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

According to the first edition and second of the Encyclopedia, the Startide is "a Mon Calamari battle cruiser, it is the equivalent of an Imperial Star Destroyer."

So unless it says MC90 somewhere I missed, it is among the many EU Mon Cal cruisers where we have a name, but are unsure which type of cruiser it is.

--Adm. Nick

 

Skeleton Crew Episode 3

Spoiler

Interesting, those X-Wings had ion cannons for their bottom cannons, and they are physically different

 

Spoiler

Makes sense as a patrol variant, where taking people in alive is going to be a bigger priority.

I love getting things like this...though part of me is a little sad we didn't get a y-wing or b-wing a time to shine as ion-equipped ships.

 

Spoiler

Oh the day we see an A/SF-01 B-wing in full action in LIVE-ACTION. The B-wing Mark III's at Exegol got some more screen-time certainly (and we see two destroyed -- one at the start, another deep in the background as the T-70 X-wing and BTA-NR2 Y-wing go down and they cry out about Alpha Three ("Snap" maybe?), someone else and Delta Leader). Guess I'll be waiting for Adywan ROTJ Revisited sometime before 2030.

 

Oh the day we see something that glorious.

 

I'll just say this- the modification we see to a beloved starfighter in episode 2 of Skeleton Crew might be one of the coolest ideas ever. Not only that, it actually makes sense given the era and the ethos of the government using them.

Once the spoiler period passes, I defintiely have thoughts!

--Adm. Nick

 

(Implied spoiler for Skeleton Crew Episode 3, reference is to Rogue Squadron 64)

Spoiler

Sort of reminds me of this one mission in Rogue Squadron 64 where they replaced the X-wing's warhead launcher with ion cannons.

 

Spoiler

I think X-wings work best because they're the "hero ship", with immediate audience recognition of what it represents, and an interesting counterpoint in that the kids don't know what they are.

I'm not sure they actually have live-action CGI of the movie-era B-wing, too. There's certainly no existing cockpit set for either the movie-era B-wing or the Y-wing.

What might have been nice would have been an A-wing Mk. 2, but saying that's not really a complaint...

This whole episode was just a half-hour of huge fun.

Nice catch, too!

The slight evidence we have characterises the new Mon Cal ships in the NJO with reference to the movie types - Vector Prime introduces the Mediator as an "updated" version of the familiar design, and there are three new-build hulls of the "MC80 class" in Destiny's Way (even if, as you say, that remark maybe just arose through overlooking the new designation, it's there on the page). There's no evidence for a step-change.

That said, I do agree it's not enough to conclusively decide the issue, and there's room for a variety of headcanon - but for the same reason, I don't think it's enough to make a persuasive argument for a wholesale replacement of the New Class designs, which was my original point...

But we basically agree that the Endurance-class fleet carrier was de-prioritzied as the "flagship" new-build ship in favour of the Mediator and the Bothan Assault Cruiser...

My starting point that Mon Cal class names work a bit differently - the key designations are MC80, MC80a, MC80B, MC90, and we simply don't know how "Mediator-class" fits into that pattern...

And I honestly don't have any particularly fixed opinion about the Ranger, except it's got a lot of flak lasers, and as a "new" Corellian gunship class it's designed to recall the existing movie-adjacent type, and by extension perhaps also the screen-canon blockade runner too.

*pirate voice* Arr.

This was about the Startide in JA3. Pretty much everything built in the Bantam-era ought to be an MC80B (enhanced armour and deflectors, but retains the existing interfaces and ergonomics optimised for Mon Cal crews and idiosyncratic layout), or an MC90 (additionally equipped with redesigned and standardized systems and spaces for a mixed-species crew); I find it hard to imagine them continuing to build anything below that standard...

I'd forgotten that remark, so thanks for the reminder!

Deployment in the Core would imply the MC90s are concentrated in the Home Fleet, and the slot for ships their size within the standard organization would be as task force flagships; but not all Home Fleet task force flagships are MC90s - we see the Nebula-class Brilliant as Coruscant guardship in the Black Fleet novels - and not all Home Fleet ships are necessarily organised into standard task-forces either - some elements might retain a battle-line configuration with multiple ships of this size grouped together.

