"Combat Speed Is "X" Faster Than Movement Speed"

[theherodjl]

I've seen this rhetoric applied in various discussions regarding DB character's overall speed regarding battles with other characters but is there really anything meaningful to this logic?
Let's discuss real life people first, Ricky Hatton was a pro boxing welterweight champion and his average punching speed was 11 m/s(25mph) with a maximum speed of 14 m/s(32mph) and that seems to be more or less typical speed for professionally trained nimble boxers to pursue. However the world's fastest boxer is Keith Liddell and he is capable of punching at 20 m/s(45mph). Now for travel speed a human body is capable of running a maximum of roughly 12.51 m/s(28mph), 45 divided by 28 ends up with a result of 1.60 or 1.6x greater speed at the most.
Let's apply this formula to Ki users, if Goku can fly at 5819.56 m/s(13,018mph) down snake way then that means he can punch at a speed of 9311.29 m/s(20,808.8mph) which is certainly faster than his flight speed but it doesn't quite live up to a certain claim, that the combat speed of DB characters is vastly superior to their travel speed.
My question is that is there any rule or example that in DB there is a stated massive difference between combat speed and travel speed? I've seen claims that DB characters can fly at hypersonic speeds but fight at superluminal speeds but is there any proof of this?
Anyone?

[Bullza]

Well near the start of Dragon Ball, Master Roshi ran the 100 meters in 5.6 seconds so that works out him running at about 40mph. Roughly the same speed of a Horse or a Deer.

Yet when he fought Krillin they did a series of moves in a fraction of a second, faster than the eye could see because they had to explain what happened.

So I'd say there was some truth to it. Normal humans would have no problem seeing Master Roshi run or his travelling speed but of course they can't see his combat speed.

[saunasolmu]

Logically their "combat speed" is slower than their maximum flight speed. They use the same technique to fly short or long distances but have shorter time to accelerate in combat.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Honestly the whole shounen anime speed tropes make no sense when you examine them logically. For example, how many times have you seen a scene where one character is attacked, then appears to disappear and then reappear standing behind their attacker? If they were fast enough to not only dodge the attack, but move completely out of their attacker's line of sight and then circle around behind them without them noticing, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just punch them a few dozen times before they could react rather than doing such a maneuver? And yet you commonly see fights where both combatants are doing this sort of thing to each other, and they're portrayed as equal, even though that shouldn't be possible.

[zarmack]

Logically their "combat speed" is slower than their maximum flight speed. They use the same technique to fly short or long distances but have shorter time to accelerate in combat.

This is false (and doesn't make any sense). DB characters are constantly shown to fight faster than they travel. Piccolo at the beginning of Z was able to blow up the moon in 1 or 2 seconds, which is FTL speed. If you are one of those people who think DBZ characters can't travel at FTL speeds early on, then that would prove that their combat speed >>>>>>>>>>> travel speed.

Also, if you think that Goku didn't fly across half of Namek in one second, then their combat would be way higher than their travel speed since SSJ Goku and 100% Freeza were fighting faster than speed of the ship that took the team to Planet Namek.

1. Kaio tracked the Saiyan’s (Nappa's, Vegeta's) superluminal spaceships and he was able to calculate their speed and when they were going to arrive on Earth. And these spaceships were over 1000xFTL based on the fact that they were 5.67 times faster than the Namekian spaceship which went from Earth to Jupiter in at most a few seconds.
2. In the Freeza arc, in the anime. Kaio couldn’t track SSJ Goku’s and Freeza’s moves because they were moving too fast.
3. So, SSJ Goku and Freeza must be fighting faster than Kaio could track (which was spaceship speeds).
4. Therefore SSJ Goku's fighting speed in the Freeza arc is at least 1000xFTL.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Logically their "combat speed" is slower than their maximum flight speed. They use the same technique to fly short or long distances but have shorter time to accelerate in combat.

This is false (and doesn't make any sense). DB characters are constantly shown to fight faster than they travel. Piccolo at the beginning of Z was able to blow up the moon in 1 or 2 seconds, which is FTL speed. If you are one of those people who think DBZ characters can't travel at FTL speeds early on, then that would prove that their combat speed >>>>>>>>>>> travel speed.

Also, if you think that Goku didn't fly across half of Namek in one second, then their combat would be way higher than their travel speed since SSJ Goku and 100% Freeza were fighting faster than speed of the ship that took the team to Planet Namek.

