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

The only statement I'm aware of on the status of the Balance of Power campaigns was the Essential Atlas, which marked the Battle of Nocto as an Alliance victory.

 

The Eclipse class had a significantly higher volume than the Executor- still, if most of that was taken up by the superlaser- then the remaining volume would have a much higher population density than the Executor's.

 

Its hangar bays also seem to pretty much be anything of the lower part that is not the Superlaser.

Doing our best.

Hmm didn't the Threat Dossier mention that the NR decided against such a system to avoid looking like a occupation force?

 

Will address other points another time, but this one is quick.
Where did it say Isard brought a full crew from Imperial Center? The ship was sitting buried on Coruscant for years as an escape ship, why would it have a full crew aboard vs say a skeleton crew. It was meant as an escape shuttle writ large, so there is no need to keep hundreds of thousands of crew aboard that would raise questions and could be used on other ships.
As for the maintenance status, the ship sat buried for years, blasted and ripped its way out through a city, fought a Golan station, and went directly for Thyferra. No time to do any sort of proper maintenance, even if she had a full crew.

Yep. It's like the most frustrating debates with Thrawn McEwok before he went legit.
Executor length is settled, but now we have the problem of the length of the Viscount, one of the few terrible parts of the Atlas.

 

Well, in the case of the Viscount herself, it was always going to be tough, especially after WOTC came out with Starship Battles and retconned the Star Defender the NRDF equivilent to the Empire's Super Star Destroyer. When RA Salvatore wrote Vector Prime, the Mediator-class was essentially the modern version of the MC80 and the Viscount was twice the size of her. WOTC making the Star Defender a 17km warship was a cool idea, but it obviously didn't jive with the original description of the vessel from VP.

The genius of what Jason Fry & ThrawnMcEwok did was that they honored both the original idea of RA Salvatore AND managed to keep the WOTC retcon about the class being larger. Those types of retcons are great in that both parties have their ideas respected. Yes, we end up with the Viscount-class being only 3km long, but we also got at least a pair of 17km Star Defenders too.

I get & respect that some folks are still not thrilled by their decision, but like I say above, I just love the idea of a retcon that actually preserves the efforts of two different authors and makes it work.

--Adm. Nick

 

I still think it would have made more sense to have the 17 year old girl simply misspeak on the size compared to the Mediator and preserve the Viscount being visually identical to her class. A 3 Km ship and a 17 Km ship are not the same class. Even the Praetors and Mandators which vary in the scale of less than a kilometer are separated by a Mk II/ Mk III.

I also originally read the Mediator in VP not as being an updated MC-80, but quoted as being a battlecruiser and the size of the largest MC ship, I pictured it as being an updated Home One.

 

Afaik at the start of Bacta War were they mention that it's crew alone are now an impressive chunk of the human population, also why would she not bring a full crew? It was her plan all along to flee in the Lusi.

So factory new

She had the ship sitting there for months and her flight from Coruscant was very quick, though yes X-Wing #3 did mention some damage when it tangled with the defense stations, but the damage doesn't get mentioned later, so one should assume they fixed it.

EGW and I like the Viscount at 3 kilometers because it is clearly what the author meant

 

Not the point. The point is all those ships of the overrated NC-program seem to be given little thought in that meeting. One has to wonder why.

IIRC, most of those ships were not newly built hulls, but already existing ships that were refitted with whatever those devices, that let you fly through an interdiction-field are called.

Well, if an ISD can be taken out by a squadron of X-Wings, I fear to think what a handful of them can do to a smaller vessel like a Corellian Corvette or Nebulon-B-frigate.

Hey, maybe that is the reason we see so little of those ships in actual fleet-actions. It is simply laughable, that a vessel capable of slagging a terristrial planet all on its own and capable of holding its own against its peers for at least half an hour can be taken out by fighters alone.

First, that claim was made by old "Fuss'n"failure" and second, how do we know, that the R&D-cost wasn't used to cover other things the Emperor didn't want people to know about?

To be honest, I would have no problem, if the crew-requirements for the Executor-class would be increased. The original numbers are for an eight kilometer long ship after all.
Second, AFAIK we have never seen a Nebula go up against an Executor and the term "Super Star Destroyer" covers everything bigger than an ISD. Is it so farfetched to assume, that that claim largely refers to those ships? Especially since there would be less justification for a Viscount-class, if a Nebula would truely be enough against an Executor.