As to the MC80B, they'd presumably be in a similar role, but I'm not aware of strong evidence for a pattern to their use - we see the Mon Remonda as Han's command ship against Zsinj; in Destiny's Way, Keyan Farlander has the Mon Adapyne as flagship accompanied by a second MC80B (his command being subordinate to Traest, it's probably composed primarily of detritus from Fleet Group One); and Gamer #9 characterises the Allegiant (presumably the ship of that name seen at Coruscant in The Last Command) as an "MC80b", which in the NJO is patrolling the Meridian sector, with a captain in command. Optimised for Mon Cal crews, they'd also be a more obvious basis for the cruisers of Mon Calamari's own navy, which show up in the Hand of Thrawn novels.

I really don't have any particular opinion or headcanon here, though - I'm just working through what the lore says. I can have strong opinions, as I'm sure you've noticed, but the only one in play here is my emphasis on seeing what the material says, in the hope that it'll make other people say interesting things...

This is actually reasonably close to my own thinking, except the 21-ship task force is described in Tyrant's Test as a NRDF-wide standard and we see examples from the Second, Third and Fourth Fleets, which constrains how widely the battle line configuration is still being used in 17 ABY; and where it does apply, ships seem to typically deploy in smaller roving lines with just two cruisers - as well as the pairs I referenced in Darksaber, Planet of Twilight and the Black Fleet novels, there are the "two Star Cruisers" at Havering, part of the force forward-deployed against the Empire in Specter of the Past.

And to conclude, because I've had this in draft for a while now, and just in case anyone finds it interesting - some extended notes on unreliable narration in The New Rebellion...

Spoiler

* Kueller has been taking Imperial ships and systems off the scrapheap and refurbishing them - literal "fleet junk"! To fight the opposing NRDF fleet, he orders the deployment of "three Star Destroyers and the attendant support vehicles", which are reported to Wedge as three Victory-class ships "along with a full complement of TIE Fighters" (which ought to mean two squadrons each); in the subsequent dogfight, there are evidently additional TIE Fighters in the VSDs' hangars, with a reference to "six more launching", and the sheer number being thrown into the fight seeming overwhelming, implying that what initially appeared to be the VSDs' complement of TIEs were really extra ships above the complement they carried.

* Wedge then tricks his way to victory, by working out that Kueller's VSDs and TIE Fighters are crewed by droids, and using tactics that confuse their computers. Except... I'm not sure they really are.

* Contrary to what Wedge thinks, Kueller's POV implies that his VSDs do have human crews. "Several thousand troops and ground personnel" aboard the ships, "his people", led by a subordinate called Commander Bur, who he motivates with a quiet threat of execution if he doesn't do well enough; now it's possible that Commander Bur and the entire command element were located centrally aboard the VSD that was destroyed by Han and Karrde early in the battle, leaving only automated systems to make command decisions for the other two which Wedge is fighting, but even if that was the case, there are also human coordinators in Kueller's surface base directing the ships; so it looks as though Wedge is simply wrong to imagine he's fighting droids, and when he switches to using off-beat tactics designed to trick a computer program, the response he thinks confirms his hunch is actually just human error - Kueller's people thinking that the Yavin had simply mutinied and switched sides.

* So, perhaps it's just the TIE Fighters that are droids... or perhaps even the TIEs aren't droids, either! Their pilots have "digitized voices", and fly in an "ancient pattern" that Wedge hasn't seen since Yavin or Endor, and attack with "fierce determination" that seems inhuman and robotic - but that could just mean that they're old-fashioned Imperials, with helmet vocoders and rigid tactics and stormtrooper-like focus, or impersonators imitating the same attitude. That's certainly the impression that we're given, before Wedge jumps to the idea he's fighting droids.

* If the entire crew of the fleet are droids, then this reads in another direction - Kueller, thinking of them as "his people", is being portrayed as dissociated, his trauma leading him to imbue obedient, unhesitating machinery with qualities of emotional loyalty which it doesn't really have. But that isn't really clear at all. Perhaps that is what's going on. Perhaps the novel was edited to make Kueller's faction less directly neo-Imperial after criticism of previous "warlord of the week" plotlines. The simplest explanation, though is that Kueller recruited some people, ex-Imperials or pseudo-Imperials, and that Wedge just guessed wrong - but the fundamental point is that the truth here is unclear, and I think that plays into wider themes within the novel.