1. Kaio tracked the Saiyan’s (Nappa's, Vegeta's) superluminal spaceships and he was able to calculate their speed and when they were going to arrive on Earth. And these spaceships were over 1000xFTL based on the fact that they were 5.67 times faster than the Namekian spaceship which went from Earth to Jupiter in at most a few seconds.
2. In the Freeza arc, in the anime. Kaio couldn’t track SSJ Goku’s and Freeza’s moves because they were moving too fast.
3. So, SSJ Goku and Freeza must be fighting faster than Kaio could track (which was spaceship speeds).
4. Therefore SSJ Goku's fighting speed in the Freeza arc is at least 1000xFTL.

This is a pretty poor argument. Not only was the thing about Kaio not sensing Goku and Freeza never in the manga, but you're comparing tracking an object at a super long distance moving in a predictable straight line to two objects very close to each other moving in random, unpredictable patterns.

The moon is orbiting the earth at a speed of over 3600 kph, but it's super easy to see from our vantage point, and in fact it doesn't even seem to be moving. But try keeping a mosquito in the same room as you within your sight when it's buzzing all over the place. That doesn't make the mosquito faster than the moon.

[zarmack]

Logically their "combat speed" is slower than their maximum flight speed. They use the same technique to fly short or long distances but have shorter time to accelerate in combat.

This is false (and doesn't make any sense). DB characters are constantly shown to fight faster than they travel. Piccolo at the beginning of Z was able to blow up the moon in 1 or 2 seconds, which is FTL speed. If you are one of those people who think DBZ characters can't travel at FTL speeds early on, then that would prove that their combat speed >>>>>>>>>>> travel speed.

Also, if you think that Goku didn't fly across half of Namek in one second, then their combat would be way higher than their travel speed since SSJ Goku and 100% Freeza were fighting faster than speed of the ship that took the team to Planet Namek.

1. Kaio tracked the Saiyan’s (Nappa's, Vegeta's) superluminal spaceships and he was able to calculate their speed and when they were going to arrive on Earth. And these spaceships were over 1000xFTL based on the fact that they were 5.67 times faster than the Namekian spaceship which went from Earth to Jupiter in at most a few seconds.
2. In the Freeza arc, in the anime. Kaio couldn’t track SSJ Goku’s and Freeza’s moves because they were moving too fast.
3. So, SSJ Goku and Freeza must be fighting faster than Kaio could track (which was spaceship speeds).
4. Therefore SSJ Goku's fighting speed in the Freeza arc is at least 1000xFTL.

This is a pretty poor argument. Not only was the thing about Kaio not sensing Goku and Freeza never in the manga, but you're comparing tracking an object at a super long distance moving in a predictable straight line to two objects very close to each other moving in random, unpredictable patterns.

The moon is orbiting the earth at a speed of over 3600 kph, but it's super easy to see from our vantage point, and in fact it doesn't even seem to be moving. But try keeping a mosquito in the same room as you within your sight when it's buzzing all over the place. That doesn't make the mosquito faster than the moon.

This is a poor rebuttal. Because either way, if Goku & Freeza weren't moving that fast then King Kai would be able to see them easily, regardless of their direction of movement. Plus, King Kai could telepathically zoom in on anything in his quadrant of the living realm, so its not like he only sees thing from a vantage point.

[Polyphase Avatron]

This is false (and doesn't make any sense). DB characters are constantly shown to fight faster than they travel. Piccolo at the beginning of Z was able to blow up the moon in 1 or 2 seconds, which is FTL speed. If you are one of those people who think DBZ characters can't travel at FTL speeds early on, then that would prove that their combat speed >>>>>>>>>>> travel speed.

Also, if you think that Goku didn't fly across half of Namek in one second, then their combat would be way higher than their travel speed since SSJ Goku and 100% Freeza were fighting faster than speed of the ship that took the team to Planet Namek.

1. Kaio tracked the Saiyan’s (Nappa's, Vegeta's) superluminal spaceships and he was able to calculate their speed and when they were going to arrive on Earth. And these spaceships were over 1000xFTL based on the fact that they were 5.67 times faster than the Namekian spaceship which went from Earth to Jupiter in at most a few seconds.
2. In the Freeza arc, in the anime. Kaio couldn’t track SSJ Goku’s and Freeza’s moves because they were moving too fast.
3. So, SSJ Goku and Freeza must be fighting faster than Kaio could track (which was spaceship speeds).
4. Therefore SSJ Goku's fighting speed in the Freeza arc is at least 1000xFTL.

