Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

I love that the Batuu map has a bunch of Jeff Carlisle drawings from the sourcebooks.

 

That was sort of a hypothetical scenario I was working on - haven't actually put anything to paper, but I had a fanfic plot where an independent Imperial remnant state (think something like the Citruic Hegemony in Legends, but in this example more like a GFFA version of Sweden or Finland - officially neutral, cordial relations with the NR, wary of the FO) was a target of the FO's post-Hosnian blitz.

I put said Imperial remnant state in the Dantus Sector with three main systems (the capital, the shipyard and main fleet base, and a classified military test range) and gave it an OB containing two ISD-IIs, two Nebulon-Bs, and four CR90s as well as eight fighter wings (three of which were flight test/training units rather than deployable combat groups). The fighter contingent was the main force multiplier; of the five deployable fighter wings one was a TIE Defender Elite unit and for three of the others I resurrected the TIE Avenger from Legends (the remaining unit being a mix of upgraded TIE Interceptors and TIE Bombers). After filling the remnant state's OB out the challenge was to assign enough FO opposition to give them the clear edge on paper but give the remnant state's forces a realistic chance with some crazy-prepared defensive measures and extra backup.

A more general "FO versus Empire" matchup would depend on how you level the playing field. Qualitatively speaking the FO seems to have the better capital ships and fighters on average, but if you're comparing the entire scope of the two fleets the OT-era Empire would likely have crushing numerical superiority. Leadership-wise, well, Hux may be incompetent but for every Thrawn or Sloane it seems we get a cadre of Imperial commanders like Konstantine or Ozzel.

 

Remember, the FO seems to be rather lacking in the the smaller ship classes, including the traditional Star Destroyer class. What we've seen are Battlecruisers, Star Dreadnoughts, and a Super Dreadnought (I still refuse to call the Supremacy anything besides a Supremacy-class Super Dreadnought) on screen... with just a few smaller types appearing in comics and so forth (plus some old Imperial star destroyers).

This means that the Imperial Remnant will do best if they basically use Rebel tactics against the First Order with their smaller capital ships.

 

Depends on the Empire. I don't want to stir up another NuCanon vs Legends debate again, but the NuCanon Empire isn't portrayed as any more competent than the FO.

 

Totally. And those nice big engines. The Prequel consular thing was a nice nod, but this was the go-to transport in the old school Marvel stories. Hell, they shoulda used that design for The Ghost!

 

Apparently, Y-45 haulers were old vehicles already in the process of being phased out as of the Battle of Mimban. While that was probably done to explain why walkers are usually carried by Gozanti-cruisers and other dropships in other sources, I really wish they didn't.
Gozanti cruisers are very old themselves (even the modified carrier variant appears in the pre-TPM Maul comic) and are probably much more expensive to produce, crew and fuel than the smaller Y-45s which seem like a better option to transport light and medium GAVs.
Also, having three or four different vehicle dropships doesn't seem to be such a big issue if you think that we already dozens different imperial troop transports in Canon (and with barely different roles in most cases): Lambdas, Sentinels, DX-9s, TIE-Reapers, TIE/brs, TIE-Landers, police gunships and so on.

 

There are some weird synergies between different parts of this reply, so I'll be referring back and forth a bit...

Vader puts on a uniform? I assume you don't mean a cap and tunic over his cloak and armour...

Ackbar wearing a Mon Cal uniform and Han pulling on a faintly meta trenchcoat are not actually wearing the appropriate Rebel Alliance uniforms, either. And I'm pretty sure the same is true of General Syndulla's steampunk goggles and dungaree version of the orange flightsuit. Add Commander Tano and Lord Ren to prove the point.

But on the other hand, who's to say that Holdo isn't just wearing some form of full dress - presumably Gatalentan, based on the Visual Guide? The NR dress uniform is a white tuxedo, after all.

