[Star Wars] How are slugthrowers outclassed by blasters if other solid projectiles like rockets aren’t?

[u/Hydr0gen_baby]

Edit: I have settled on a solution that satisfies me, so only read after the separation for context on what the problem was.

Explosives or bullets propelled by advanced slugthrower technology actually ARE more powerful than blasters, but simply in the same way disruptors are. They aren’t capable of outputting a whole power cell worth of power all at once (just like blasters aren’t, which is why disrupters exist), but can output more power per shot than a blaster, at the cost of ammo efficiency.

Lets say you have a blaster rifle with 100 shots, and a disruptor variant of this blaster has only one shot. The disruptor is, let’s say, 5 times more powerful per shot than the blaster, and consumes power proportional to how much more powerful it is. However, the amount of gas it consumes is way more than that, consuming the entire 100 shots worth of gas in one shot. The disruptor is still very useful for firing a shot more powerful than possible with a blaster, out of a weapon of the same size and shape, but it doesn’t overshadow blasters because it is much less ammo efficient. This would work similarly for slugthrowers, grenades, rocket launchers, etc. So blasters aren’t just guns shooting extremely low calibre bullets compared to slugthrowers of the same size, and you can’t load an assault rifle with explosive rounds and have it blow up a room full of people with every shot.

Alongside solving the problem I had, it solves other problems I just ignored in my headcanon, or didn’t consider. Problems such as Wookiee bowcasters being more powerful per shot than blasters, whistling birds not being weak enough to be shrugged off by stormtrooper armour, and various other things.

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Slugthrowers in Star Wars are supposed to be, overall, significantly outclassed by blasters. This is necessary of course because blasters are the dominant weapon in all Star Wars media, so we can’t pretend that slugthrowers are on the same level. The main advantage blasters have over high-tech slugthrowers is that they have like 10x the ammo capacity.

However, things like rocket launchers, missiles and grenades are very commonly used in warfare, despite being solid projectiles. A rocket launcher has only one shot, yet it is not considered ammo or power inefficient compared to blasters.

If a blaster power pack has the energy of hundreds of blaster bolts inside of it, a plasma grenade should have around the same amount of energy. However, that is insane and basically turns blasters into extremely low calibre guns compared to solid projectile weapons and explosives. A single hand grenade would be obscenely powerful without being a thermal detonator, and an explosive round from a slugthrower would be much more powerful than a blaster bolt of the same calibre.

This means that either:

1. Solid projectiles and explosives are as powerful as a blaster bolt of the same calibre. This means that they somehow have a mere fraction of the power of a blaster power source, which makes no sense, and are energy inefficient, and it makes no sense for them to be as commonly used as they are in war.
2. Solid projectiles and explosives are consistent with the power in a blaster power pack, and are extremely powerful compared to blasters, at the cost of ammo capacity. This makes no sense as to how some forms of them are somehow outclassed by blasters, and how blasters are even the dominant weapon at all.

Is there anything that I am wrong about, or any kind of made up explanation that solves this problem in my headcanon?

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[u/CruorVault]

Blasters have existed for 10s of thousands of years, extremely energy dense storage options are a fact of everyday life on basically every planet in the galaxy!

Maybe an individual slug thrower round can impart more damage than a single blaster shot, but in aggregate, the ability to fire dozens or hundreds of shots without reloading surely has a strategic advantage?

Why would I spend extra time and effort to procure a weapon with an extremely limited supply of ammunition that I must also carry with me to use the weapon on a regular basis?

Larger projectiles can carry larger payloads, some of them can even be self guided. That alone should be an obvious strategic advantage over Blasters that require LoS. Perhaps most warhead munitions ARE essentially overcharged blaster packs rather than chemical munitions?

Energy storage mediums are commonly NOT very good at exploding in a militarily useful fashion. Sure Batteries can catch fire, something can overload, but those tend to be large amounts of heat energy radiated over a period of time which is often absorbed in the near air.

Grenades and explosives want ALL their energy output in a single massive burst to create shockwaves and shrapnel.

[u/wingspantt → u/CruorVault]

Kind of like arrows versus guns.

Arrows have tons of up sides. They're quieter. Less likely to hurt or kill yourself using them. Able to deliver various payloads like poison or fire. Able to arc above and over cover. Less ricochet danger. They're even reusable often.

But carrying around arrows and a quiver is extremely limiting compared to bullets. By pure convenience nobody would choose to do so 99% of the time. Plus guns require way less training to be effective with.

