Why 'Star Wars' Ships Make No Sense

[Nutso]

[Graham Kennedy]

He talks about it somewhat, but the one thing that always bugged me about Star Wars ships is the arcs of fire of the weapons are so poor. I don't know what class it is, but there's one where there are two banks of big turbolaser cannon, and they are arranged in rows which are one each side of the central superstructure.



And that just makes no sense, because each bank can only fire to one side. You should mount those weapons on the centreline of the ship. There's plenty of room there for both rows to sit on the centreline in front of that superstructure, and then every one of them could fire on either beam. It's a pretty trivial change, but for targets on the beam you've doubled the firepower of your ship right there.

That's a lesson that real world navies learned around 1910.

[McAvoy]

I agree mounting turrets on the centerline for maximum arcs of fire.

However, centerline turrets in the early 20th century also played a factor in that it saved weight and space on a weight and space critical ship. Also waist mounted turrets had disadvantage of being too close to the side that would interfere with torpedo protection.

Disadvantage of a centerline system is that one turret can fire in one direction. But if you are in a fleet action that resembles more of the sailing era of battle than side mounted turrets work when you have an enemy ship on each side.

Star Wars we have not seen broadside battles but sailing era tactics.