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

Primarily carrier, I think. They would no doubt be well-shielded and large, but they weren't the primary weapon of Krayt's. Emphasis is always given to the Annihilators and not the Dragon-class carriers.

 

Star Wars has played fast and loose with ship classes for a long time, especially considering the Nebulon B and Pelta are in the same size range as the Arquitens, and the Star Destroyer is analogous to a battlecruiser or bigger.

 

I thought The Essential Guide to Warfare resolved it fairly well by making "Star Destroyer" into a class in between heavy cruiser and battlecruiser.

 

I have noticed that in a lot of sci-fi stories destroyers tend to be some of the biggest and most powerful ships - this bugged me at first, but I realized that it kind of made sense, destroyer sounds big and scary, and naval destroyers get their name from torpedo boat destroyers and would it make sense to keep that naming scheme in societies that probably haven't had torpedo boats for hundreds or even thousands of years?

Plus, I always did come down on the side of the argument that Star Destroyers meant "things that destroy stars" and in any case they are also referred to as imperial cruisers pretty consistently.

And on the note of weird sizes - we have the Banking Clan Frigate about the same size as the Commerce Guild Destroyer, until the clone wars retconned the latter into a Star Destroyer type ship (while still keeping the name light destroyer - what the heck does a heavy destroyer look like?), both of which are bigger than an Arquitens class cruiser and the republic frigate, with that being a conversion of a class of cruiser...so yeah....

 

That doesn't explain why other warship types keep similar names and roles to, as you say, water-based ships that have not existed for hundreds or even thousands of years.

The heavy destroyer is the Providence-class from the same movie, a destroyer/carrier. In TCW, we see the up-scaled "dreadnought" version of this design.
The Arquitens is always shown as a support ship, like a light frigate, supporting destroyer/cruiser groups and carriers, despite its name. The modern-day frigate definition could span scales from corvettes to destroyers, but be defined as "smaller than destroyers" that escorted other types of warships. The republic frigate serves a similar role, but seems very under-armed and armored in comparison. Just because the class started out being called a "cruiser" does not mean it is one. Likewise with the Gozanti-class, which is basically a freighter and light carrier.

 

1. Well, most of the names are a bit more self-descriptive. If destroyers were called escorters I don't think there would be as much drift. (Though overall I do wonder about using naval terminology for space ships. Why not have their own classification system? Particularly since even many of the smaller space-warships are bigger than any naval vessel on earth has ever been. Though I suppose the answer is that we are used to it)

2. Regardless of how it works out in individual cases I think it is clear that overall star wars ships do not follow a strict classification system, and cruiser in particular seems to either have multiple meanings or just means any ship capable of operating independently for long periods of time.

 

So I was playing some more Empire at War today and I had a pair of battles that reminded me of the recent discussion we've had on this thread about the Megador and Dominion's class as compared to the Executor.

I think that neither of those two were an Executor. One reason is the firepower of both ships is quantified for us and its considerably less than what an Executor possesses.

I was playing as the New Republic during the Camaas Crisis and I decided to do what the New Republic Senate wanted and deployed the entire starfleet against the Imperial Remnant.

Using the Lusankya and the newly constructed Viscount as anchors, I executed a two-pronged attack on the Remnant, hitting them at Pesitiin and Borosk. To my shock, I ran into the Dominion and Megador in my initial strikes.

So we had not one but two clashes of the titans. The Megador and Lusankya were close to evenly matched but the Lady Lucy had a shade more firepower and managed to outmuscle the Meggy and came out the victor. By the time the Lusankya lost its shields, the Megador was already down to 60% of its weapons.

The Viscount, surprisingly, outperformed the Dominion considerably. Maybe it's just in Empire at War, but the Star Defender was far more maneuverable and moved faster compared to its older counterpart. In a one-on-one battle like that, maneuverability is a huge advantage, and so the Viscount came out on top.

I found it rather surprising that such a big deal was made about those two ships and they were no match for the dreadnoughts of the New Republic.

It's a fan made mod so I suppose it's not entirely accurate. But it was interesting to see how two dreadnoughts of similar classes fared in a head to head battle. Needless to say, the rest of the Remnant collapsed like a house of cards after that.

