Turbolaser

A turbolaser was a powerful variant of the laser cannon turret usually installed aboard capital ships as well as space stations. While their firepower made them very capable against other capital ships, turbolasers were less effective against smaller and more nimble starfighters.
==Features==
Turbolasers operated on similar principles to blaster weaponry, converting high-energy gas into plasma bolts, but made use of much larger power generators and multi-person crews. Turbolasers could also vary their power intensity depending on the needs of the mission, from simply crippling a target to outright vaporizing it. True warships were able to feed nearly their entire reactor output into their heavy turbolasers.
Turbolasers were used by capital ships to penetrate the defenses of other capital ships or to conduct orbital bombardments, including "Base Delta Zero" operations. During the latter days of the Clone Wars, some turbolaser batteries, such as those installed aboard the Providence-class Dreadnought Invisible Hand, had a maximum power output that was the equivalent of a Magnitude 10 earthquake.Star Wars Complete Vehicles, New Edition Likewise, the primary turbolaser cannons on a Munificent-class star frigate had sufficient firepower to melt an ice moon 1,000 kilometers in diameter, or pierce through the shields of a 10-kilometer-wide battle station.
An Imperial-class Star Destroyer could use its turbolasers to bombard cities into craters of steaming sludge and ruin entire worlds.Battlefront: Twilight Company Imperial Star Destroyers' turbolasers could also penetrate through at least sixty levels of subterranean structure which were designed to withstand earthquakes and other industrial disasters.Shadow Fall: An Alphabet Squadron Novel An unnamed Imperial Star Destroyer was seen using its turbolasers to denude one of Samovar's continents of vegetation, rendering the atmosphere hazy with particulates, in order to aid in extracting the planet's resources for the Death Star's construction.Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel During the Subjugation of Mon Calamari, just a few shots from a Star Destroyer's XX-9 heavy turbolaser battery would have been sufficient to raze any one of the planet's deep underwater cities.Darth Vader (2017) 13 The Batonn insurgency saw Admiral Thrawn use turbolaser fire from the Chimaera to cause a tsunami and overwhelm the defenses of Scrim Island. Turbolaser fire caused tectonic spasms when a trio of Imperial Star Destroyers began to bombard Kashyyyk during its liberation, but were stopped before they could complete their order to wipe out all life on the planet.Aftermath: Life Debt
Turbolaser bolts dissipated their energy at a faster rate the further they traveled, therefore turbolasers only had a limited effective range, even in the vacuum of space.Victory's Price: An Alphabet Squadron Novel The turbolaser armaments of the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Chimaera had a combat range of less than 1,200 kilometers, and after said distance, they would be unable to penetrate any type of sufficient armoring. Likewise, the Star Dreadnought Supremacy heavy turbolasers were unable to cause notable damage to the shields of the Star Cruiser Raddus from a significant distance, despite their continuous barrage. A turbolaser's effectiveness was further weakened drastically as the bolt moved through layers of a planet's atmosphere, making them largely ineffective even against unshielded targets. However, this could be ameliorated by moving the ship deeper into the planet's stratosphere.Thrawn
Thorilide, mined from the Inner Rim moon Cynda, was a vital resource in the manufacturing of the shock absorbers of a turbolaser.A New Dawn
By the time of the First Order-Resistance War, kyber focusing crystals were installed in the turbolasers used by the First Order to increase their firepower and improve their recharge rate.Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Incredible Cross-Sections
==Usage==
Variants of the turbolaser existed, such as the quad turbolaser cannon,Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know the octuple turbolaser barbette, the light turbolaser, the twin light turbolaser battery, the medium turbolaser,Starships and Speeders the triple medium turbolaser,Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide the heavy turbolaser, the twin heavy turbolaser battery, the quad heavy turbolaser battery.
Turbolasers were the primary armament on various capital ships, most notably Star Destroyers such as the Venator-class Star Destroyer,Star Wars: Complete Vehicles the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer,Ultimate Star Wars and the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer.Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Incredible Cross-Sections
Other types of ships that were equipped with turbolasers included cruisers such as the MC80 Liberty Type Heavy Star CruisersStar Wars: The Force Awakens: Head-to-Head and the Arquitens-class light cruiser,Rise of the Separatists frigates such as the EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigateUltimate Star Wars and the MC30c frigate,Starships and Speeders as well as corvettes such as the CR90 corvette and the Raider I-class corvette.Friends Like These
Turbolasers could also be found on space stations such as the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station and the Golan I Space Defense Platform,Starships and Speeders as well as on planetside structures such as Grand Republic Medical FacilityStar Wars: Complete Locations and Tantiss Base.
==Examples==
*DBY-827 heavy turbolaser turret
*H9 turbolaser
*KDD2055 short-range turbolaser rapid-fire defense battery
*MegaCaliber Six turbolaser cannon
*XI7 Turbolaser
*XX-9 heavy turbolaser battery
==Appearances==
===Non-canon appearances===
*
*LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
Category:Emplacement weaponry
Category:Starship weaponry