As @vncredleader has said, there's always been a general perception that the Republic had some sort of armed naval capability for hunting pirates and intervening in disputes - in the old canon, this showed up fairly regularly (Rogue Planet, the Acts of War comic, and a storyline that started in the HoloNet News web content and continued in Jedi Trial) though in the run-up to Ep.II, the Stark Hyperspace War comic introduced a slightly awkward retcon where the only large-scale "fleet" was created by rather irregular means without Senate approval around 44 BBY; the same story also hinted that the locally-controlled "planetary defense" fleets may have actually shared the same standard package of CEC ships, red colour-scheme and blue uniforms (or else the blue uniforms and red paint may be the equivalent of UN "blue helmets" and white vehicles, a colour-scheme identifying ships on "federal" missions under Senate authority, regardless of their origin).

Anyway... the stories set early on (Stark Hyperspace War, 44 BBY, Acts of War, 33 BBY) unsurprisingly used variations on the "Red Crusier" and "Senate Shuttle" designs from TPM, along with a third CEC type eventually called the "light assault cruiser" which was basically a "Red Cruiser" with an enlarged upper hull and a topside turbolaser turret. There's a certain "modularity" to these types - already seen in TPM where the two ships use the same engines in different configurations, and possibly parts of the underlying fuselage as well - to the extent that the comics showed some "Senate Shuttle" varaiants with the airlock and sensor of the "Red Cruiser" added between the main hull and the engines, and one prominent "light assault cruiser" has the more tightly-grouped engine configuration of the "Senate Shuttle" too; this idea has been further developed with the shortened corvette variant in Ep.III and the Charger-class gunship in the TCW cartoon.

Corellian ships are really modular. Hold that thought...

The HNN / Jedi Trial, arc, in contrast, used a CR90 corvette, the Scarlet Thranta, and a "cruiser", the Plooriod Bodkin (the Plooriod is a sector, while a bodkin is a type of arrowhead shaped a lot like the silhouette of an Arquitens, which IMHO makes a really neat retcon; HoloNet News indicates that the ship was originally accompanied by eight "Jedi starfighters", but these don't need to be held in a hangar aboard the cruiser - Yoda: Dark Rendezvous gave us several additional Hoersch-Kessel types used by the Jedi that were capable of extended journeys)...

Spoiler

Or possibly just a reversion to the idea that the ventral dome was a self-contained module external to the hull.

I'm not sure if there's any canon source that actually claims that this is the belly of a DS2-style spherical drive core that's too big to fit inside the ship.

Depends on the type of warship you want.

As AdmiralNick22 already remarked, in the age of sail, when the design principles were fairly similar, conversion was very straightforward - guns were mounted along the deck(s) if they weren't there already, and space for passenger comfort or commercial cargo was switched to accommodate a larger naval crew and their provisions.

In the steel-and-steam age, the main problems are fitting pieces of equipment with a significant below-deck component - such as heavy turrets - and the fact that most civilian vessels are slow. Mercantile hulls can be equipped fairly straightforwardly with any weapons that simply bolt onto the deck - mid-calibre guns, torpedoes, flak - and structural additions which require changes to the superstructure rather than the hull, up to and including full-scale fight decks with hangar bays below them to make carriers.

The most prevalent problem with conversions is relatively weak thinking - historical programs often failed to make straightforward modifications to the second-hand equipment used (masthead fire-control and gun-mountings modernized for increased elevation, particularly advantageous in the cruiser/raider role) or made the wrong choice of hulls (the Axis powers used their 15-knot freighters as surface raiders, and turned their 22-knot liners into escort carriers, which is the wrong way round).

