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

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And of course, having left that reply in draft before I did something else, and then posting hastily afterwards, I find there's another reply needed...

Oh, it's all just grist for the discussion - I'm just more comfortable juggling existing references than I am with first principles or working-backwards into the background material...

This leads onto a wider question - what's the practical endurance of an ISD, or for that matter a T-47. Are we talking "unlimited range" on the age-of-sail / riders of Rohan analogy, or is it a whole lot less than that?

Ugh, I trimmed a long digression here, and I suspect I trimmed too much - USAAF wings seem to have generally been larger than Star Wars ones, divided into multi-squadron "groups" - it's the "wings are commanded by generals" equation that I was referring to, rather than the size of the command...

I honestly think Star Wars is wise to avoid the confusing real-world wing/group hierarchies as much as possible...

What did I miss?

Not necessarily negative!

The Cantwell being an unused design for ANH gives it a level of pre-reboot credibility - similarly, because they were both explicitly canon types before the reboot, it's easy to forget how much REBELS is responsible for the idea of the Empire regularly using the Quasar Fire in the carrier role, and the use of the Arquitens being carried forward from the Clone Wars...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

One of the planets...Eliad IIRC...has a Lancer on station to keep the exiled nobles in line.

When the talk of sector fleet sizes started I remembered how light the Minos Cluster was. And with hindsight (post AoTC) could that troopship be an Acclamator?

 

Does it? Remember that the Emperor set a trap for the Rebels, so we could expect the Imperial fleet at Endor to be large enough to deal with contingencies once the Rebels arrived, but also small enough that the Rebellion didn't know those ships had been deployed there (or were missing from other locations).

How many Mon Cal cruisers do you assume were at Endor? I believe the minimum is 20, as described in this thread: https://boards.theforce.net/threads/analysis-alliance-fighter-losses-at-battle-of-endor.50041652/

Also, what percentage of total Rebel Mon Cal cruisers do you think were at Endor?

I'm not sure about USAAF, but USAF and USN squadrons are a little different, in that USAF flight squadrons have more aircraft per squadron (18-28 jets) and separate maintenance and operations squadrons, while USN squadrons are self sufficient but typically only have 10-12 jets. Matters little in terms of a wing commander, as both a USAF wing commander (Colonel), and USN CAG (Captain) are O-6 officers.

Okay. I interpreted "ready for combat" as equivalent to Defense Watch, which can be manned indefinitely.

 

I managed to glimpse at one of the new sourcebooks. Dawn of Rebellion, I believe it was? And that one makes it clear that the commonly used ships by the Empire include the Arquitens, Quasar Fire, Cantwell, Gozanti in no particular order. I could actually buy a transition of designs from both continuities. So Carrack was older than the Arquitens, and Arquitens was more modular, so it was chosen over the Carrack and Nebulon-B both, but enough old CW fleets retained use of Carracks. The Lancer was mostly a prototype, which was produced in small numbers, but then most of its advances were rolled over into the Raider.

Any idea what the pre-reboot equivalent of the Gozanti was? Customs Corvette? IPV?

 

Maybe the armed Counselor-class ships?

 

Ah, yes it does. With a crew largely consisting of low-grade mercenaries under Navy officers, because it's not thought worth the effort...

Any others that I've missed...?

Oh. That's a good idea. The troopship is a bit of a puzzle, otherwise - Galaxy Guide 6 refers the reader to The Star Wars Sourcebook for details, which is accurate for the VSD and the Nebulon-B, but doesn't contain anything that seems to correlate, and the troop complement is too small for an Evakmar-KDY from The Imperial Sourcebook, so I was wondering if a bulk cruiser was meant, and they'd just forgotten it was only in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook...

But the Acclamator fits really nicely... one of those strange things falling throug the cracks of Palpatine's reality-manipulation, like the Imperial Palace being the Jedi Temple all along, where there's no linear logic that could make it work but it just is...