 

This drives me nuts as well, as it would seem simple and worthwhile enough to keep things organized. Seeing how they have not managed to this however, there are many examples of how on our world, different navies can have different classifications, or where a service can change classifications. For example the US Navy simplified its classifications in 1975 where for example "frigates" with the hull symbol DL (destroyer-leader) were re-classified as cruisers. It not a stretch to say things in the GFFA might be just as confounding.

 

Makes sense. I wonder if they'd have made up more Dragon-styled designs like we had the Imperious and Ardent as derivations of the Pellaeon. I suppose its another 'could've' if Legacy didn't end so abruptly... several times.

Also in which game start campaign in Thrawn's Revenge do you get the Megador and Dominion? Speaking of, I once managed to take down Zsinj's Iron Fist with a Tavira-led Maldrood fleet (she was my only hero left) and a Bellator as a heavy-hitter unit. I had to position the Bellator just right so it remained out of the range of the Iron Fist's cannons. I still lost a good portion of my fleet in trying to wear down the Iron Fist or to defend Tavira, but it was worth it as the biggest threat was taken down.

 

I think at least in most stories where they escort an Executor, they are referred to as just that, the Executor's escorts.

In TCW, they consistently refer to Venators as "cruisers" and in one instance as a "mainline cruiser". At a tactical meeting in Storm Over Ryloth, we even get three terms thrown out in dialogue: "cruisers" (referring to the Venators), "frigates" (referring to the Munificents) and "battleship" (referring to the single Lucrehulk in the blockade). In the first Saleucami episode, we even get a distinction between the Arquitens and Consular classes and the Venator, from a CIS POV. They refer to the former two as "Escort-class" and the latter as "Cruiser-class". Even though the Arquitens is labled a "light cruiser" and the Consular a "frigate" in wartime and a "cruiser" in peacetime, they both get lumped into a common category of "Escort" and not "Cruiser". I can only assume it is due to their size compared to the Venator.

The CIS also label their own heavy ships on computer monitors as "Battleships" (Lucrehulk) and "Dreadnoughts" (Providence, the TCW version, at least). The Subjugator is called a "battleship" and colloquially, a "cruiser-crusher". I assume its company designation of "heavy cruiser" is meant to be disinformation to hide its true potential. The CIS so far is the simplest to categorize things within, there's only the Gozanti "cruisers" that throw out the trend of more closely following Earth conventions for categorization.

We no longer have the vast arrays of Imperial-era cruisers from the WEG sources anymore, so the Empire's canonical ships are a bit easier to classify now. We have the "big Corellian ships", which seem to be equated with the Imperial-class in the Solo trailer. We have "local bulk cruisers", which are by comparison smaller. There are "scout ships", which I assume are relatively smaller.

We have the Arquitens, both refitted and not, as well as the Gozanti. Both ship types get used for support/escort roles in larger fleets or for carrier escorts and anti-pirating/smuggling duties. There's now the Quasar Fire-class cruiser/carrier, which is basically a pure carrier vessel, that only can work in a group with other, more heavily armed ships. We also have the Imperial Support Ship, which was WEG's Dreadnaught-class. There's the Nebulon-B escort frigate, which the Rebellion scavenges to add to their own fleets. The Carrack-class light cruiser is also present, and like the CR90 corvettes, seems to be a smaller vessel, meant for support duties.

The Empire's mainline cruisers are consistently named "Star Destroyers", by this point. There's also heavier battlecruisers serving the fleet, the wreck of one gets cannibalized by Rebels to provide reactor power for Echo Base. Another is attacked and sunk by A-wing squadrons over Endor. Finally, there's the Imperial dreadnoughts, like the Executor. Moving city-sized ships that are the decidedly largest, most heavily armed and armored of the warships in the navy. The only known class uses conventional weapons and not super-sized ion cannons like the Subjugator-class. Serves as command/communications hubs.

I don't know where the Siege Breakers or Torpedo Spheres fall along this spectrum of ships. I assume, based on both artworks, they are meant to be more heavily armed and armored than the stock Star Destroyers, so possibly "battlecruisers" or light "dreadnoughts"?

