Star Wars, Lightsabers, and submachine guns

[shieldheart204]

Wouldn't the light-saber just MELT the bullets? Assuming that they can cut through various forms of metal, there would be no science as to using metal as a way of killing. Anyway, in order to kill Jedi the Empire would first have to train their soldiers in order to actually hit anything, unless your slug-throwers come equipped with autotargetting.

If you want slug-throwers in a Sci-Fi environment try Warhammer 40K, those guys glorify bullets.

 

[Imat]

So, I have just one small thing that really bugged me about the star wars series...
Why is it always plasma weapons or lightsabers (Which can reflect Blaster Fire), and never, oh, lets say... Ballistic weapons, like a Submachine gun!? I mean, honestly, it seems to make sense, and it'll probably go faster then Blaster Fire, leaving no time to respond, and can't be blocked! Why the hell does nobody REALIZE that!?

Just something that really bugged me.

Couple things. Bullets will not travel faster than lasers. Bullets are just as easily stopped by a lightsaber as lasers. So giving stormtroopers bullets instead of blasters means they now have rounds that can't be reflected, but the Jedi have even more reaction time to stop them. And now you have a far more limited ammo capacity. The reasoning behind lasers is pretty solid. Plus lasers are probably more green overall. The Empire Cares!

 

[Random berk]

This lasers vs bullets argument seems to be fairly arbitrary to me. What I see as a much bigger issue is, why do people only ever fire their blasters at Jedi on semi auto? Seriously? They can't be expecting us to believe that every handheld gun in the galaxy has the same rate of fire as a repeater rifle. In fact, in games like Battlefront we see that the standard issue blasters for regular troops of every faction have full auto capabilities, but to my recollection, in the movies, everyone who fires a blaster rifle at a jedi fires one bolt per trigger pull! So, what would happen if a Jedi went up against an assault rifle or even a light machine gun with no cover and only his lighsaber to protect him? With that volume of fire, surely he'd only be able to block one or two shots before being overwhelmed?

 

[Siege_TF]

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

The Force can totally be used to reflect blaster bolts.

Vaderdeflect.youtube

That could actually just be his cybernetic hands. There's not a lot of squishy gubbins left in Vader at that point.

Anyways SMGs aren't very accurate past medium range and a lightsaber could just vaporize what few bullets would find their mark even if the Jedi didn't feel like reflecting them. A Sith however... It would look like that one scene from District 9.

 

[Agayek]

So, I have just one small thing that really bugged me about the star wars series...
Why is it always plasma weapons or lightsabers (Which can reflect Blaster Fire), and never, oh, lets say... Ballistic weapons, like a Submachine gun!? I mean, honestly, it seems to make sense, and it'll probably go faster then Blaster Fire, leaving no time to respond, and can't be blocked! Why the hell does nobody REALIZE that!?

Just something that really bugged me.

You realize that blaster fire is a laser and therefore, by definition, travels at the speed of light correct?

Thus, ballistic projectiles will never be able to go faster than blaster fire.

 

[Product Placement]

One hand waving explanation to why bullet weaponry isn't popular in the star wars universe is simply because everyone can make armor that stop them; you need laser weaponry to get through those.

But then again, we did see a squadron of stormtroopers taken down by bunch of Ewoks with bow and arrows.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Because in sci-fi everyone uses LAZORS! Also light based weapons are more deadly then ballistic weapons and faster, since they travel at the speed of light. Star Wars would be less fun if you couldn't see the blaster shots though.

In theory the only reason blasters suck is because Stormtroopers have legendarily bad aim. If they all could aim properly and several dozens all fired shots at a Jedi at once, the Jedi would go down since there lightsaber is only so big and can only reflect so many shots at once. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF, SAVE ME!

 

[guitarsniper]

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

Also, Jedi don't block blaster bolts because they can react to the shots. They block them because they can see a fraction of a second into the future and tell where the shot will be before the trigger is even pulled.

Besides, there's plenty of sci-fi that uses slug throwers -- even Star Wars has a few examples in the EU. It's just in the higher technology settings, the energy weapons have some sort of advantage -- usually more destructive power, frequently fewer problems with things like ammunition and weight. In the lower technology settings, they're usually quite common. Look at Gundam, Battletech, Firefly, the Battlestar Galactica reboot -- all of them have primarily gunpowder and bullet based hand weapons, despite most of them having energy weapons at the vehicle level. For that matter, the Stargate franchise is full of situations where humans with modern guns triumph over aliens with energy weapons, especially in the movie and the early seasons of SG-1.

I remember a bit in SG1 where the humans are delivering guns to a bunch of Jaffa resistance, and O'neill makes a point about a P90 being a weapon of war, while a DE weapon was a weapon of terror. can't find a youtube clip or i'd post it.

 

[Wackymon]

"... a lightsaber could just vaporize what few bullets would find their mark even if the Jedi didn't feel like reflecting them."

Alright, this is just minorly annoying, but I'll just quote This article [http://what-if.xkcd.com/16/], basically replacing lightning with lightsaber:

What would happen if lightning A lightsaber struck a bullet in midair?
The bullet won't affect the path the lightning takes. You'd have somehow to time the shot so the bullet was in the middle of the bolt when the return stroke happened.
The core of a lightning bolt is a few centimeters in diameter. A bullet fired from an AK-47 is about 26 mm long and moves at about 700 millimeters every millisecond.
The bullet has a copper coating over a lead core. Copper is a fantastically good conductor of electricity, and much of the 20,000 amps could easily take a shortcut through the bullet.