When you get into the specific details and the way things have changed over time, it gets very confusing. I'm pretty sure modern USAF wings do still have an option for one-star generals to command them, though - 1st Fighter Wing, which has a full list of its commanders on wikipedia ( !), seems to have had one in charge about half of the time between 1975 and 2010 - but it seems from a quick glance that the practice is now limited to a small number of important units - in terms of units with a fighter emphasis, wiki lists Red Flag and half-a-dozen forward-deployed wings abroad, perhaps not so much because of their specific role as becuase that role coincides with a larger and more complex unit structure...

I'm pretty sure that's what the OP meant - I just read it differently...

One thing I really like is that the new types work really well with what we had before - the Quasar Fire is already established pre-reboot as a bulk cruiser that serves as a carrier, and there's no really compelling reason not to imagine the Empire wouldn't use it as one, and the Arquitens fits neatly into the bracket of older frigate-sized light cruisers like the Carrack, Class 1000 and Bayonet (more than that, it's hard to see the old triangle-hulled Imperial frigate in the NJO's Force Heretic and The Final Prophecy as anything else, even though the novels were written well before the Arquitens was designed).

I wouldn't be surprised if some people involved knew some of the old material (heck, Wings of the Master is based on a paragraph in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, in which the REBELS crew show up as "an independent Rebel group" or some-such)...

The Gozanti's so small it really belongs with the guarda costa types like the 42m Warden-class and Guardian-class "light cruisers" and the 35m Rendili "frigate", and the more obscure 50m Imperial Armored Transport, freighter-sized hulls that (as mentioned above) are organized like miniature capital ships with a command bridge rather than a cockpit, and occasionally even carry a few TIE Fighters...

I can't remember for sure - I suspect I was working with lower starting baselines of large ships in WARFARE, but even if I was, that doesn't mean Jason and I agreed, and we'd have probably left it flexible and vague regardless, to accommodate precisely this sort of difference of opinion and recollection.

I know The Truce at Bakura indicates that the Alliance fleet was rather knocked-about, but I can't recall the details...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Well, the Raider-class corvette originated in Legends, created for the FFG Tabletop Game

There's a lot of WEG references in the animated shows, and some of the live action shows.
Usually coming from Pablo Hidalgo or other members of the Story Group.

 

I'd heard about 40 to 50 Imperial ships at Endor. It depends how many Interdictors were deployed (as their presence is essentially canon, now)

A minimum of 20 Mon Cal cruisers were surely at Endor. I have some doubts it was as many as forty, however?
Maybe forty including MC40s and similar? So I usually assume about two dozen 'heavy' models, thus far. With yes, 20 percent warship losses (of all classes of corvette on up?) and near 50 percent fighter losses, I recall (Truce of Bakura sourcebook)

Wings may vary also depending on operation flexibility or duties. For instance - later K-Wing squadrons seem like they had more than 12 ships, by the Black Fleet crisis?

And for all Mon Cal cruisers total from Yavin to Endor - about sixty seems easily plausible. Split into 14 roving lines, which make a quarter of the whole fleet or so?

 

First look on new ships

 

Or Filoni himself, who we know was highly influenced by WEG. What is the Spectre crew if not a classic WEG RPG party - A Smuggler, a Failed Jedi, a Kid, a Bounty Hunter, a Droid, and a Wookiee? (Yes, I know Zeb's not a Wookiee, but he still fits the role.)

 

*glances up from peeling a potato*

Aye, though I seem to recall they were originally designed by Filoni and Henry Gilroy for The Clone Wars before GL decided to focus that show on Skyguy... and Zeb is based on early Ralph McQuarrie concept art for Chewie, so he's sort-of a Wookiee anyway.

Also, Doug Chiang did the design of a ridiculous number of the best pre-reboot off-screen ships, from Mon Remonda to the Quasar Fire to the YT-2400, hence why they've shown back up again...

And Killian Plunkett did an absolute ton of Dark Horse's best comic-book work - covers all over the place, interior pencils for Shadows of the Empire, and extending to the script for the marvellously lore-heavy Sandblasted...

You can go about your business.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

A rare, hairless wookiee....

I like a lot of what WEG did....they really built a lot of stuff for the GFFA. But they could also be maddeningly vague with some things as well. The Troop Tranpsort in the Tramp Freighter book. They should have had rule that if they introduced something like a ship they had to flesh it out...and dig into the concept art for something to say it looked like.

