Turbolaser/Legends



"Order the defense towers to fire ion cannons and turbolasers at will!"

- Queen Amanoa to Novar

The turbolaser was the immensely scaled up version of the blaster and laser cannon. These weapons were generally mounted on rotating turrets, which were commonly installed in banks on capital ships, space stations and orbital facilities. Some immobile variants, like those housed within defense towers of the city of Iziz, were used on the ground. Agrocite, an extremely rare ore that was found only on Khorm and Simocadia, was known to greatly enhance a turbolaser's destructive power. Mirkanite was also used in the production of heavy turbolasers.

Features
"We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader, but they're so small they're evading our turbolasers."

- Lieutenant Tanbris, during the Battle of Yavin





The turbolaser was a heavy laser cannon equipped with large banks of capacitors, allowing them to build up and store far more powerful energy bursts than standard cannons. These capacitors gave huge energy bursts to the beam, greatly increasing its power over standard laser cannons. They also helped power the galven coils in the barrels of turbolasers. First, a particle beam was generated in the manner standard of blasters and laser cannons. Then even more power was achieved by guiding this laser cannon particle-beam through another stream of energized Tibanna Gas (besides the one used in generating the initial beam, since laser cannons work on the same principle as blasters) to increase its power. The extra capacitors in a turbolaser that store huge amounts of raw energy then contributed to the beam by energizing it even further as it moved to the turbolaser's barrel. The resulting beam carried roughly three or more times the energy of a standard laser cannon beam.

It then passed through a set of galven coils located in the turbolaser's barrel, even further increasing the beam's power, and allowing it to pierce the defenses of heavily protected targets. Because these weapons required extra time to build up energy for their powerful blasts, they tended to have a slightly slower rate of fire than their weaker brethren (usually around one to two seconds between volleys, depending on the type of turbolaser and what power setting it was on). The risk of overheating was high due to this massive energy buildup, and many turbolaser models were protected with complex cryosystems and a powerful cooling sleeve on the barrel.



Turbolasers were the primary weapons of capital ships. They were used for ship-to-ship combat or, in some cases, planetary bombardment. A single blast from a turbolaser could completely incinerate a fully shielded starfighter; however, due to their slow turret traverse and an equally slow period of charging up and cooling down, using turbolasers against fighters proved to be highly ineffective because fighters were too fast and small for a good target lock due to a slower rate of fire than point-defense laser cannons. Turbolaser turrets installed on the first Death Star were unable to hit the nimble Rebel starfighters that were attacking the station during the Battle of Yavin, although they could hit starfighters that were following predictable trajectories, such as straight lines. Thousands of years earlier, turbolaser batteries were used against the Beast Riders of Onderon by Queen Amanoa's contingent of Onderonian Wave gunners. These batteries were mounted inside of the defense towers that lined the walls of Iziz, Onderon's single great city. Along with ion cannons, the turbolaser batteries were designed to combat the flying beasts used as war mounts by the Beast Riders.

Commonly, turbolasers were arrayed along the length of capital warship hulls, and linked to advanced fire-control systems to coordinate the cannon batteries for sustained, organized volleys of fire. The Grand Army of the Republic deployed turbolaser cannons mounted atop a heavy all-terrain drive unit during the Clone Wars. These SPHA-T walkers proved instrumental in taking down numerous Lucrehulk-class core ships during the Battle of Geonosis, and these turbolasers were later installed inside the hangar bays of Venator-class Star Destroyers for effective ship-to-ship broadsides.

Once strictly controlled by Imperial law, turbolaser technology was advanced following the Galactic Civil War when New Republic-contracted military designers created the quick-recharge turbolaser. This variant proved effective during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Following the war, a variety of long-range turbolaser was produced, with an even longer range than the standard type, though at the expense of even greater power drain; even when mounted on an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer, the drain was noticeable. This limited their deployment to a number of Hapan Battle Dragons and the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo. Darth Caedus fired the turbolasers on the latter during the Battle of Kashyyyk, causing forest fires on the planet's surface.

General classifications
Below are different general classifications of various turbolaser models:


 * Heavy turbolaser
 * Ex: Executor-class Star Dreadnought
 * Turbolaser battery
 * Ex: Eclipse-class Star Dreadnought, Sovereign-class Star Dreadnought




 * Turbolaser
 * Ex: Imperial I-class Star Destroyer, Imperial II-class Star Destroyer
 * Quad turbolaser cannon
 * Ex: Victory II-class Star Destroyer
 * Light turbolaser
 * Ex: MC80 Star Cruiser
 * Dual turbolaser cannon
 * Ex: Victory II-class Star Destroyer

Examples

 * DBY-827 heavy dual turbolaser turret
 * H6 turbolaser
 * H9 dual turbolaser
 * KDD2055 short-range turbolaser
 * MAS-2xB self-propelled turbolaser
 * QuasarFire turbolaser turret
 * Self Propelled Heavy Artillery - Turbolaser
 * W-165 planetary turbolaser
 * XI7 turbolaser
 * XV7 turbolaser
 * XV9 turbolaser
 * XX-8 turbolaser
 * XX-9 heavy turbolaser
 * XX-10 turbolaser tower
 * Long-range turbolaser
 * Turbolaser System I
 * Turbolaser blister
 * Quad turbolaser cannon

Non-canon appearances

 * LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game
 * LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
 * LEGO Star Wars: Darth Maul's Mission