The Mon Cals, in contrast, are using the right sort of hulls - liners, which tend to be among the fastest and longest-ranged civilian vessels - and they've always been characterized as having excellent fire control and gunnery range with their turbolasers, to compensate for their fairly modest hitting punch. This sort of combination is exactly what you want in a cruiser/raider conversion - you can outrange most escort vessels, outrun most capital ships, and fight fast cruisers on reasonably equal terms (if they can hit you, you can hit them back). Add in the sci-fi-specific stuff - deflector shields and ability to bug out on hyperdrive to enhance their ability to avoid a brawl they'll lose, and carrier capability to enhance their long-range punch - and the strengths of the concept are significantly enhanced.

I wouldn't say all of them were necessarily Ranger-class, but I recall (rather vaguely) that the intention was certainly to connect the two types...

My own thinking is that all "Corellian gunships" could be variants of the basic "Red Cruiser" design from TPM and TCW, but that's pure fanon, and the "Corellian configuration" is so modular that the "underlying hull type" is practically irrelevant - what defines a type is really the specific combination of engines, side wedges and command pod, plus the nature of the weapons/sensor fit...

Also, in the context of the "civilian conversions" discussion above, worth adding that militaries will sometimes take whatever they can use if they need a lot of landing-force hulls. Historically, smaller landing barges have usually been purpose-built, but inasmuch as GFFA tactics seems to resemble the methods of lifting civilian cargo much more closely, the options for appropriation will probably be more varied...

Possibly the multiplicity of Imperial types could be because they're borrowing a wide range of existing designs...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Spoilers from today's Star Wars #49, which wrapped up the "Mutiny on Mon Cala" arc.

Spoiler

• The mutiny of the Mon Cala merchant fleet wraps. I'll avoid the plot specifics and focus more on the ships.
• The fleet escapes, thanks to quick thinking and a smart move by Ackbar.
• We see some new variants again, but only briefly.
• We don't get any other looks at the ship Ackbar arrives on, sadly. It appears to be a frigate/medium cruiser sized vessel.
• The artist isn't exactly great with accurate depictions of ships and/or scale, but it's clear that most of the merchant vessels are Home One or Liberty-type cruisers.
• The issue ends with a flash forward of "several months". By this time, Leia notes that twelve of the cruisers have been completed. Nine are Liberty-type looking ships, three are clearly Home One-type.

--Adm. Nick

 

Do you guys think personally the Republic Fleet in the Clone Wars or Imperial Fleet (pre-Galactic Civil War) larger?

I mean I expect many of you to say the Imperial Fleet was far larger, But I'd disagree as the Republic Fleet was created for a war, while the Empire was created as a means to an end of a war. And as with any government you start demilitarizing and lessening the strength of your military at the end of a war and into peacetime. While, there were always expansion and rebellions in the dark times of the empire, I wouldn't say they were at war till Scariff

 

Probably the Empire. I'd imagine Palpatine's admirals were probably concocting plenty of "emergencies" involving Separatist holdouts, pirates, hostile aliens as the Empire tried to expand its borders, etc. All of which justified increased budgets and larger warships. Plus the whole Tarkin Doctrine thing.

 

Going by the material we have, the FO seems to also use refitted ISDs, Maxima-A heavy cruisers (which to me give off a sense of having a Venator or Secutor lineage), Dissident-class light cruisers, and the Nebulon-K and Lancer frigate classes. Given that in Episodes IV-VI we also don't see Imperial capital ships smaller than the ISD, I wouldn't consider the FO lacking in smaller hulls by comparison. Perhaps that can be chalked up to both fleets using those vessels for patrol work while the main capital ships (ISDs and Resurgents) serve as the battle line for offensive strikes.

What will be really interesting to see as we get closer to Episode IX is if the FO's numerical strength and losses from the destruction of Starkiller Base and Holdo's ramming attack are addressed. The impression I have so far is that the FO doesn't have the vast numbers of ships and personnel the old Empire could call upon, and in the opening week of their blitz they've taken losses of ships and personnel that probably rival or exceed what the Empire lost at Endor (loss of one superweapon with almost all hands, loss of a dreadnought with all hands, loss of several battlecruisers with all hands, and severe damage to a super-dreadnought and production facility with high loss of life and equipment).