 

Oh yes, of course, as an academic I have a very thick skin and enjoy quibbling and pushback. I just don't spend as much time on the Internet and this forum as I used to. But I enjoy following along with the more detailed discussions!

I had a longer post typed up with detailed replies a few days ago but I got onto something else and it got deleted. So in lieu of that I'll just post some general thoughts in response to things people have said in the last few pages. In particular, let me just clarify my idea of "Rebel irregulars" a bit more. I definitely don't envision giant infantry armies of irregulars Great Grass Plains style; I agree those would be easily susceptible to bombardment or even would be completely cut to pieces by much smaller, trained, well-equipped Imperial forces. Again, though, think about what we see in Andor on Ferrix and the prison, what we see in RotJ with the Ewoks, in terms of Imperial forces embedded in large civilian populations in urban areas or inaccessible wilderness areas...and then imagine that same scenario where each Ewok or each Ferrix worker has minimal training and a blaster rifle, and some minimal direction from a few trained Rebel officers. Or think of the popular revolts we see in the Special Edition versions of RotJ. The old EU tended to think of them as pure French Revolution-style mobs, or civilians going up against tanks at Tianmen Square, and therefore quickly and inevitably repressed. But imagine a middle ground where these recurrent popular revolts are buoyed by a core of irregular infantry with guns and some minimal tactical direction from the Rebel center. This is more or less how I imagine the Empire actually falling.

Imperial strategy is to concentrate force into highly visible, imposing form: a shiny barracks, a troop column of Stormtroopers, etc. Given sufficient general-population ideologization and enough small arms and even the most minimal military experience, though, that just becomes impossible. It doesn't matter how good your technology is or how well-trained your troops are, you just don't have enough people.

Again, this is based on actual colonial and post-World-War insurgencies and political movements, though the Star Wars example is different in a lot of ways.

Now, there are responses to these kinds of mass-population insurgencies, even fairly effective ones. These include systematically burning and destroying villages and population centers that shelter or give aid to insurgents until they stop, as well as interning entire civilian populations in concentration camps to bring their related insurgents to heel. We've seen some of that with the Empire, but arguably we should see this a lot more as the Galactic Civil War heats up. But I think the idea that the Empire is large and stretched thin enough that they're willing in most cases to just withdraw effective governance rather than engage in overpowering, high-casualty anti-insurgency efforts helps to make sense of that.

Though also, an important aspect of all this historically has been a divide between the "homeland" and "colonies" or "overseas." The Core versus Everywhere Else I suspect is likewise a huge part of the dynamic involved in the Galactic Civil War. The Empire is an actual government, even a popular government, in the Core, and likely couldn't survive at all if things were otherwise; but from what we see in the New Canon especially, they're more like a colonial regime in a lot of the rest of the Galaxy, extracting resources and maintaining a light, mostly military footprint, able to get away with atrocities but also much more brittle and also able and willing to simply withdraw where necessary. Arguably the Empire could lose a large portion of their territory and still be just fine in terms of core governance and resources. But think again of the ending of RotJ and what this represents--popular revolt and insurgency spreading to the Core. Regardless of what exactly happens next and how long it takes that's a sign that the end is close for the Empire.

I'm also following with a lot of interest the discussion about how many Star Cruisers the Rebellion has and how much they ramp up as they turn into the New Republic.

Really, the transition from Rebellion to New Republic should by all rights be extremely complicated, militarily and logistically and in just about every way. If the Empire didn't have enough military to actually hold and police the Galaxy, that would be true about tenfold for the Rebellion. Depending on what happens exactly, we should be seeing in different places a lot of fairly extreme scenarios, including drastic territorial contraction, places where the "New Republic" is just a coterie of local insurgents, places where the "New Republic" is more or less the old Imperial regime with a change of clothes, places where the "New Republic" is (old Empire-style) just a Star Cruiser and/or a garrison popping in and out, and/or all kinds of attempts to seize and repurpose Imperial infrastructure. Lots of room for interesting stories there.