* This theme of unreliable narration is also played in the context of TIE numbers - subjectively, the numbers seem very high from the POV of their opponents. "Not even the Empire deployed this many at once", Han says. Though we don't really get any precise indicators, and as the VSDs' hangars also have to accommodate "ground personnel", the space available for fighters is perhaps no more than usual for a VSD, two squadrons each - pairing those with the similar numbers already deployed, there are perhaps not more than a dozen squadrons in total, doubling the notional "full complement" of three VSDs to equal that of two Imperial-class ships... which isn't really that much...

* That's still an efficient concentration of fighters, though, and would be enough to overwhelm three squadrons of A-wings and B-wings, chase the Falcon and Wild Karrde, and harrass the opposing capital ships.

This also serves as a neat segue to a wider topic - I've already talked about the importance of proper TIE Fighter handling as it applies to Endor and Isard; and I want to do the same for Zsinj...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Yeah, flagships in the NJO and post-NJO NR/GA fleets are always exclusively shown to be a Mon Calamari cruiser of some type or Star Destroyer of some type. The BAC never felt like an overly common vessel in the NRDF, but I don't doubt that they were a big part of whatever navy the Bothan's developed for self-defense post-Caamas Crisis.

To this point, the MC80B should be VERY common in the NRDF, as they presumably would have been the majority of Calamari construction efforts between 4 ABY and 10 ABY. With 5% of the NR budget devoted to construction efforts AND the MC80B being superior in every way to the MC80 and MC80A, they should also be WAY more numerous than the original batch of converted exploration cruisers and passenger ships.

Which I'm 100% in favor of, as I still think the spade shape and more streamlined blisters of the MC80B make it the best looking cruiser of the bunch.

We know thanks to Cracken Threat Dossier that the Fifth Fleet is comprised of five battle groups, each containing five task forces, each task force containing ~20 ships. So 500 ships in total, with around 25 ships of a Star Destroyer/Fleet Carrier scale. I bring this up in context to the MC80B/MC90 question above because CTD says that the other NR fleets are in many cases much larger in terms of ships but being composed of older, pre-New Class designs.

If the home fleet is only twice the size of the Fifth Fleet (and arguably it could be even larger), that leaves rooms for over 50 ships that are the size of an MC80B, MC90, ISD, or Nebula-class in just a flagship role. Granted, we know that these older fleets aren't exactly organized the same way as the Fifth, but it does give us a metric to make some educated guesses about the number of MC80B and MC90 hulls in NR service. Probably a few hundred if you add up all the needed heavy hitters in the First through Fourth Fleets and assume most are MC/ISD ships.

(pivots to canon discussion RE: capital ships)

Mon Cala cruisers in canon follow a different course. The Alliance used a mix of refitted city ships (MC75's like the Profundity, Temperance, and Accordance), early exploration and trade cruisers that escaped the occupation (MC80A like Home One and Nautilian), or the later retrofitted Merchantile Fleet (which seems to be a mix of all models). Most interesting of all, the iconic (at least OOU) winged cruisers of the MC80 Liberty-type (Liberty, Aurora, Geist, Striking Distance, etc) didn't really get specific love in the canon origin stories for the rebel's pickle fleet. We can assume they were part of one of those groups.

Which is all the more humorous to me, as the MC80 Liberty-type cruiser shots in-game for BF you can count around four dozen just in the sky above your location, lol.

I bring all this up because one area the new canon has not yet fleshed out is just exactly HOW the Mon Calamari were able to churn out exponentially more MC75/MC80/MC80A cruisers for the New Republic in the just twelve months between Endor and Jakku AND field a handful of brand new MC85's!

OOU, I know authors and creatives don't obsess over these sorts of details like we do, but it IS fun to theorize and speculate just how this could have been acchieved. Did the Mon Cala have sudden access to a lot of hulls to convert? Or is shipbuilding in the GFFA a much faster process than Legends portrayed it?