This is a pretty poor argument. Not only was the thing about Kaio not sensing Goku and Freeza never in the manga, but you're comparing tracking an object at a super long distance moving in a predictable straight line to two objects very close to each other moving in random, unpredictable patterns.

The moon is orbiting the earth at a speed of over 3600 kph, but it's super easy to see from our vantage point, and in fact it doesn't even seem to be moving. But try keeping a mosquito in the same room as you within your sight when it's buzzing all over the place. That doesn't make the mosquito faster than the moon.

This is a poor rebuttal. Because either way, if Goku & Freeza weren't moving that fast then King Kai would be able to see them easily, regardless of their direction of movement.

Why? There are a lot of other factors that contribute to being able to see something rather than just its speed. I already gave you the example of the moon vs. mosquito. The moon is thousands of times faster, yet much much easier to track.

Plus, King Kai could telepathically zoom in on anything in his quadrant of the living realm, so its not like he only sees thing from a vantage point.

I don't recall any such thing. He can communicate with people telepathically, and view events at a distance. But that would just make it even harder to see Goku and Freeza, since if he projected an ESP 'camera' somewhere near their battle, he would see the same thing that anyone actually standing there would see - them moving in crazy and unpredictable patterns and he would have a hard time seeing them. Whereas for the space pods, they are moving in a constant velocity and direction, so putting a telepathic 'camera' to follow them would be easy - just set it to the same speed and move it in the same direction. The relative speed between them would be 0, which would be infinitely easier than tracking two erratic combatants moving in unpredictable patterns, constantly changing speed and direction, etc. Have you ever seen a mid-air refueling maneuver, for example? Both planes appear to be moving slowly or even stopped compared to each other, when they are actually both moving at hundreds of miles per hour. It's because the relative velocity between them is negligible.

Not to mention that, once again, the scene where he couldn't keep track of Goku and Freeza was never in the manga in the first place.

[theherodjl]

Plus, King Kai could telepathically zoom in on anything in his quadrant of the living realm, so its not like he only sees thing from a vantage point.

I'm pretty sure that Kaio isn't omniscient regarding anything that occurs within the north quadrant. He needed a book to find where Namek was. He had zero clue about Freeza's having survived Namek until Freeza & his father were getting close to Earth a year after Freeza's supposed defeat. He didn't know that Androids stronger than Freeza had come about or Cell had achieved his perfect form (even though the Namekians could clearly sense it) until Goku informed him of it. He needed time to locate the Namekians after they moved to a new planet. He only detected his superior, Shin, on Earth after Goku returned there for a day as well as being ignorant of Babidi attempting to revive the universe's strongest villain.
I'd say Kaio does see things only from a vantage point. Either that or he is just extraordinarily uncaring about what goes on.

[Lati]

Trying to rationalize this concept entirely requires a lot of headcanon, but I'll give my 2 cents anyway because I feel like it.

The reason that movement speed like say, flying is slower than combat speed is because flying is constant. We know from Gohan teaching Videl that flying requires ki. We can even see this because of their auras around them. Combat speed however, is used in bursts. The attacks thrown during these bursts are usually just standard punches in kicks. Characters can throw small blasts at high speeds, but for bigger beams and techniques, it usually requires a character to slow down and focus their ki. Usually movement with these beams is with teleportation (I.E: Instant Kamehameha), likely due to not taking as much ki as say, flying with the Kamehameha. There's a few exceptions to this rule, like Goku using the Kamehameha with his feet against MaJunior, but I chalk that down to them not being to fly as well as in mid to late Z, so they used beams to propel themselves. So in my eyes, it's a tradeoff. For focusing on bursts of energy, you can go faster, while constant energy exertion is best used at a slower pace. This can hold especially true for transformations like Super Saiyan, since it takes training so that there is less energy wasted trying to hold the form.

[Dagon]

A really good martial artist can punch about 25 to 32 miles per hour, from "cocked" to full extension. World's fastest run speed is 27.8mph. According to the real world, travel speed and combat speed are quite similar. However, "combat speed" is as much about muscle memory and anticipating your opponent as it is your raw "speed" per se. You could appear to be much faster than you really are if you can anticipate a step ahead of your opponent.

[Polyphase Avatron]

A really good martial artist can punch about 25 to 32 miles per hour, from "cocked" to full extension. World's fastest run speed is 27.8mph. According to the real world, travel speed and combat speed are quite similar. However, "combat speed" is as much about muscle memory and anticipating your opponent as it is your raw "speed" per se. You could appear to be much faster than you really are if you can anticipate a step ahead of your opponent.

Which helps to explain why Ultra Instinct is so effective.