Even just the infrastructural transition is fascinating. How does the tiny military and industrial core of the Rebellion expand into a Galaxy-spanning government. process by which the Rebellion built up enough industrial base to hold the Galaxy would be a fascinating one technically and in other ways. Which Imperial naval yards do they seize and when? How do they balance destroying Imperial infrastructure with occupying or rebuilding it for themselves? How do they balance taking over Imperial hardware and learning to maintain Do they redirect resources from Imperial infrastructure to build up their own new yards? How do they go about drastically expanding their existing infrastructure now that they have access to more resources? Do they take over Imperial training facilities and academies, or drastically expand their own? How do they balance out the temptation to absorb lower-level Imperial military personnel (that they desperately need) with fears about disloyalty and ideological deprogramming?

I guess I always assumed that other yards besides Mon Calamari started to build Star Cruisers before TTT, but if they didn't, that's interesting in itself. From what we see the answer seems to be that, perhaps largely for ideological reasons, they prioritize redirecting resources and building up their own new infrastructure, while using capture Imperial infrastructure less for new builds as for the necessary maintenance to turn their fleet into a more Galactic-scale one. But there are a thousand different considerations and smaller-scale questions here, and I don't know enough to say much more.

 

The bridge is always fully manned, and the engine room is always sufficiently manned. Of course, watches mean there's duplicate complete sets, and the Captain doesn't even stand watch.
If a ship carries enough crew on each watch for 90% combat effectiveness, then I would consider that about a third of the watch is doing some sort of maintenance task, and those assigned to be at their duty station would expected to be within the general vicinity of them and easy running distance, ideally doing some sort of maintenance-related task. If the officer of the watch gives an alert fire could be opened in about 1 minutes at 30% effeteness, rising to 75-80 within the next minute as the crew man their stations and orient themselves, then 100% in five minutes when the off-duty watch and the crew elsewhere shows up.
If the ship only carries the crew needed for 100% effectiveness plus enough to keep a skeleton crew at the guns, then most of the crew on watch would be doing maintenance somewhere, and the gun crew as the last case. Fire could be opened in one minute at 10-15% effectiveness, rising to 20-25% over the next minute for the same reasons as before, then in about five minutes 100% effectiveness (as both the off-watch crew and the on-watch crew elsewhere arrive at their duty stations).
Rather obviously, the officer of the watch would call the on-duty crew/the skeleton crew for the guns to their stations if there's any hint that combat is imminent. Bringing the rest of their crew to their duty stations would be a high chance of immanent combat - but you really want them there in the second case before the enemy is within range.

A T-47 seems pretty clearly to be "until the fuel runs out" - I'd figure a 3-6 hour mission is "comfortable" fuel wise.
As for an ISD; I'd say fuel lasts for about a year, but every 5-6 moths the ship refuels its tanks. This can only be done at a major starport that includes a refueling depot for capital ships, and takes several days during which the ship is stood down and the main reactor shut down and secured. Universally the chance is taken to conduct maintenance on the inside of the drives during this time, and almost always the crew is given shore leave at this time. It's a couple of hours of notice to simply be able to move; (at best, depending on maintenance inside the drives.) it's defenseless during this time, but it's safe behind the heavy defenses any starport this big would have.
Other consumables last for 6 months, but can be resupplied by shuttle in about half a day at many different supply bases. Generally it's topped up every two months or so, perhaps a little less. This is what's seen in Dark Force Rising.
Every 1-2 years the ship goes into dock for a month or two for routine overhauls.

I'm going with the WWII carrier model; it also seems that in SW support personal are a separate unit.
A squadron (18 planes in the USN) was an O-3 command; that's also the rank Wedge refuses to be promoted past.
There weren't any wings in the USN, since shipboard usage would never see three squadrons of the same type on the same ship anyway. I'll assume that "most" star cruisers can carry 6 squadrons, or two wings, since it seems wings train as a single tactical unit. The Air Group Commander, however, would have anywhere from 3 to 5 squadrons (depending on ship class) under his command - and was an O-4 rank.
Of course, 36 tens-of-millions-of-dollars-each aircraft today, which it's rare to lose a single one, is a massively more important command to back then, when the entire wing is only a day's production of that type. Perhaps even much less. Losing a full 60 heavy bombers in one raid didn't result in a change of tactics due to lack of planes; it was because the loss rate was unsustainable.
SW definitely tends toward the latter model of relative fighter importance, and I'm pretty firmly convinced that a command of 36 fighters, 36 pilots and not the support staff is an O-4 command. Also, if it was a general in command we'd be talking about going one step up in unit size resulting in going from O-3 to O-7.