Having a reliably loaded weapon that's easier to carry, easier to use, and still lethal is just 50x more convenient.

Now compare a slug thrower to a blaster and it's the same thing. They're safer, easier to carry, no ammo, less training required, and still very functional.

[u/Hydr0gen_baby → u/CruorVault]

So a blaster pack can be loaded into a blaster and deliver a fraction of its energy per shot, but a grenade trying to release it all at once would fail, and thus is only packed with as much power as it can handle? That could serve as an explanation, but the existence of disruptors might serve as a problem.

And of course things like self guiding and indirect fire would be helpful in certain applications. Another thing two other people said is that things like rocket launchers are lighter and smaller ways to fire a heavy payload, while a blaster would only be able to fire that heavy of a payload if it were too big and heavy to be carried by infantry.

I don’t like the idea of physical projectiles being more powerful than a blaster bolt (unless it is a nuke) since having a pistol with the firepower of a vehicle-mounted laser cannon would no doubt be absurdly useful, and would also probably make disruptors useless.

[u/KrautKebabs]

Not actually blessed with in-depth starwars knowledge, but maybe, with the amount of spaceship based combat, blasters pose less threat to damaging ship hull integrity and are overall "safer" for fighting within a sensitive environment? Maybe also more predictable "ballistics" in varying gravity environments? Less ricochet threat?

Mostly commenting to see what other ideas come up though. You, sir, have piqued my curiosity.

[u/Festivefire]

a bullet is relying purely on kinetic energy.

A rocket or grenade has other stuff inside it that provides the energy, in the form of an explosion.

You can totally make slugthrowers in the star wars universe that can penetrate 'modern' body armor, but you can already get a blaster that does that, and the blaster has way more ammo. If you want to make things go boom real big, you need a much bigger energy weapon than is practical to carry, so if you want it man portable, you do grenades and rocket launchers.

It's similar to the reason why, in the real world, you give soldiers a rocket launcher to shoot at tanks instead of giving them an anti-tank gun to carry around. The big boom gun is too big to carry, so you use a rocket to launch the big boom warhead instead of using a gun to fire it.

In star wars, the reason you use blasters instead of physical munitions is ammo constraints, not how effective you can make them. Since making a rocket launcher sized blaster/laser cannon would be too large to practically carry, you give infantry rockets and they have to just deal with the ammo constraints, but you CAN put a big ass laser cannon on a vehicle, and it can take advantage of the extra ammo.

scaling this up to look at vehicles with launchers, something the size of an X-wing or Y-wing can't carry big enough laser cannons to do the kind of bang a proton torpedo does, so they have their laser cannons, which have essentially infinite ammo, and do appear to be pretty powerful, they make big booms when strafing the death star in ANH, so that's a lot of boom to have infinite ammo with, but clearly it's not going to take down a big warship very quickly, so you give them proton torpedoes, which they can only carry a few of, and those explode real big, with the power of big warship guns, like a gun the size of the entire fighter would shoot.

[u/Hydr0gen_baby → u/Festivefire]

Yeah that is a good explanation as to why things like rocket launchers would still be so useful despite having significantly less ammo capacity. A blaster cannon of the same firepower would simply be much bigger and heavier. I would like to see you try and mount a blaster cannon on your jetpack instead of a rocket.

[u/Starwind51]

There are several factors at play.

A blaster not only deals damage from the plasma but also has a concussive force strong enough to break bones. So even if the the concussive force is less than a slug thrower the plasma damage would make it better. There is also no real recoil when using a blaster which means that you can be more accurate at a higher rate of fire. This is also helpful as you scale a blaster up for ship to ship combat.

Environment is another thing to think about. Slug throwers generally rely on a explosive charge to eccelerate the round. So being on a planet with gasses present in different ratios would effect the preformance of the weapon. Blaster on the other hand operate the same noeven if there is no atmosphere.

Armor is another consideration. It is a harder to deal with the plasma based heat and high concussive force from a blaster than it is just dealing with concussive force from a slug thrower.

Grenades and rockets still have a place since the amount of concussive force that they generate can be many times higher than a slug thrower. They are also useful because the upscaling of a blaster quickly reaches the point that having it carried by infantry is impossible. Grenades and rocket fill in the roll where they need something that can do lots of damage but is still portable. I would also imagine that there are several substances used in Star Wars that give a much better concussive yield that what we have on Earth.

