Books The Essential Guide to Warfare by Jason Fry and a pseudonymous Scotsman

You guys are the best. Great information and tracks where I was headed. Many thanks.

 

Another thing to add to this mix, are the centuries- if not millennia-old assets in space. Invincible-class dreadnaught cruisers were donated from neighbouring sector forces to the CSA (Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook), for instance. There's even a mention of Lucrehulk-class battleships and core ships going the same way (New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels), which would hint at the classes' continued usage among some of the myriad local forces within Imperial space.

Then there's the reference to designs emulated by the Acclamator-class, which is said to have inspired "many leading shipbuilders" who "looked on with envy, and began incorporating similar concepts into their own fleets" (Republic Assault Ship profile on the Official Site).

Now, we've never seen much of this beyond Rendili's Victory-class and Sienar's Vindicator/Immobilizer-classes, so there's an untapped source. Grizmallt, for instance, was mentioned amongst other shipbuilders using industrial espionage and the expertise of their own engineers to copy KDY's initial success (AOTC:ICS), so that's one.

And all this leads to even more designs that could either be retconned into existing background designs/lore or fleshed out from the ground up, not necessarily being tied up with the pan-galactic forces.

 

Don't forget the New Republic Observers, set up to find and mediate problems with the lack of Jedi to fill the role.


As for local fleets- the question is how they limited the hyperdrives on the ships in question. Fuel is not really a concern for hyperspace endurance, compared to combat endurance. Make them too slow to get anywhere outside the region is a decent time and you make them too slow period. Put in computer limiters? Maybe, but Kuat put electronic back doors in all their ships, as did the Emperor. Most other shipbuilders would do the same, even for mundane purposes. Navigation is a possibility, but they could share data from better equipped ships. Maybe it is just all polite lies. Treaties and symbolic limiters on the ships, with the treaty enforced by the Republic and Jedi?

Actually, now that I think about it, logistics may be the key. pre-clone wars, there was a limited naval infrastructure in the galaxy- most long range/ long endurance warships were small and owned by the Republic. Bigger vessels require a lot more support, from fuel to maintenance, and outside their home regions, there are few places to get that support to the ships. Sure, things like the Mandators could go out and play in the galaxy, but would run short of supplies quickly. Clone Wars hit, and logistics bases and tenders are being built all over the place by both sides, and finally you see things like the Praetors and Procurators going out to play, with Mandators kept for defensive reasons. Coruscant Home Fleet may have had a few when the Separatists attacked, but the Home fleet was caught by surprise and badly damaged at the start, caught with their pants down.

End result, Logistics problems of large ships kept them close to home until Clone wars and newer generations of longer endurance heavy ships came out.

 

Actually, GG11 has some info on it - criminal activities are handled by the Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations. ISB and Imperial Intelligence handle cases involving treason or conspiracy, the IOCI everything else. The Sector Rangers fall under their office.

 

If the Trade Federation could make tariffs and push forward legislation to stifle their competition and ensure the Federation's own dominance across sectors, I'm sure other companies would employ similar loopholes as well.
For instance, the Republic was given control over the naval assets in the Humbarine sector. It's never stated where they were sent, but it was far enough away from the sector capital for it to be neglected and bombed and many worlds in the sector infiltrated or outright invaded. Either they went to other sectors right away, or were refitted to do so. We know the Republic considered the sector a lost cause eventually, so they must have taken the remaining ships away permanently.

That's most likely the development, when the CW hits, logistics is expanded and inter-sectorial forces bulk up considerably. Even old space stations are bought and renovated, like the Kaliida Shoals station, just to fill the gap between the Republic and the CIS, which already has logistics across their own combined territories.

 

The idea of things like Class10-backup-hyperdrives makes little sense, if the performance of hyperdrives is just a question of deliberate limitations on the computers or navigation, that can be switched off with a flick.

I think it more likely, that the physical components - the hyperdrive motivator and the shield- and stasis field generators, that protect the ship while in hyperspace - are smaller and less effective, than those aboard of later, large warships. The fields, that keep ships in hyperspace are less ?streamlined?, than those of long-range warships (for comparison just look at the MilleniumFalcon).

Concerning navigation, we learn in AOTC:ICS, that the most extensive and correct star-charts are in the position of the TradeFederation, the Office of the SupremeChancellor and the Jedi (and maybe the navigational guild of the Wookiees).

Humbarine might be a prime example, why the conscription of local fleets was of limited use. The GR nationalized the fleet, tried to use it elsewhere and sent the ships on their way to the front-lines, they have just reached the border of their sector, the CIS attacks and the fleet is incapable of returning fast enough. Another military blunder by the HighCommand and especially the JedI (who are still leaders of the war at this point of time). More power for the SupremeChancellor.

Yes and no. Larger ships of the imperial era carry supplies for a year and longer. And given the amount of droids and the sophistication of fabrication-technology available I doubt normal maintenance is much of a problem. It is a pity, that we never get a clear look at the logistics and supply-chains within the GFFA. What little is known is one third of all freight in the galaxy are transports for the Imperial State and that 800 out of the 2,400 minimum vessels of an Imperial Sector-Group are support- and supply-vessels and that a quarter of those are FSCV http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/FSCV .