I would also be curious how prepared the FO was for a war of attrition - one of the observations made regarding the Japanese empire in WWII was that they prepared for a short, intense conflict where victory was meant to come from breaking their enemies' will to fight rather than outright conquest. As such they didn't ramp up shipbuilding and training programs until the heavy losses of 1942. For example, Japan started the war with around 1,500 trained carrier pilots and a very rigorous training program, but training wasn't ramped up in anticipation of combat losses. Out of the 765 aviators (including non-pilot aircrew) who flew in the attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, an estimated 409 were killed in action by the end of October 1942. Further losses during the Solomons Campaign into 1943 permanently crippled Japanese naval aviation. While the NR was apparently completely unprepared for a war, it may be that the FO's losses slow it down to a point where by Episode IX the NR may be able to fight back effectively.

 

In addition to what Nick and McEwok have already said, I'm not certain we should assume they were never designed to have them. It's long been my supposition that the Mon Calamari ships were designed for conversion, like some German "civilian" technology prior to WWII.

The issue with this is that most of those troop transports, particularly of the TIE line, are of design lineages that only make sense as new construction.

The Imperial Fleet. The Empire wasn't demilitarizing, because it wasn't peacetime. It embraced the idea of perpetual war as a tool of political and social manipulation, and plenty of sources in both canon and Legends are explicit about the Empire expanding its military following the Clone Wars. You don't need an actual enemy to wage war; you just need someone to shoot.

 

I'm sorry, I must have watched five different SW films from what you did. I could have sworn my cut showed him wearing armor, military helmet, military boots and gloves. None of these must have registered as part of a military uniform in your cut of the films. Carry on.

 

Hmmm, the man caries no official rank denominators. The armor has been canonized as a Sith alchemy infused life support system, designed to inspire terror.
The fact that he is recognizable does not a military uniform make.


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No, none of those registered as part of a military uniform, because not one element of them was in any way ... what's the word I'm looking for? Consistent and conforming to a single standard throughout an organization ... I know there's a word for it ... oh, right, uniform.

 

The helmet shape is reminiscent of Veers's, Han's, the AT-ST pilots, etc - but it's not the same shape - it's not a case of "regular Imperial helmet painted black".

 

The same company that designed those helmets probably designed Vader's, so there's a similarity, but it clearly isn't the same.

On the ships, I don't know, if they plan on a large scale battle for Ep9 we might see some ISDs and Maxima Cruisers, I wouldn't mind. I also liked some of the FO concept arts.

 

Is that a Praetor-II battlecruiser?

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nope - Praetor II looks like this:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Praetor_Mark_II-class_battlecruiser

 

The Imperial Fleet for sure. In the new canon we have plenty of mentions of the Empire constantly building new ships and expanding the military. It seems like the ultimate long term goal of the Empire was a complete control and militarisation of the entire galaxy, where everything exists just to serve the military.

 

Here is the shot of the 12 cruisers that were refitted in the aftermath of issue #49:



It's funny, his Home One-type tracings are very accurate. His Liberty-type drawings are... interesting. I suppose one could argue that those two winged cruiser types aren't standard Liberty-type cruisers, but I personally ALWAYS allow for a degree of artistic license, especially with Laroca.

--Adm. Nick

 

The problem I always had with copy paste material was that ships of mon calamari make were never actually the same. The basic framework was but the actualisation of the outsides was a bit of an organic proces.

And any drawing that focuses on inking and outlining the bulbs kind of misses the mark in my opinion.

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The biggest mistake the EU every did was say that every single MC cruiser was unique. I felt that back then, I still feel it now.

--Adm. Nick

 

Really, I found it fitting.
To each his own I guess.

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I liked it as well. It made each Mon Cala ship feel unique and special, and like a work of art.

It was a nice contrast to the Empire which mass produced everything.