No matter what, we can't seem to get around the white elephant in the room. Considering the performance either the equipment of the Rebels / New Republic is super-awesome compared to the GalacticEmpire's or the stuff used by the GE is mostly crap. We not only see this with capital ships, but with fighters too and it is really annoying. Its like North Korea constantly winning against the US. Worse actually, since North Korea isn't constantly on the run.

Didn't the empire upgrade its Dreadnaught-class-cruisers, so the crew-requirements dropped from 16,000 to 5,000 men? One has to wonder, why they simply didn't scrap those vessels and replace them with VSDs. They certainly had no problem to that with some of the Acclamators and Venators.

 

That is not genius, that is sloppy writing. Can you imagine the budgetary briefing?
"Alright, Admiral Ackbar, what was the purpose of those new Star Defenders again?"
"We intend to use them in a similar role to the empire's Star Dreadnoughts, as mobile command-ships and fleet-carriers. Oh, and should an Executor show up, we expect the Viscount to fight them and win."
"Sounds good. How long will this new class of ship be?"
"Three kilometers."
"Three kilometers! That is just a battle-cruiser, according to the Anaxes classification-system. Don't we already have a battlecruiser with the Mediator-class in service? And what if really another rogue Executor shows up?"
"Well, we also intend to build a seventeen kilometer long version ... ."
"ADMIRAL ACKABAR, do you actually expect us to finance TWO designs of warships?"

Also, what happened to the Mon Calamari starting to build standardized warships with the MC90? Has that been thrown out of the window, now that they build different kind of ships within the same class again?

Aside from that, we now need stats for a three kilometer long Viscount.

 

The half million crewers of her four SDs are hardly an "impressive chunk" campared to the 117 million citicens of Thyferra, of which 28 percent are human according to the Atlas. So ~ 28 million humans. And if we go with the - IIRC - only 10,000 human citicens from BactaWar, Isard has virtually no population-base from which to recruit from.

In what shipyard, since Thyferra doesn't seem to have one?

 

Even if there there are only a few of them around, the models they mentioned are also very heavy on fighter deployment, so the focus seemed to not have shifted just the capital ships used.

Diden't the novel mention both, new ones getting build and older ones getting refitted?

A Single Squadron of X-Wings is hard pressed against an ISD mainly because it has 72 TIEs with it and usually escorts, but yes swam attacks have also been show able to butcher lesser ships.

What would you call an actual fleet actions? Because all the major ones I recall they bring escorts, or actually fight them competently with escorts and fighters.

They fight on completely different fields, with capital ships even hard pressed to actually hit fighters, which is why they get countered with other fighters. Capital ships serve tons of other functions that fighters simply cannot, whilst fighters are build for only combat.

So?

By the same token why not even more expensive?

It could also easily mean all ships ever called Super Star Destroyer and we have seen Mon Cal cruisers and ImpStar stand up under Executor fire so why would the Nebulon not?

There is already no real justification for it anyway.

TIEs have also been show to savage Rebel capital ships and that the two sides just have utterly different focuses when it comes to ship building. The Imps build an occupation and invasion force with focus on cheap swarm fighters that mainly serve as support, the Rebels have patched together capital ships and expensive raiding starfighters.

So basically you just don't like the Rebels are able to win at anything even though we have gotten whole list on how they do it?

Nep that would be the Rebels (made them Assault Frigates), the Empire just added TIE bays to the countless old Dreadnaughts they got.

The Dreadnaught is likely to actually be a better space warship (as they have been said to be able to battle VicStars to a standstill) then the Acci and the Venator. Also the Venator is the "Jedi Cruiser" so it had to go (just being fugly can't have helped), plus the Acci and Venator do not seem to actually be around in that large a number, whilst lots of PSFs owned Dreadnaughts.

Yes which is one of the problems the book mentions also the population can easily shift in different eras, as I fully trust the Zaltin and Xucphra to actually have driven other humans off the planet once they took power. If they did not, more then a quarter million people is still a lot.

Even if Winter is really misspeaking and just means the human population of Zalxuc city, it still makes it clear that Isards brought 250000+ crew on the Lusi, as well as Army troops.

It is called a technician with a space suit and welding equipment.

Test model? As start ship construction in the SW galaxy is neither easy or cheap, so they could easily have first build a proof of concept ship before dumping more resources on building the "Egoboat of the Republic" TM

 

The problem with the idea that the Executor "nearly bankrupted" the Empire is that it can be refuted multiple ways- the logical argument, in which the construction of 2 death stars in the movies alone did not bankrupt the empire, or even if the SSD cost as much as 100 ISDs, the Empire built 25,000 of the smaller ships, so should have been nearly bankrupted 250 times over by Pellaeon's reckoning.
Then there are the hard numbers,that an ISD costs around 3.88 billion credits. A hundred times that would be 388 billion credits. But in to be a voting member of the Corporate Sector (which at least 27 companies achieved) is 50 quadrillion credits. Enough to pay for thousands of Executors over.