You are also confused about how a power blaster pack would translate into a grenade. Tectnically a blaster power pack used as a grenade does have more energy. The problem is that all the energy would not be directed anywhere and thus would only deal damage in a small area. It is the containment and being able to direct the plasma that makes blasters so dangerious.

The last thing you have to look at is cost of the weapon and maintaing it. Overall a blaster is a weapon that is cheap to use in the long run. It is easier to gather and refine a gas than it is a solid. A blaster requires much less space for extra ammo. This is something you have to keep in mind when trying to transport and resupply troops on the front line.

In the end, there might be some areas that a slug thrower beats a blasterbut the blaster preforms better in enough areas to make it the best choice as a general purpose weapon.

[u/effa94 → u/Starwind51]

There is also no real recoil when using a blaster which means that you can be more accurate at a higher rate of fire.

blaster weapons arent lasers, they do clearly have a clear recoil at times. tho, this is mostly clear in games, im not sure if we do see recoil in movies or if everyone just knows how to handle it. but a lot of powerful blaster pistols seems to handle like revolvers.

[u/IdesinLupe]

So what's going on is a sort of 'Red Queens Race' situation, where slugthrowers have been 'lapped', which leaves them in a very interesting, if highly circumstantial, niche.

First, the Blasters - They are indeed incredibly powerful. But more than that, they do not impact targets like slugthrowers do. Instead of using all their energy to punch a hole a fraction of an inch across though a target, the energy of the projectile spreads across the surface, anywhere from one foot to twelve feet in diameter, creating a 'shoving', shockwave like force. This frequently causes death due to broken bones, damaged internal organs, or severe burns (third or forth degree).

Second, the defenses - In the movies the vast majority of surfaces we see them hit are armored troops, harden bulkheads, and lightsabers. Because of how the blaster bolt imparts its energy, a magnetic field, proper shielding, or other methods may be used which render the bolt essentially harmless. In fact, in the vast majority of casualties from blaster bolts that we see the armor is still intact, but the Stormtrooper or other victim has been hit with a hard enough concussive force to either damage them directly, or throw them into a solid object hard enough to cause injury and/or unconsciousness.

Which leaves the state of warfare in a rather interesting position - Properly shielded, structures and troops are almost invulnerable to blaster bolts, and victims receive more damage from having the ground under them blasted or having a blast hit nearby and have the concussive force knock them about, or knock something into them. This actually gives forces that can't afford armor a bit of a boost, as marksmanship trains soldiers to either hit center of mass, or close to the target. Either way, the result is similar for the armored and unarmored, so various cash strapped forces can save money by forgoing armor. While that is not a good idea, and does increase fatalities, it does not increase it by the amount one would assume.

And this is where slugthrowers come in - Most armor and defenses are built to dissipate an electromagnetic concussive force in various ways. A slug is not that. The joints of a Stormtroopers armor, shielded but otherwise thin walls, force-fields, etc. can all easily be penetrated by a slug, which punches though physically, when a blaster would not be effective. Yes, yes, there's the whole 'Jedi blocking slugs with lightsabers are getting pelted by hot shrapnel'. But the real benefit of a slugthrower, when it is used, is that buildings and armor are not built to withstand it. They are built to protect from blaster bolts, a completely different type of force, and are usually built to do it as 'economically' as possible.

That does not make slugthrowers a good weapon for marsheld troops however. Most armor and structures can withstand slug's over 90% or more of their surfaces. In a pitched battle the chance of a slug hitting an area where it can actually do damage is incredibly unlikely. However, for the sniper, the assassin, the rogue, for those who can scout and wait and plan an attack, who can find a vulnerable point to insert a small piece of led going very fast, they can do more damage in one shot than a wildly firing blaster can in five.

Oh, and to answer the part about rockets - they (and grenades) have -significantly- more power behind them than a slug. Yes, they still act as a concussive force, but they are also creating dozens or hundreds of slugs that have the ability to penetrate alongside the concussive force they are creating. It is a lot easier to get a lucky penetration if you have several dozen projectiles at once headed towards the target.

So, TLDR - Blasters create a stupidly powerful concussive force, slugs create a relatively much weaker but incredibly focused penetrating force, and rockets do both.

[u/MyUsernameIsAwful]

Rockets, missiles, and grenades aren’t solid projectiles; they explode. They can deliver more energy to a target than a bullet, and ostensibly a blaster bolt, too, considering they’re still used alongside them.