Just for reference, I would figure the Rebellion started with 40 Star Cruisers simply by converting the existing Mon Cal fleet to warships.

I'd say it was a combination of expanding the yards at Mon Calamari as fast as possible, and more importantly that most of the yard had been occupied with Assault Frigate rebuilds, countless other conversions, general fleet repair, and leaving capacity open to handle sudden high-priority repair jobs. With other yards available they moved all of that past some small repair capacity to other, smaller yards, freeing up about 2/3rds of the yard and enabling it to focus almost exclusively on building Star Cruisers. That would vastly increase production on it's own.

The old EU does kind of match what we actually see on screen. If people are going to be firing blasters then those large crowds aren't going to be there. And doubtless that happens over several months to a year on quite a number of planets; but mostly it creates an insurgency. Less Important worlds the Empire gives up on.

Some historical context - The US and (to a lesser extent) Latin America are the only example of a settler colony populated by people from the "homeland" that successfully revolted. Generally settler colonies (which is what we see in much of SW) gradually develop into independent but allied counties. The 'colonies/overseas" we also an example of of Europeans conquering far-away populations that were vastly different, were already well established, and couple be conquered by relatively small forces due to technological and military superiority. The population never wanted 'in,' wanted the colonizers gone from day 1, but brutal tactics such as concentration camps almost always crushed any rebellion.
Post-WWII insurgencies succeeded from factors such as "occupying Japanese Army surrenders, leaving their entire set of military equipment up for grabs before the colonial power can assert control," "said brutal tactics are no longer politically acceptable," "home government decides to cut their losses after a defeat," and (all of Africa south of the Sahara and India) were given independence without a fight by home governments who didn't want the colonies to begin with.
None of those really apply here.

Also, we 'do' have an old EU explanation - about 20% of planets declared for the Rebellion at the same time, which the Empire didn't have the forces to do anything about, short of massive numbers of planetary bombardments. And meanwhile the Empire had nobody in charge. Warlords claimed much of Imperial territory and much of its fleet; the Empire was more concerned about increasing one person or another's own power at the expense of other parts of the Empire then actually doing anything about the Rebellion. Imperial infighting in the next two years destroyed most of their fleet.

In the Legends EU the Imperial Beuocracy (which was only really loyal to their jobs pushing data anyway) was given clemency in exchange for continuing to do their jobs.
As for maintaining control, for the New Republic, like the Old Republic before it, there wasn't any need for all of the machinery of maintaining control. Since both Republics only had planets that joined by their own choice; (being in Republic space carried no requirement to actually join), and they were largely allowed to run their own internal affairs save gross atrocities. You don't need force to maintain the loyalty of planet that wants to be a member with the light governance both Republics used. After all, if there is an issue, the solution is via politics - they have a representative in the Senate, after all, who takes part in determining policy.
And if a planet is determined to leave, unlike the Empire, they can simply leave - it's a voluntary association of planets.
That was arguably Palpatine's greatest mistake - dissolving the Senate, and assuming it was possible to rule a galaxy by force alone. As it turns out, it's almost impossible - they only way to rule the galaxy is by the galaxy allowing itself to be.

Okay, here I'm going to propose a bombshell - what if the OT and EU from that period onward and the PT and its EU - can't be completely reconciled, and have separate continuities? (Although almost entirely shared.) After all, it's to the point that any reference in OT period novels of mine to hardware that appeared in the PT I feel the need to be at least a tiny bit veiled and vague.

 

But also...where can droids fill in. Probably quite a few Astromechs for maintenance as opposed to humans. Medical Droids (or holograms as was shown in The Clone Wars aboard the Twilight) in the infirmary or dental. How many in the galley with minimal human supervision to serve 4 meals a day? You can never forget your midrats for the night crew.