--Adm. Nick

 

I think something to keep in mind is that while a 'standard' TIE complement is 2 squadrons on a Vic...there are numerous other embarked ships and ground vehicles and what not that if cleared out provide ample space to increase the fighter complement.

 

I had missed this myself, but apparently some pirate ships in young jedi adventures have a striped appearance similar to those in Mandalorian, Outlaws, and Skeleton Crew, suggesting this is a long running motif used by multiple groups:
https://bsky.app/profile/bhx1138.bsky.social/post/3lckyxtyyqs2i

Reminds me of the blazing claw symbol in legends

 

That's a fair point - the reference to a considerable contingent of "ground personnel" suggests that some of the space needs to be taken up by their transports, but given how Kueller's fleet has been improvised from junk, there could definitely be a bit more of a bias towards extra fighters..

What I was trying to say, though, is really just that there doesn't have to be anything beyond the usual two squadrons on each VSD, and that the perception of insanely high TIE Fighter numbers is subjective, unreliable, and thus perhaps thematically deliberate...

But thanks for reading - and disagreeing!!

I missed that this was the same asteroid base from the YJK novels...

Huh? The BAC Ralroost appears prominently as a NRDF/GADF task-force and fleet flagship throughout the NJO, and the BAC Champion has a Twi'lek "brevet-admiral" in command at Kalarba in Balance Point. Then there's Brand's use of the "heavy cruiser" Yald, and the "cruiser" Dauntless as the command ship at Bilbringi in Star by Star...

For me, the question is how quickly Mon Cal ramped up from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook pace of launching one new cruiser every six months. The old Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels implies four years focused on MC80Bs before the first MC90 was launched, which gives an approximate minimum of eight ships (assuming no new civilian hulls were added at the same time) but I'd agree they could have been increasing production beyond that level...

You're probably more likely to know off-the-cuff if there's any lore that's specific on this question than I am, though...

I share your enthusiasm for the Mon Remonda as one of the handsomest ships in the Galaxy, but not every MC80B will look the same - in Destiny's Way, the Mon Adapyne and the other MC80B at Obroa-skai are explicitly characterised as contrasting designs...

This makes me realise something - the old battle line configuration doesn't require any ships in the flagship class, and can top out anywhere down to light cruiser size. I wouldn't assume the heavy hitters exist at all. Assault Frigates, Bulk Cruisers, Strike Cruisers, the odd Interdictor, maybe even little 350m Carrack-class light cruisers and certainly the similar-sized Quasar Fire; these are the things that act as top-end command ships and carriers outside the roster of captured ISDs and larger Mon Cal types...

And even in the Fifth Fleet, we see that a 700m Majestic-class ship can command a task force... so maybe the line between the flagship and cruiser categories in the "21-ship task force" became more blurred after the Black Fleet crisis - checking Cracken's quickly, I can't see anything specifying that the enlarged Fifth Fleet roster still uses 1040m flagships - that would allow some task forces to be built out with more big ships, but also allows others to be leaner as their role requires, which is the sort of pleasantly ambiguous headcanon-accommodating space I like...

In the pre-reboot lore, the "winged" design was specifically associated with liners controlled by non-Calamari corporates, most obviously the Sullustan-flagged Kuari Princess...

And real-world liners aren't always turned into cruisers or carriers, but also serve as assault ships - think of the typical Royal Navy LSI dropping a whole brigade of landing craft in the European war, or the massive Canberra acting as an improvised LSH in the Falklands forty years later...

In short, that huge formation of winged pickle in Battlefront could be the GFFA version of Anzio, or a massive air-drop like Arnhem...

(And yes, if I stop and think about it, that's outright fanboy speculation of a sort I'm not sure I want to indulge in, but in this case, I'm going to rule-of-cool it, because I'm not really expecting anyone to agree with the idea - I just think the image is worth sharing... )

- The Imperial Ewok

 

The classes for the Yald and Dauntless have plagued me multiple times over the years. I've since gone with the Yald being a heavy variant of an MC90 (as opposed to yet another Majestic-class heavy cruiser, a Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser or a Vindicator-class heavy cruiser) while the Dauntless is an MC80B for now.