Yes, that seems to be the case for a universe with millions of systems. But at least some parts of the big galactic governments seem to keep some consistency. At least non-mainline cruisers are portrayed so far as smaller, lightly armed and more suited for escort or support roles.

 

TBH, it's a pet peeve of mine when people do get extremely precise about ship classifications in science fiction for this very reason. Things in the real world are generally a product of long and tangled historical developments, not perpetually consistent logic.

 

Agreed. You've got the Star Destroyer which is specifically applied to a hybrid battleship/carrier that features a specific type of form. A MonCal variant of that would be the Star Cruiser, which has a similar role but is differently classified based on appearance. There's also the Star Defender, which judging by how the Nebula is still classified as a Star Destroyer, is the 'good guy equivalent' of a Star Dreadnought more so than a Star Destroyer.

 

We only know of two classes of Star Defender currently - Strident-class, and Viscount-class. The Viscount-class is supposed to be Mon Cal - but there's a reference in Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial to "Corellian Viscount-class Star Defenders" deployed in the New Republic fleet (page 97). Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse has (p242) a resident of the Corellian system saying

"the New Republic has seen fit to deploy three of our own Strident-class Star Defenders at Corellia".

Making me wonder if the Viscount-class ships built at Corellia received a renaming to Strident-class. Possibly to satisfy Corellian national pride.

LOTF: Betrayal did portray them as "not the same size-class as" the ISD-length but broader Galactic-Class carriers:

p105

"Kill the alarms," he said, his voice, to his own ears, sounding weak. "We already know they're there. Composition?"
"Working on it," his chief sensor operator said. "They have nothing in the size class of Dodonna, but they have Strident-class Star Defenders and a large number of frigates, corvettes, patrol boats, gunships, and heavy transports. Mostly Corellian Engineering Corporation, of course. They must have lifted every half-finished frame, every rusted hulk, and every pleasure boat insystem to have pulled this off."

but it's not clear if this excludes "larger" as a possibility.

 

I thought Strident Star Defenders were also pretty much SSD-sized.

 

I really like the Arquitens design. Not sure why.

 

Pretty much. The term "frigate" first came into use during the late 15th century, defining a ship built for speed and considered too small to stand in the line of battle. The classic sailing frigates of the late 18th and early 19th centuries could be almost as powerful as a ship of the line, and were used for scouting, commerce raiding, and relaying signals. The first oceangoing ironclads such as the French Gloire and British Warrior were classified as frigates since they had all their weapons mounted on a single deck; at that time an ironclad frigate could have rightly been considered the most powerful warship afloat.

In the last quarter of the 19th century the term "frigate" fell into disuse; generally speaking the ships were now called "cruisers" reflecting their role in fast, long-range, independent operations. The term was revived by the Royal Navy during WWII and applied to escort ships that were larger and more seaworthy than a sloop or corvette, but smaller, slower, and less heavily armed than a fleet destroyer. The US called such ships destroyer escorts; after WWII "destroyer leaders" were larger destroyer hulls equipped for anti-aircraft warfare and were considered by the USN to be frigates in line with their definition from the Age of Sail. "Cruisers" only included ships that were actually built on a long, narrow cruiser-style hull, with USS Long Beach (CGN-9) being the last such ship built for the USN. As this didn't match NATO classifications and made it look like the USN had fewer cruisers than the Soviet Navy, in 1975 the "destroyer leaders" were reclassified as cruisers and the "destroyer escorts" reclassified as frigates.

Likewise, the "destroyer" started as a small, fast escort designed to chase off smaller torpedo boats with gunfire; it then evolved to carry torpedoes itself and became a threat to capital ships. After WWI it developed an additional anti-submarine capability and in WWII became valued as an anti-aircraft and gunfire support vessel. By the end of the 20th century the modern guided missile destroyer became arguably the heaviest surface combatant of its era aside from Cold War relics like the Soviet Kirov-class (and the vaporware replacement for the Kirovs is billed as a destroyer). The most numerous remaining "cruiser" class in the modern fleet is the USN's Ticonderoga-class, which is basically a Spruance-class destroyer hull with its upperworks built up to the point of damn near capsizing to support radar and command facilities.