Endurance, built on the same basic hull, was killed quickly enough that it did not even have time to launch fighters.

The fact that the NR found their small ship policy wasn't working? When the Imperial Navy with the big ships came out of the Deep core, the NR navy was out of position, but at the same time, hyperdrive speeds should have let the fleets get back to the core in days or weeks. The Empire had the ships to run over the most fortified worlds in the core, with Coruscant, which had shields superior to anything else in the galaxy, falling in hours. And later, the Intimidator was considered enough of a threat to reinforce the 5th fleet, which was full of carriers and nebula class star destroyers, to double it's size before confronting it directly. Endirance, a fleet carrier built on the same frame as the Nebula, certainly went down fast against the Dominion.

There was no justification to build entire fleets of the things, but having a few would have certainly made some problems a lot easier to deal with.

That and most Acclamators and Venators weren't scrapped. Many were mothballed, Acclamators especially remained around as transports, and Venators were mostly sold off the planetary fleets and private navies, as were many Vic stars. As mainline Warships, the Victory and Venator classes were being replaced by the Imperator/Tector class, but the Dreadnought was not used as a mainline ship, but a convoy escort and patrol vessel for the outer rim, where it was cheaper to refit old dreadnoughts than build new ships or deploy a star destroyer.

Yes, because a technician in a rowboat with a welder can do major repairs on an Aircraft carrier at sea.

Sure, but a test model is not the same class as the much larger ships named as the same class. There is also the visual problem of the same image being cited both as the Viscount and Viscount class, which by simple scale changes should not look identical.

 

Building it is less the problem R&D cost is what is much more problematic here, especially as the project kept getting dragged along for 20 years.

Because Bell was being stupid and got trapped.

And get slaughtered by the huge fleet the Emperor had hidden away, he would not even have needed Super Star Destroyer, we see the Imps throw away normal Star Destroyers left and right during the Dark Empire as they as they seemed to just have that many to spare.

Complete insurance of overkill? Not like they needed the fleet elsewhere.

Having their equivalent in MC 90 would actually be more useful as they can deploy them in more spots at the same time and not present such a clear target for the galaxy gun or a fleet to blow up.

Tell that Moffs Shilds and Ferrouz

It being a better space warships then the Ven and Acci properly did not harm it in that function.

What gives you the idea it needed major repairs?

Class Names are all over the place in SW, you have to be surprised they even gave them a Class Name and not just a MC number.

Why would all 3 look the same? The EGW even mentioned they don't.

 

In addition, all costs for the Lusankya, which was being built simultaneously, were attributed to the Executor.

 

Nothing is better than talking dreadnoughts

The whole fighter "lucky shots" and sabotage angle of taking out large capital ships is used far too often. I am sure it would be bound to happen, but no where as often as is portrayed in the SW verse. There should be more than a few occasions or Era's where fighters were largely useless against large capital ships. Goliath will crush David from time to time.

Though I would like there to 10^some big number of Star Destroyers & Star Dreadnoughts out there in any given Era, so far I count 46 end of the Old Republic (Clone Wars)/Imperial/Imperial Remnant Era Dreadnoughts, here is my running list again in case anyone have any new additions. Most unfortunately did not go out in an epic manner.

 

So R&D cost for a single ship design is that much more expensive than constructing a Death Star, or completely overhauling the Navy including the construction of thousands of Star Destroyers and millions of TIEs?

The pilots were waiting in the launch bays, ready to go. Endurance didn't last long enough once Dominion appeared to get off what should be ready fighters, if not pilots sitting in the cockpits.

The Hoth theatre shield was enough to hold off any bombardment from Death Squadron. Coruscant had the best shields in the galaxy, yet the bombardment there took the shields down in hours. That either implies hundreds of star destroyers, or multiple heavier warships.

Ackbar had to cherry-pick task forces to reinforce Fifth fleet while not reducing their patrols elsewhere.
16 NR "battle groups" vs 46 capital ships at N'Zoth (44 Thrustships and including Intimidator) and 34 at Z'Fell was considered 6-5 odds for the NR. The Fifth fleet started with a mere 5 task forces.

Useful until you run into a world with shields that need cracked, like many Imperial Fortress worlds, or an enemy with a dreadnought of their own, as happened multiple times to the surprise of the NR- Byss, N'Zoth, Orinda...