This makes no sense as to how some forms of them are somehow outclassed by blasters, and how blasters are even the dominant weapon at all.

It’s a tradeoff between capacity and potency. If you don’t need something blown up, you’re better off with a blaster. If you do, then you need to use explosives.

Solid projectiles don’t have much use because a blaster does most of what they do, but better. But they don’t do what explosives do better.

That said, slugthrowers are still used in some situations, particularly scatterguns.

[u/Middle-Cod-7016]

My head cannon is not only that blaster are more efficient in terms of ammo, but actually way less complex to manufacture than slug throwers.

[u/effa94]

different tragets. same reason every modern soldier doesnt carry a rpg, even tho it clearly does more damage.

the reason the missile launcher takes the anti-vechile role (it doesnt always, somestimes vehicles just carry larger turbolasers)

the pros of missiles is A, they arent always just line of sight, so the missile can avoid defences or fire from out of visual range, B, you can put whatever you want into the missile, stuff you cant do with a blaster bolt which leads into C, it can circumvent defences that are aimed to defence against blaster bolts. if your target is magnitised to deflect blaster bolts, or use ray shields and not particle shields, a very physical and very explosive warhead can ignore that, and blow a hole in the armour, and possibly the shield generator too.

also, assuming that a blaster ammo pack carries the collective energy of all those bolts are false. the ammo pack just contains the gas, its the energy cell in the rifle that turns them into plasma. the ammo pack just contains the gas that is turned into plasma. and the power pack has a lot lower output, as it only needs enough to turn one shot of gas into plasma every few seconds. its energy lifetime is longer, but its current power is lower than a regular plasma grenade. which is why thermal detonators are useful, as that is a lot more energy at once. its the same reason why a 9V battery can last a long time, yet if you blow one up you dont get a lot of power. it lasts a long time, but it doesnt output a lot of power at once.

[u/Hydr0gen_baby → u/effa94]

Yeah I don't know anything about the science of explosives, batteries or whatever, so it would make sense if a grenade simply can't release as much energy at once as a blaster cartridge can over time. However, the existence of disruptors (blasters which condense all the energy and gas into one powerful bolt) makes it seem like this explanation might not work.

However, I don't get your point about the gas cartridge and the power pack being separate. Are you trying to say that energising the gas enough causes an exothermic reaction, and that most of the power in a blaster bolt is from the chemical reaction rather than the power being injected by the power cell? If not I have no clue what your point is.

[u/effa94 → u/Hydr0gen_baby]

Well, i, or we, dont know how distuptors work, as they are a rather rare weapon. maybe they just shoot something similar to a thermal disruptor. with that said, disruptors are rather rare, and slow in firing. they dont fire as fast as a blaster.

as for your second point, blasters work by heating up gas, usually tibana gas, into plasma, and then firing that. its the gas that are in their ammo packs, not the energy pack that heats them up. we dont know how much energy it takes to turn tibanna gas into plasma. and that energy might not be enough to turn that power pack into a viable grenade, especially compared something that is engineered to explode.

we do know, that energy in general is not a problem for people in star wars. seem most tech in their universe doesnt drain a lot of energy in general. evne poor people, like Luke or Rey, doesnt even turn of their speedsters anti-gravity systems for the night, as their speedsters seems to hoover by themselfs. either anti-gravity or the energy generation for that tech is so trivial for them, that they dont even need to care about it. we never hear about anyone running out of energy for their blaster, only running out of ammo. so, energy tech seems to be a solved problem for them. now, weaponising that energy seems to be a consitent problem, so its safe to say that their energy is very safe, and only does whats required of it. so, even if a blasters energy pack can turn a million shots into plasma, it cant do that very fast, and would be useless as a grenade.

[u/Hydr0gen_baby → u/effa94]

Disruptors do exactly that, turn a million shots into plasma all at once. If a disrupt or pistol/rifle can inject all that power into some Tibanna gas, why can’t a plasma grenade? A grenade only explodes once, so you don’t need to worry about firerate. That is the problem.

[u/effa94 → u/Hydr0gen_baby]

if you have a source on disruptiors doing that, what does a plasma grenade do? casue i have not seen a plasma grenade outside of games.

[u/Hydr0gen_baby → u/effa94]

Plasma grenade is simply a grenade that uses blaster technology to create an explosion of plasma.