As such, I don't have much of an issue with GFFA Star Destroyers being considered the most common heavy combatant of a fleet and only being outclassed by a relative handful of giant warships like Star Dreadnoughts - especially as larger ships seem to just carry more guns as opposed to larger ones. The Mandator-IV of TLJ seems to be an obvious exception, although in functionality and use it seems more like an oversized monitor than a true battleship meant for fleet actions.

 

Yup. That seems to be the most common view of it:

 

And yet is called a "fleet-killer" in the movie itself. *face-palms*

 

Well I think the point people are getting at is that it kills the fleet via its cannons. It does not have to do so highhandedly. After all Y-wings can be fleet killers, and yet they are utterly not when totally alone. No need to "face-palm" over a ship having a very specific role that requires other ships to be in play.

 

See, this is where I take issue with The Last Jedi. Until TLJ every ship of that size was at least multipurpose (with the exception of interdictors).
The whole introduction of ww2 Era bomber roles and the Mandator as a fleet/planet killer doesn't really fit in my opinion.

Luckily they kill each other in the first 10 minutes.

Sent from my G8341 using Tapatalk

 

I mean they describe a dreadnought as a fleet killer, which is ok by me. Yet we see its guns more geared towards striking planetary targets, which is a strange decision.

As for modern cruisers, here's what Wikipedia has to say, some interesting points on what analysts think about the cruiser vs. destroyer designations:
"Few cruisers remain operational or still under construction in the world navies. Those that do are:

People's Liberation Army Navy: The Type 055 destroyer was recently launched by China and is expected to enter service in 2018. Despite its classification as a destroyer, many naval analysts believe that it is far too large and too well armed to be considered a destroyer, and thus is actually a cruiser, and even classified by the United States Defense Department as one.

Hellenic Navy: The Greek cruiser Georgios Averof is kept in ceremonial commission as the flagship of the Hellenic Navy due to her historical significance.

Russian Navy: 3 Slava-class missile cruisers and the Russian cruiser Aurora was ceremonially recommissioned as the flagship of the Russian Navy due to her historical significance.

Republic of Korea Navy: 3 Sejong the Great-class destroyers. Despite their classification as a destroyer, many naval analysts feel they are in fact cruisers due to their size and armament, which are both greater than most of the world's destroyer classes. Three more are under construction.

Ukrainian Navy: The Ukrainian cruiser Ukrayina is a Slava-class cruiser that was under construction during the breakup of the Soviet Union. Ukraine inherited the ship following its independence. Progress to complete the ship has been slow and currently stands at 95% complete. It is estimated that an additional US$30 million are needed to complete the ship, but her ultimate fate is uncertain.

United States Navy: 22 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers. The class uses passive phased-array radar and was originally planned as a class of destroyers. However, the increased combat capability offered by the Aegis Combat System and the AN/SPY-1 radar system, together with the capability of operating as a flagship, were used to justify the change of the classification from DDG (guided missile destroyer) to CG (guided-missile cruiser) shortly before the keels were laid down for Ticonderoga and Yorktown."

 

Well one exists as ships that never saw much military use and became cargo ships for 30 years leading to them likely having no innovation past their first mark on a military front. And the other I feel is fine cause the FO has such a good multipurpose ship with the Resurgent. I can buy them having a few really specific use ships here and there. We know Hux is sorta an R&D guy, could be that there are only a few and they are his pet project.

 

The Arquitens, the Tector and the Separatist light destroyers and frigates are also ships with very specific roles. They don't all need to be multi-purpose, I just thought it was funny that a ship that seems geared towards being a land-siege weapon, is also meant to be a fleet killer, like previous generations of battleships and dreadnoughts.

Speaking of the Resurgence, I read on Wookieepedia that the FO has very few of them, a couple of dozen only. I assume that means refitted Imperial-class ships and smaller cruisers would be the "workhorses" of the FO.

 

Oh weird, what did they cite as having mentioned that?

 

I see it as an artillery ship, basically. Makes sense to me, and has some precedent - we've seen a couple of occasions where an Executor was overpowered at close range without benefit of escorts, IIRC.