If they could have gotten their hands on Star Destroyers, they would have. They made due with what they had.

Source?

The fact that it tore it's way out from underground then was damaged in a fight with a Golan station? If technicians in space-suits were all it took to get a ship back into shape after that, the Empire was wasting it's time on all those mobile deepdocks and repair stations.

Mediator-class was given in Vector prime. Class names were authorial intent And the 3Km retcon to preserve one comment in one book as opposed to both artwork and numbers in multiple sources is sort of like trying to justify all the 8Km references as still being legitimate for the Executor class in books, even though it is now officially 19 Km.

They shouldn't. Especially when one ship is supposedly 1/6 the size of the other two. But the same exact image is cited as being the Viscount (supposedly 3 Km) and the Viscount-class, which are 17 Km.

Bounty was at Mon Calamari, though incomplete it was enough to deter the Vong for a while. If it can do that, why didn't they use it as part of the gunline with Guardian (an Executor-class) and Harbinger (unknown class, still), instead of the much much smaller 3Km prototype Viscount?


darthscott: IIRC, none of the 4 Sovereign class were actually completed, though Sovereign was closest.

 

I thought TEGTW said that there were only 4 Mandator I class ships built- of which three were upgraded to Mandator II standard?

 

R&D for a whole line of these things likely cost more than R&D for the ImpStar line, which is mentioned as already being impressive and actually was one of the reasons TIEs had to be made so cheap. The main problem here actually is that it is an extra expense that did not actually lead to anything worthwhile, whilst they could have dumped all of that money into numerous more ISDs or improved fighter designs etc.

It was not only surprised by one ship, Pellaeon also jumped 6 Interdictors in (as well as having other ships already in system), also as we don’t know that many details of the battle, the first volley might actually have taken out the hangar bays, or Bell just simply never ordered the fighters to launch until it was too late.

Yes as I said many, many ships as the Whelm and others just served to command 3 giant task forces of Star Destroyers.

Thrustships alone are close to up armed VicStars with extra fighters, whilst most of an NR Battle group are Gunboats, Scouts and Supply ships.

Having the Executor proved no use for the Imps at Hoth, why would it against a whole shield network?

Which they kept taking down just fine our you really think the Dark Empire campaign would have worked out any different if the Emperor just had an odd 100 Star Destroyers extra instead of a few extra commando ships, that the Duskhan League would be less dangerous with another ImpStars task force, or if Pellaeon just jumped a few Star Destroyers in, instead of the Dominion?

As does most of the Empire, if they had not dumped buckets full of credits into a company car for Vader less of it would need to

Soldier for the Empire equates them to a VicStar which have been mentioned as being the better warships then the Jedi Cruiser (and thus hopefully by extend the Acci), also 5 of them can take on an ISD.

Thing is, no extensive damage is ever mentioned later on, so any of it must have been minor.

Mediators are not supposed to be giant ships, so it really is the only way to fix it without making Jaina look like a total idiot or just throwing out the WOTC stuff.

Yeah something of a problem but WOTC dug that whole for itself...

Easy answer, the Vong destroyed or knocked it out before that battle.

 

I figure that the Hoth shield was something exceptional. Powered by a battlecruiser reactor- but with the whole planet as an energy sink.

The Lusanyka shoots its way through Coruscant's shields on its way out.

 

Can't be sure, only some parts of some battlecruiser are stuck into there somewhere (as usually Inside the Worlds is just being random lines pointing at random things here), as the Rebels stole a Colony reactor from Kuat for the Hoth base.

I shall chalk that up to sabotage by Isard before leaving, otherwise something of a no brainer, as the shield would then also not stop Zsinj if he wanted to take the planet, which was the whole point of taking it intact.

 

Actually I remember it being said the shields were weaker on the 'inside' or 'underside' (however you chose to call it). Which makes sense. That part isn't exactly built to be bombarded.


But it has been quite some time since I read that book.

 

Re: The infamous Pellaeon statement - I really don't think that can be taken literally. I've always interpreted it to mean the philosophy behind the Executor didn't set well with a number of old school military - heck, we had a whole Classic Star Wars adventure set around the entire concept of otherwise loyal Imperial Navy officers wanting the Ex destroyed.

 

In The Essential Guide To Warfare, it mentions that, with the Executor project, conservatives in the military "feared further spending would bankrupt the Empire"- so it may simply have been newest project to put strain on an already groaning budget.

 

Good catch! (p. 166 for those playing at home). Interesting that the only reason the traditionalists 'reluctantly' embraced it was because they preferred them to the Death Stars.