 

Regarding Skeleton Crew, has anyone tried to...

Spoiler

... make a list of the Port Borgo pirate fleet yet?

We seem to have most of the smaller "background" types from the Sequels - one each of the Guuvian ship first glimpsed in TLJ, the wheel-headed type from the Episode IX "wall of ship" that's cleverly CGI-kitbashed from the Gozanti, the Lothalian corvette and the three-hull Tribune; plus what's either a RazorCrest or a Wookiee gunship glimpsed for a moment at screen right when the kids' pod is heading back to their ship in the third episode.

I think the big Corellian ship moored astern of the frigate is a straightforward Pelta (have we had those in live-action before?), and then there's one I really like - when the kids' ship arrives in the second episode, what seems to be the Mining Guild Freighter from the "wall of ship" is seen in side view off in the distance, modified with a topside antenna and blockade-runner turret and perhaps some other greeblies added and the cargo panniers removed, so it "reads" visually as a classic "Corellian pirate ship"...

But there's also quite a lot that seems brand new - more-or-less in front of the frigate's bow are at least three of a "small pointy" type that's vaguely reminiscent of the Corsair from MANDO, flanked by triple engine pods that might be exactly the same - though they have a different bridge and stern, and I don't think it's just the same hull with more-and-different greeblies; and moored together off the starboard bow of the frigate are a mismatched pair of somewhat similar ships that may also share some of the Corsair's CGI "components", but have pointy sterns and different engine configurations - one has twin engine-pods at the sides, the other one has a prominent centreline thruster...

There's also what looks like the bow of an Imperial-style Gozanti visible when Brutus calls to arm the cannon, and the ram-bow of a more straightforward Corsair in the background - though both of these may actually be new "kitbashes" that modify the designs; there's what looks like a Gozanti with different engines in the first close shot of the Port Borgo bay, and a "kitbash" Corsair in the background with its bridge pod moved a lot further forward and the ram-bow heavily modified, which may be the same ships; and the mess of small ships that drag their moorings when the Onxy Cinder punches out includes what looks a lot like a Howlrunner in the middle.

And the Onyx Cinder's page on StarWars.com, which shows the "kitbash corsair" bottom left and the stern of a "small pointy" bottom right, also seems to have a Dornean gunship...

Anyone got anything else?

One thing I really like is how the Onyx Cinder...

Spoiler

... really seems to be laid out as a pirate ship IN SPACE. You have the lower deck, which is effectively the "hold", for cargo and probably crew quarters; the upper deck, which is effectively the "main deck" where the guns are (albeit the emphasis has been on the centreline turrets rather than the as-yet-unused "broadside" and "chaser" guns visible on the exterior - obviously this is STAR WARS, and a nod to the Falcon, but perhaps also a specific reference to the centreline pivot mounting on the Hispaniola in Treasure Island), and from there, you access the cockpit pod, which, although it's out at the side (again, a STAR WARS cue originating with the Falcon) is essentially the "quarterdeck" where the ship is steered from and where the "captain's cabin" is located, with its sweep of stern-windows, evocative of both a high-sterned Spanish galleon or Bermuda sloop and the Naboo ship in Episode I...

One thing I've not yet worked out is whether the area with the hob, the table and the curving seat is a STAR WARS interpretation of a "galley" in the "hold" or a "saloon" in front of the "stern cabin", adjacent or identical to the space the kids bunk in...

But really, I'm just enjoying "getting to know the ship" by gradually following the story around the interior, and seeing how everything fits together...

Arr!

And the Kuati cruiser type(s) that appear in Star by Star and Destiny's Way would be another candidate, even though that would almost certainly be a retcon, and the Dauntless, leading the fleet commanded by the Sullustan General Muun, could be a nod to the SoroSuub Dauntless from Rebellion...

There's... too many of them!

Also, do we ever see any Dreadnaughts in front-line roles in the NJO, or any non-interdictor versions of the Vindicator-class in NRDF service - I suspect the answer to both is "no", but I raise this reluctantly, because I'll admit they're favourite ship-types of mine...