As far as endurance...fuel and the 3 Bs (beans, bullets and band aids) and whatever else...Underway Replenishment would be a thing. Rendezvous anywhere in space with a supply ship or tanker and get resupplied.

 

On Wookieepedia it says it's got enough consumables for one year, right? I don't think there's any reason to have enough consumables for a year if your fuel runs out before then. So, endurance should be about a year.

Now in my headcanon, I'd consider hyermatter reactors to be like a nuclear reactor, and the ISD has enough fuel to last 120 years, the entire practical lifespan of the ship, and it never needs to be refueled. (Also means the galaxy is still using ships built 100 years ago.) As for consumables, maybe enough to last one month. So, they're constantly in need of resupply, and that long logistics chain makes for great targets for Rebel starfighter raids.

 

Our talk of different looks of Strike Cruisers stuck in the back of my head and I had no choice but to get it out....

 

So, I think you may be underrepresenting the capabilities of a watch. When half or a third of the ship's company is on watch, theu can completely operate the ship. I don't believe maintenance is performed by the watch team, it's performed by those off-watch. The crew that is off-watch is either performing maintenance, engaging in leisure activities, or sleeping. What also may be underappreciated, is the level of manning for damage control and redundancy when at battle stations.

I would think of it this way:
-Watch (1/3 or 1/2 crew): fully operational ship, including weapons
-Defense Watch: fully combat capable ship, including maximum firepower and rate of fire
-Battle Stations: full combat capable ship with redundant crew and damage control parties at their stations

Also remember that automatic targeting/loading capabilities may be in play, or in play until more crew arrive when a defense watch or battle stations is declared. @Chris0013 raises a good point about droids reducing crew levels, although I still think the Empire might have preferred meat bags to droids in order to provide jobs.

Note I'm applying real-world concepts to the GFFA.

As @Chris0013 mentioned, surely the naval powers would have embraced underway replenishment.

Like this: https://fractalsponge.artstation.com/projects/6RBPx

There's still a risk of getting attacked with your pants down.

I personally run with:

O-13, Fleet Commander / Chief of SFC, General
O-12, Fleet SFC Commander, Colonel General
O-11, Battle Group SFC Commander, Lieutenant General
O-10, Task Force SFC Commander, Major General
O-9, Battle Line SFC Commander, Commodore
O-8, Armada SFC Commander, High Colonel
O-7, Division CO, Colonel
O-6, Group CO, Lieutenant Colonel
O-5, Wing CO, Major
O-4, Squadron CO/XO, Commander
O-3, Flight Lead, Captain
O-2, Pilot, Flight Lieutenant
O-1, Pilot Student, Flight Officer
O-0, Academy Student, Cadet

Which is a huge mash up of stuff, including wanting to use typical air force ranks (Marshall ranks went to the army), avoiding High/Grand General for the GA, and Commander Antilles outranking Captain Celchu. My GFFA ranks go a lot higher than Earth typical (General = O-10), as the number of people in the armed forces are far higher. The GA goes to O-13, the Empire to O-15.

One month seems okay for corvette or frigate, a year seemed right for the Imperial-class.

 

Yeah, I'm also really imagining the likes of the Rand Ecliptic to be an Arquitens, or even a Quasar Fire. It just fits too well now. One doesn't exclude the other. After all, its entirely possible that a Quasar Fire WAS decommissioned and turned into a cargo vessel, which the Rebellion later stole and turned into a fighting ship once more. It wouldn't be the first time they tried something like that.

So the VT-49 Decimator might be a good fit in that size range as well? Guardian-class seems to be particularly the closest though, given its outright written it has TIE racks.

I don't think a minor difference in ships necessitates two wholly separate continuities. I can see what you mean, though, but the thing seems to be, the PT gradually overtook old assumptions over that time period, which remained vague anyway. Sure, there is tendency to use familiar ships from the movies, which led to the Venator overtaking the Victory for example, with post-Disney us even getting Victory-class ships getting a rebranding into Venators, like the Strikefast. Even in post-Endor, we gradually saw warlords ending up using Venators and Acclamators more often, I point to the very, very early 2010s.