Surprisingly, the bullet handles it pretty well. If it were sitting still, the current would quickly heat and melt the metal. But it?s moving along so quickly that it exits the channel before it can be warmed by more than a few degrees. It continues on to its target relatively unaffected. There are some curious electromagnetic forces created by the magnetic field around the bolt and the current flow through the bullet, but none of the ones I examined changed the overall picture very much.

So, deflecting it isn't all that much of an option, so... Yeah, Ballistic Gunslinger against Jedi, gunslinger would win, because lightning bolts are basically bolts of plasma. So, I suppose against Jedi, it's the most valuable weapon... I suppose it wouldn't be as useful to anything else.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

"... a lightsaber could just vaporize what few bullets would find their mark even if the Jedi didn't feel like reflecting them."

Alright, this is just minorly annoying, but I'll just quote This article [http://what-if.xkcd.com/16/], basically replacing lightning with lightsaber:

What would happen if lightning A lightsaber struck a bullet in midair?
The bullet won't affect the path the lightning takes. You'd have somehow to time the shot so the bullet was in the middle of the bolt when the return stroke happened.
The core of a lightning bolt is a few centimeters in diameter. A bullet fired from an AK-47 is about 26 mm long and moves at about 700 millimeters every millisecond.
The bullet has a copper coating over a lead core. Copper is a fantastically good conductor of electricity, and much of the 20,000 amps could easily take a shortcut through the bullet.

Surprisingly, the bullet handles it pretty well. If it were sitting still, the current would quickly heat and melt the metal. But it?s moving along so quickly that it exits the channel before it can be warmed by more than a few degrees. It continues on to its target relatively unaffected. There are some curious electromagnetic forces created by the magnetic field around the bolt and the current flow through the bullet, but none of the ones I examined changed the overall picture very much.

So, deflecting it isn't all that much of an option, so... Yeah, Ballistic Gunslinger against Jedi, gunslinger would win.

Problem:


Just replace Neo with a Jedi

 

[Loonyyy]

'cos the Jedi would just catch them with his overpowered telekinesis and throw 'em all back at you, which he can't do with the non-solid blaster bolts.

Also, Jedi don't block blaster bolts because they can react to the shots. They block them because they can see a fraction of a second into the future and tell where the shot will be before the trigger is even pulled.

Besides, there's plenty of sci-fi that uses slug throwers -- even Star Wars has a few examples in the EU. It's just in the higher technology settings, the energy weapons have some sort of advantage -- usually more destructive power, frequently fewer problems with things like ammunition and weight. In the lower technology settings, they're usually quite common. Look at Gundam, Battletech, Firefly, the Battlestar Galactica reboot -- all of them have primarily gunpowder and bullet based hand weapons, despite most of them having energy weapons at the vehicle level. For that matter, the Stargate franchise is full of situations where humans with modern guns triumph over aliens with energy weapons, especially in the movie and the early seasons of SG-1.

I love when they're training the resistance movement, and they show the staff weapon, calling it as a tool of terror and oppression, and how it's slow and innacurate, before shredding the target with a P-90.

 

[vxicepickxv]

You just need to create enough improbable blocking locations via simultaneous shot that it wouldn't matter. This is actually where a light based projectile weapon capable of both multiple beams and changing the angle of attack ever so slightly(probably 1/10 of a degree at 100 meters) and eventually you'll find the right angle to fry a Jedi. Based on everything shown in Star Wars that I've seen, it wouldn't be man portable, due to energy restrictions.

 

[angrykirby]

the original clone wars cartoon had gattling lazer guns the clone troopers used em it was cool. so there are lazer machine guns

 

[Tentaquil]

see also: Harry Potter and sniper rifles.

Real question is: Why do you want to ruin the fun?

The books would have only been a few pages long.
Avada Kedavra your way out of getting shot in the head.

 

[Olas]

Because Star Wars is soft science fiction. Therefore all the technical aspects don't have to make sense.

Still though, I'd love to see the empire square off against us and our "inferior" weapons.

 

[Something Amyss]

it'll probably go faster then Blaster Fire, leaving no time to respond, and can't be blocked!

Yes, blaster fire is slower than projectile weaponry. You based this upon...What now?

 

[Something Amyss]

see also: Harry Potter and sniper rifles.

Screw sniper rifles....

I remember a bit in SG1 where the humans are delivering guns to a bunch of Jaffa resistance, and O'neill makes a point about a P90 being a weapon of war, while a DE weapon was a weapon of terror. can't find a youtube clip or i'd post it.

Yeah, that was totally awesome. Though to be fair, the Goa'uld staff weapons are beastly in their own right. I mean, they don't even need to hit someone directly to hurt them.

Also, Jedi don't block blaster bolts because they can react to the shots. They block them because they can see a fraction of a second into the future and tell where the shot will be before the trigger is even pulled.

As is more or less demonstrated when Luke spars with that blaster droid. He actually does worse when he tries to react to the blaster.

 

[BaronIveagh]

That could actually just be his cybernetic hands. There's not a lot of squishy gubbins left in Vader at that point.

Satele Shan uses her shapely, but bare, hands and the force of block a light saber in the promo videos for TOR.


The real reason is that bullets are more dangerous inside space ships than energy weapons. While, one must still wonder why on planets they don't hose Jedi down with HMGs that fire hundreds of rounds per min, it makes more sense in space. Perhaps it's just compatibility issues, ie why have to use one gun in space and one gun on the ground when you can use one gun in both?