What you also have to consider is the civilian infrastructure already in place. We learn in ?Cloak of Deception?, which is pre-TPM, that there are myriads (=several ten thousand) of TradeFederation-freighters. The assets of the other organisations, that back-up the CIS have to be comparable, if they want to have an equal say in the organisation. Think

 

Forgot about the Humbarine disaster. And low power hyperdrives exist, but it doesn't make sense to rely on them as primary drives for a reactionary defense force, as any raiders would be be in and out before the defenders could get where they need to be. There are slow backup hyperdrives, but generally there is a reason they are backup. Plus, larger ships could afford to mount more capable backups if desired.

I agree about the civilian infrastructure. The issue is that combat tempos for large ships require far more support than simple travel and weaving the flag does. To paraphrase, Hyperdrive sips fuel while combat guzzles it. Doing the math on reactor power and fuel supplies gives a full power endurance of hours to a few days for a lot of warships, and while ships carry supplies for normal repairs, ordinance and combat repairs require outside support. My point was that prior to the Clone Wars and build up to that, civilian logistics is all they really had, and while that could support small warships like Consulars, Dreadnoughts, and Acclamators, the larger stuff was limited to staying near where it was built to keep it running in combat. Then you have the run up to the Clone Wars and Imperial era, expanded Naval infrastructure, things like the FSVs showing up, and that is why you see big stuff all over the place rather than limited to Sector duty.

As for droids, the Clone wars period was still the time of centralized computing and large crews, it wasn't until the Katana Fleet disaster that they changed ideas on that and started to decentralize into lots of droids on ships.

Basically I agree with your points, just going a different direction with the evi

 

On that note, we need to see something like a large tender or tanker, servicing multiple Republic or Imperial Star Destroyers. That's a criminally under-used military vessel, imho.

 

It seems in the pages I have been recently reading that people seem to be concentrating on starfleets and space combat, that is only one small part of warfare to concentrate on.


One thing I would like to see is more information on earlier periods of conflict and weaponry such as before or during the birth of the Republic. Another thing I would like to see is how non-human species are intergrated into Imperial forces, since from various sources we do know it happens now and than.

 

We need to see whan an Ailon looks like under the helmet and armor...we still have no idea what kind of aliens they actually are.

 

Of particular interest to me are the use of camouflage and the kind of garrisson-force the empire employs on the more important city-worlds. Aside from this the workings of a General, Admiral or Moff's stuff are topics of interest.

We know from the ISB, that the empire considers a corps enough to restore order on worlds that have managed to "free" themselves from imperial control (Balmorra being a prime example), but what about worlds, that have to be "freshly" conquered and where the empire doesn't want to resort to orbital bombardment to take the planet intact?

Think of dozens of cities/city-states each protected by a theater-shield, that each have to be conquered individually. Come to think of it, until recently the EU almost never shows us more than battles for the equivalent of small, western towns at the border of civilisation.

"The Last Command" by Tim Zahn makes a few references to vast army-campeigns and the damage they cause on its first few pages.

 

well, in the movies we seldom saw Imperials using camouflage, but in the Prequels some of the clones did, and surely the Empire didn't abandon that altogether! I wish they could go back and put some camo on the scout troopers...though it would be less use whipping around on noisy speederbikes

 

Apart from the CW/GCW era and the upcoming TOR era, we hardly see any kind of armored support for ground operations. Usually, the Republic is depicted with troops running from point A to point B with nothing to cover them or transport them along the ground.

I hope some of this will be addressed to flesh out ground combat in other eras, just as it is in the movie eras and the TOR game.

 

What about the Republic Troop Transport in the Clone Wars game?

 

Oi! Excuse me as I lightsaber my own head!

It is true that NJO and Legacy added lots of new starships, but tended to recycle the tried-and-true vehicles like AT-STs. Some new land vehicles for that era...with PICS!...would rock

 

The Legacy era did somewhat good as well (though mostly through references in the CG), with the AT-AT successor, the CW-era two-man walker as well as an AT-AR briefly seen in a flashback of the Sith-Imperial War. The CG also mentioned armored vehicles being carried by Galactic Alliance dropships, so even that faction had something going for them. But yeah, little in the KOTOR/NJO eras.

 

ah, by Legacy I was thinking the Legacy era novels, not comics, forgive me for not specifying.

 

I can't wait for this I hope it covers planetary warfare and tactics I haven't seen much talk about it in my experience thus far.

 

Jedi vs. Sith comics showed a few interesting vehicles from the New Sith Wars, and There were some Yinchorri vehicles in Acts of War...would like to see more info on those. And I'd really like to see some info on the ships and vehicles in Rogue Planet, and its E5 droid

 

It would be interesting to know more about the tactics and strategy used in space and land battles, common attack and defense patterns, etc.

 

While focusing on ship designs in DE, I had completely forgotten about the new land vehicles we saw. Some of which were given profiles, like the Century tank and Tank droid, but there were plenty more that didn't get any mentions, most notably the distinct walkers defending the Citadel in DEII. I liked those designs, especially how they fitted in with the Prequel designs, like the AT-TE and AT-AP.

 

Big Marvel Day. Cinda Tarheel and Barlon Hightower got added to a key battle roster (sorry Berl), and Admiral Giel's flagship got a name and class.

 

Can we get a hint as to what that battle roster might be? Also, (this has probably been asked before, but I'll go ahead anyway) will characters like Rookie One and X-1 and 2 be mentioned in the movie battles they took part in?

TC