The inclusion of the Arquitens is just a continuation of that, thematically, IMO, where Prequel stuff tends to get shoved into support roles that were given to the ships from the Sourcebooks in the 90s. But this isn't always the case, given that the Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser DID get a model in Rebels.

Its still a very big Empire. I think the IDEAL Tarkin Doctrine fleet that Imperial command wants to have looks like something out of Star Wars Squadrons, where its an ISD escorted by a picket line of Arquitens, Raiders, Quasar Fires and Gozantis, but that's not necessarily the fleet that they're going to always be able to have. Post-Endor, we got the Preybirds and Nebulon-Bs ending up as commonly used Imperial vessels, after all.

 

There's a lot more I wanted to reply to, but if I do I'd never end up posting this...

Yeah, there's a massive amount of space inside a Star Destroyer! I'm pretty sure you could fit the entire crew in the superstructure, with each one having there own room to themselves. The rest should easily fit, as long as there is proper storage around and above the hangar bays - Depending on its dimensions the main hangar could potentially fit the entire TIE complement in it.
The only thing I think might have a problem fitting is the prefab garrison, as the IM-455 module garrison is rather large(in one image it looks to be over 300m wide!), but it might work if it can be broken down into a lot of smaller parts(flat pack garrison!).

Funnily enough, It did make me think of Gideon's ship when I was looking at it.

I wonder if the two tower blocks at the front of the superstructure could be the stubby towers for the grab-beams.

This is likely going to be rather speculative on my part, as I don't really have the knowledge to say how feasible this all really is(it's scifi, so as feasible as the writers wants).

The thing with the tremendously powerful figures for the reactors is that they go hand in hand with tremendously powerful weapons, and from what I understand, these weapons basically requires a significant amount of power from the reactors to fully power them. Basically the hardware and powerlines would have to be able to withstand a tremendous amount of power or nothing would work.
In general I think the power lines should be able to handle the energy of the main reactor(whether it's the high power figures or not). The size of these ships means you can have massive power cables inside them, without taking all that much space up - the Venator's cross section has power cables a bit bigger than a corridor, which compared to modern day undersea high voltage power cables, are absolutely massive!

There may also be more advanced ways of transferring power than cables. The Death Star tractor beam power couplings could be an example of this, as it seems to use some sort of energy field to connect its two sections together - it may also be how they regulate the power flow and control power surges, by controlling and restricting how much power can flow between the two sections.

Power surges could be a problem, but hopefully they are a bit better at mitigating and controlling such things compared to other scifi franchises(no exploding consoles or conduits on the other side of the ship).
There probably would be some negative effects from a ship-wide grid, main one being if a major power conduit is destroyed everything connected to it would lose power, but that's why warships normally have redundancy built into them, so that in a case like this there would be other power conduits that can supply power. Another one would be power substations/relays which could blow up spectacularly when destroyed, as they have a lot of energy in them, but at the same time they're probably a lot less dangerous than a reactor blowing up...

Those doors are visible in the movie, but because it's not the main focus of the scene, they're easy to miss(pretty sure I first found out about them from looking at photos of the model).

They look like they're similar in height to the main hangar's doors. There's also what looks like a hatch(or two) in the roof of the bay that looks about the right size for smaller craft like TIEs. There's also what could be interpreted as two turrets on the forward lip of the main bay.
I do like the idea of those gondolas as control rooms, but they may be too small for that...
Interestingly enough the Avenger model doesn't have the large door on the secondary bay and may not even have a door at all - this is the best shot I have of it so it's hard to say for sure.

Either way it needs some sort of exit as Vader's shuttle is seen leaving the bay in RotJ; maybe some sort of roof hatch could work? - I like the idea of a roof hatch as it gives a lot of leeway for tall ships like shuttles, or if the hatch is large enough, AT-AT barges.

 

This was really a disappointment to me. I know George says the EU wasn't canon. But between AoTC, RoTS, CW and TCW I was hoping for the Victory and Gladiator to show up and flesh out the Republic Navy.

 

I've looked at that pic several times but was always focused on the Eidolon in the lower left. Never noticed the SD in the upper right was not an ISD. It's probably the Harrow. It is said to be a Vic but has significant differences. Have not seen those structures on the front of the terraces before though.