CT How many ships have fought in the Battle of Endor?

Hi,

what are the numbers of ships for the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire at Endor? It was the largest space battle of the Galactic Civil War until then and the turning point in the entire war, maybe the most important battle ever, because Anakin Skywalker has fulfilled the Prophecy aboard the Second Death Star.

We have the Executor, 35+ Imperial Stardestroyers, Battlecruisers, Tectors, Victories, Dreadnoughts, Carracks and several other capital ships in different numbers on the Imperial side.

For the Rebellion no numbers are given. I assume ~30 Mon Calamari battle cruisers, smaller Mon Calamari ships, some dozen Nebulon-B frigates, hundreds of small ships like Alderaarian Blockade Runners and Corelian Gunships, many other combat vessels, transport and support ships plus those 1500 starfighters given in the Expanded Universe.

--Adrian the Cool

 

The RotJ novelization said that Lando in the Falcon was in the center of the rebel formation, and he couldn't see one end of the fleet in either direction. It must have been huge.

 

Are you looking for an answer based off of the EU or visual observation?

 

I should hope the answer is based off the EU or the novelization, because the Rebel fleet we saw in the movie was goddamn puny.

 

Going by the movie, i think it was about 42 Star Destroyers and about 30odd rebel ships.

that should be TIE fighters i believe.

 

Most recent EU source- The Essential Guide to Warfare- put the Imperial side at around 33 Imperial-class, 3 Tector class (like Imperial but hangarless), 2 battlecruisers (between Imperial & Executor in size) and an unknown number of other ships- including at least 1 Victory-class (like Imperial but smaller), and the Executor.

 

I just want to point out that I have an issue with the hangarless Tector-class. At first I was excited and thought it was cool, but if you look at the actual shot where it is supposedly seen, it's obvious you're seeing the top of the ship. On all models and diagrams, towards the front is a giant plate like that supposedly covering the hangar on the Tector-class.




I find it hard to believe they would build a new model or alter a model just to show a different class that never gets mentioned. And I find it hard to believe that this Star Destroyer is upside down while all the other ships in the shot are right-side up.

But then George said, "Sure, it's a new ship," Leland Chee agreed, and some book gave it a background, so now it's fact.

This is my problem with how Star Wars canon develops. I used to enjoy the EU, but I've now nearly cut it all out of my consideration.

 

There's a bit more detail on the subject here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer

especially the Talk page. People concluded that the Falcon flies too far for it to be just the top of an SD- and the novel also supports the notion that it's the SD's belly it's flying over.

 

I think it's pretty clear that it's just not proper scaling when compositing the Falcon and the destroyer. Kinda the same problem as with the bridge here:



It's a special effects error, though many have since tried to reconcile that with the novel's description of a Main Communications Ship. But whatever. I like the idea of other ships being present, but in reality it's just people trying to flesh out the battle many years after it was made.

 

The front of the tower also appeared to have multiple "bridges" rather than a single one.

 

Indeed this is true. It's my understanding that they created a specific model of just the bridge that they used for that shot. It was not intended to be a different ship, just a more detailed model. The fact remains that when compositing, they didn't get the scale right.

 

There's other cases where the apparent size of an object compared to other objects varies considerably- the Death Star 2 springs to mind. Sometimes it looks 1/11th the size of the Forest Moon, sometimes 1/30th or so.

But it's hard to know for sure if the tower example is a blooper or intentional.

 

While you're right that it's hard to know for sure, I would speculate that considering the Executor's bridge is supposed to be the same size as Imperial-class bridges, and that I don't see how a larger bridge would facilitate communications, I have a feeling it was just an error. No one ever mentioned till long after the film's release that there was even a size difference, something you'd think George or someone would have capitalized on, if for no other reason than to make a new toy.

 

For the life of me, I can't see why a new ship being created out of a SFX mistake is supposed to be a problem with Star Wars canon's development, and I say this as someone whose most polite description of the EU would be something like "less than the sum of its parts".

And it could be real - there's some odd things floating around in the Endor scenes, especially as background elements. I'm sure most people here have heard the "shoe legend", for example.

 

That's...not really a legend.

 

I always wondered why the Rebels didn't build a ship as big as a Star Destroyer or at least have 1 the size of a Super Star destroyer in their fleet.

 

Their cruisers are pretty close- bigger than the Venator-class Star Destroyers.

The EU has them eventually decide to build the Viscount-class Star Defenders- similar in size to the Executors.

 

The Empire had a lot of resources, the Rebels didn't. Even if the Rebels had the resources, if they tried to setup a shipyard anywhere, it'd probably be discovered and wiped out by the Empire before long.

Not to mention, the Rebel Alliance's strategy for most of the conflict was to disperse and hit the Empire where it was weakest. A super-battleship can only be in one place at a time, the Empire would devote much of its effort to hunting it down (think Bismarck, if you know your WWII), and this one ship would never be powerful enough to take on the Imperial fleets trying to kill it.

 

They did have the shipyards at the neutral world of Mon Calamari (well not really neutral) but the Alliance was satisfied with the Mon Calamari Star Cruisers they had to fight and do battle against Star Destroyers. Look at Endor, one Star Destroyer was totally pawned by a Mon Cal Cruiser, and it is 400 meters shorter then an ISD.

 

I don't think this really can be answered very well just by watching and counting, we have no idea how many ships were off camera or how many were destroyed without us knowing. We also can't count because you don't know if your counting doubled or not, An x-wing goes by then we cut to vader vs luke then when we come back to the space battle we see an x-wing, is it a different one or the same one that just came back around?

The expanded universe I'm sure would be a good place to look for answers to this

 

The Expanded Universe never did give a full list of Alliance vessels while the Essential Guide to Warfare gave us a fair description of the Imperial Fleet. I wouldn't mind seeing a full list myself from Keeper of the Holocron or something. In the meantime, we of the fandom spectra will just make our own and post it here for writers to use for their new stuff.

 

Thing is, you couldn't possibly have had a "neutral" world during the Galactic Civil War, and you couldn't have had a pro-Rebel world either. Look at what happened to Yavin and Hoth...the minute the Empire found out where the Rebels were hiding, the planet in question promptly got a visit from a Death Star or an Imperial battle fleet. If Mon Calamari's government was overtly in favor of the Rebels, they would've been the number one target for the Empire.

 

Read Essential Guide to Warfare on Mon Calamari. After knocking off the Imperials and forcing them out of Mon Cal space, they seeded the entire hyperspace lines into the sector with mines and then charted secret ones. The Council declared neutrality to protect itself in case even though everyone knew about their allegiances.

 

Hmm okay, I'll check it out when I get the chance. Still, I think it seems highly unrealistic that Mon Calamari could hold off an Imperial Starfleet consisting of hundreds or thousands of Star Destroyers if they were really determined to blast their way through.

 

If it helps, the Empire was probably waiting for the Death Star to take care of Mon Calamari and other worlds like Chandrila and cared little for the moment. Guess they underestimated the Rebels.