just fat and happy, sitting there in their white space triangles, nearly choking on their own ambitions

15 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

While a fun mental exercise, it is important to remember that Star Wars has always worked on different laws of physics when it comes to space flight. Most notably, the "space" in Star Wars is more akin to the "Aether" of Victorian era science and science fiction. Most notably embodied by the movement of starfighters during the dogfights in the Orige Trige, R1, and the Prequels. (All the dogfights in Force Awakens occurred inside an atmosphere.)

except for the very first one where Finn and Poe escape in the TIE Fighter

16 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

Ok so this is super cool and incredibly in depth. I know approximately 0 about math, so all the numbers are WAAAY beyond my knowledge to back up or refute, but the model is pretty neat.

For those that say it's impossible, now is your chance to argue! (after reading the article of course) For those that can't wait for your ramfleet of Hammerheads, be in the know before you go!

The Physics of Ramming an Imperial Star Destroyer, Explained https://www.wired.com/2017/05/rogue-one-hammerhead-star-destroyer/

I also know very little when it comes to math, however it did get me thinking, when he mentions the star destroyer being in orbit. If Skarrif was like Earth, then it's moving at 30km per second as it rotates around the sun. It is also moving at 1.7km per hour as it rotates on it's axis. According to google New York is 789m2 (I wouldn't know, I'm from Perth) so to keep something the size of NYC exactly where it wants it to be positioned, a ship would have to be moving at those same speeds in those directions?

Big battleships parked over a tropical paradise island in a relative backwater? My guess is that the majority of the crew of both ships was on shore leave.

An undercrewed ISD would have a very difficult time reacting to anything.

9 hours ago, Triangular said:

The only little problem I have with this scene is, that all rebel tactics rely on complete incompetence on imperial side. The crew on the functioning ISD 1 is not capable, to see the disabled ISD coming or to make evasive action in time. It should be possible to move an ISD with its own engines faster and more accurate, than with that of an Hammerhead clinced to the side.

The functioning ISD didn't have a navigate command planned until two turns later. Probably had concentrate fire, then squadron command, then maybe a navigate command. Meanwhile Mr. Hammerhead was spamming those navigate commands like crazy.

But in all reality, wouldn't it take time for an ISD that's stationary to get moving fast enough to dodge the other ISD that's, admittedly, coming in pretty fast? Not to mention the time to get the order from the bridge to the crews to get them to put the ISD into motion.The hammerhead also looked like it was angled just the right way (which the rebels probably did intentionally so this Star Destroyer mashup plan would work) so that it's trajectory sent it right into the other ISD without needing to adjust it's angle.

15 hours ago, Teloch said:

I also know very little when it comes to math, however it did get me thinking, when he mentions the star destroyer being in orbit. If Skarrif was like Earth, then it's moving at 30km per second as it rotates around the sun. It is also moving at 1.7km per hour as it rotates on it's axis. According to google New York is 789m2 (I wouldn't know, I'm from Perth) so to keep something the size of NYC exactly where it wants it to be positioned, a ship would have to be moving at those same speeds in those directions?

Is the gate geostationary? I could see a case for either 'yes' or 'no,' but the gatekeeper fleet only needs to hold station with the gate, not with the planet (necessarily).

57 minutes ago, SFC Snuffy said:

Is the gate geostationary? I could see a case for either 'yes' or 'no,' but the gatekeeper fleet only needs to hold station with the gate, not with the planet (necessarily).

I suppose that would depend on how big the planet is, and how long it would take to traverse it in a spaceship comming in to land at the station.

Makes sense to me that the gate would be stationary relative to the ground base - which is why they can beam their message through the gate reliably - they don't have to worry about where it is (which would be an issue if the gate was constantly in motion, in "low orbit".

It looks too low to be in a true geostationary orbit though. More likely, it's "hovering" so still experiencing gravity.

Same would apply to the Star Destroyers - thus, when power (and thus, repulsorlifts) are gone, it immediately falls toward the planet.

9 hours ago, Ironlord said:

Makes sense to me that the gate would be stationary relative to the ground base - which is why they can beam their message through the gate reliably - they don't have to worry about where it is (which would be an issue if the gate was constantly in motion, in "low orbit".

The Antenna has an alignment function - which points to the fact that the Shield Gate (which is ostensibly the relay point for communications through the shield) can and does move.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

The Antenna has an alignment function - which points to the fact that the Shield Gate (which is ostensibly the relay point for communications through the shield) can and does move.

Or that it communicates with other things when the shield is down.