And now I'm grappling with the realisation that the Majestic is a candidate for any NJO-era "Star Destroyer" or "cruiser" of unspecified class...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

One thing I've been wanting to toss out for discussion in this thread is the NRDF setup and operational strategy post-Concordance. Thanks to shows likeThe Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew, we actually have a good look at how the New Republic structured and deployed its defence forces in the 9 ABY period. Which, given the focus of these series and the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu film, will be on display prominently with Thrawn back.

First up, the actual navy itself.

Hera's fleet is obviously prominent. I have a stong hunch that it either a core part of the Home Fleet, given its proximity to the capital and the fact that it contains the fleet flagship Home One, OR an Alliance style roving battle line that the New Republic uses as a rapid response force. In addition to Ackbar's old flagship, it contains at minimum a dozen of the new Defender-class cruisers, as well as an assortment of Nebulon-B frigates (at least 4 shown), CR90 corvettes (3+), and Sphyrna-class corvettes (5+).

Coincidentially or not, @Thrawn McEwok might find it amusing that this totals to around 25 ships, which isn't all that far off from the Legends concept of a standardized NRDF task force. Now, I don't know if we can jump to the conclusion yet that this standard, but a task force anchored by a large pickle ship with a backbone of the new Defender-class and assorted escorts is an interesting setup and one that I would love to learn more about.

The only other assembly of ships we see is the trio of Defender-class under Captain Girard at Seatos. No escorts, but further confirmation that these new Defender-class cruisers are becoming more and more of a staple of the post-Concordance navy.

Next up, and arguably the most interesting, the starfighter corps!

It's clear that, especially in the less populated and outer reaches of the galaxy, New Republic law enforcement is basically starfighter based. Delphi Base housing X-wings and Y-wings and them being used as "space highway patrol" most prominently. Now, the idea of the New Republic having starfighter bases equipped with hyperspace capable fighters fits extremely well within Legends and canon, plus it harkens back to their days as a rebellion. If we take at face value that the bulk of the New Republic's capital ships are concentrated in the Home Fleet, starfighters would be the visible face of New Republic defenses in the galaxy. Lothal's local NR detachment being a squadron of the new E-wings just further enforces this point.

The modified T-65 X-wings with two ion cannons might be the most "New Republicy" thing ever. You take a fast, nimble, and seasoned space frame, add remove two lasers and add two ion cannons, and you basically have a super fast Y-wing, lol. Not that I'm complaining, having the ability to disable craft with ion cannons is useful for law enforcement and patrol work.

Anyways, not sure if any of this will spark a discussion, but I wanted to throw this out there.

--Adm. Nick

 

Where does the count of a dozen Defenders come from for Hera's Fleet?

Wonder if the E-Wings are build on Lothal? Did they take over the TIE factory and adapt if for new ships?

As far as the overall thoughts on the NR Fleet...I am kind of unimpressed. All we have seen is Hera's fleet...which looks like it is not being put to proper use. Just out there on patrol instead of actually responding to a possible threat. Hera should not have just taken the Ghost and a handful of fighters to check on Seatos. There was legitimate reason with the theft of hyperdrive cores from Executor class dreadnoughts to warrant a reconnaissance in force type of patrol of at least 1 Defender with 4-6 support ships...if not taking Home One itself with support.

And the whole 2-3 X-Wings getting their Ponch and John on is pretty pathetic for a patrol...what are they going to do if they run into a situation like the pirate attack in ep 1 of SC? Throw themselves into a suicide run? Observe and report? Just turn tale at the first sign of a superior force?

For me...I really need to see more of the NR Fleet. How is is structured and deployed. And we really need to see how the PSFs are set up as well. If the NR military is so small...the local heavy lifting is going to be put onto the PSFs shoulders. I have talked about this before but the post RoTJ shows should have shown more on these subjects. Din Djarin should have encountered local forces with some regularity...even if just seeing some ships in the background when entering and leaving a system. And let's face it...if even Han Solo gets boarded sometime...then Din Djarin should have to sit through a customer inspection from time to time.

 

Spoiler

There were Peltas in the Rise of Skywalker fleet

Wookeepedia says there was Pelta wreckage seen in two episodes of Andor

 

@Chris0013

Check out Ahsoka S1:E4 at the 10:56 minute mark through the 11:02 minute mark. There is a minimum of 12 Defender-class cruisers in this shot. Considering that moments before we see several ships (including more Defender-class) behind Home One, it is reasonable to assume that 12 is the min and not the max, unless we decide that at this EXACT moment all of the fleet moved ahead of Home One, which seems unlikely.

Granted, we still don't really know the capabilities of the Defender-class. Most scalings of it peg it at around ~1km or more, but other than a handful of visible turrets and hangers, we don't know the overall power or capability of the vessels. Though being confirmed as Mon Calamari designs gives them a good change of having a good suite of shield generators and projectors.

--Adm. Nick

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire NR navy, apart from the Home Fleet, is a rapid response force. Local PSFs carry out system/planetary defense, while roving NR battle groups assigned to that sector bolster them when necessary.

If Hera’s force is anything to go by, each battle group consists of a flagship, a dozen or so Defenders, plus a smattering of smaller support ships. Starhawks and MC80As likely acted as flagships, given their superior size and firepower. The enigmatic “heavy cruiser” of the same class as the Brightsaber, Hunting Hound, and Serenade is another potential candidate. Defenders are frequently seen operating independently, which leads me to think they’re the primary rapid response and scouting asset. The small support ships probably remain with the flagship, escorting it while the Defenders come and go.

 

But considering the size...or lack there of...of the NR Navy...how rapid is the response? Do they patrol all the hyperspace lanes? Or do they run up and donw the major lanes and only venture off them for a specific request or alert? And what are the PSFs responsibilities? Do they stay in system or do they have the authority to escort ships from their systems to their destination?

 

I'm thinking it's a separate task force from the Home Fleet, that's objective is to patrol NR space, while looking for and investigating signs of major rogue Imperial elements.

On the fleet numbers I've gone and counted at least 15 Defender-class (episode 4), 5-6 CR90s (episode 3), 7 Sphyrna-class (episode 3) and 4-5 Nebulon-B (episode 4) - I thought I'd done a post on this before, but I couldn't find it, so probably never got around to posting it.

I do wonder what the Home Fleet would look like in this period? Would it mainly be new ships, like Defenders ,MC85s (Dawn of Tranquility may still be in service at this point) and maybe a Starhawk or two? and also what happened to all the MC80 cruisers (there should've been at least hundreds of them in service at the end of the war)?

With the New Republic reducing its armed forces post treaty, it makes sense that they would rely more on starfighters for patrolling less populated areas, as for similar personal requirements you could field a lot more fighters, which can cover a larger area and are a bit more flexible. Also a lot of the time their main targets would be small vessels that have a greater chance of evading large ships. There would be some downside to fighter only patrols, as they would have limited range, and would be difficult for them to inspect ships which don't have hangars.

My previous scaling currently puts the Defender-class at around 1.5km, which might be right as they look to be somewhere around half the length of Home One; which is likely 3+km long in Ahsoka.
I do think that three of them should be able to easily defeat an ISD, as each one should be able to bring four squadrons of fighters, for a total of 144 fighters. Even if each squadron is at half strength (the ships in Ahsoka didn't have full hangars), they would still have the same number of fighters as a ISD. Now whether they have more combined firepower than an ISD is up for debate, but combined the three ships would have more shield strength, and their numerical superiority should allow them to dictate the fight.

Probably Observe and report, while calling in backup from the nearest patrol, base or fleet.

 

I’d wager MC80s and Defenders formed the backbone of the HF simply due to their large numbers. There’s official artwork of a Starhawk during a Hosnian Prime fleet parade, so those are a lock as well. TFA also showed two huge, seemingly new MC cruisers as part of the HF; whether those were around circa 9ABY is anyone’s guess. Databank lists Home One as the NR flagship, so assuming NR flagship = HF flagship, MC85s are likely retired by 9ABY.

The Defender’s size is tricky, hangar measurements indicate 1+km and that’s what most credible folks are saying, but others (including the Wook) swear by ~700m.

 

I know I was initially thinking it was somewhere around the 1km mark, but my last measurements indicated that it was bigger. I do hope we get some more appearances of it in live action, books, or even some official numbers.
I got to admit I was a bit surprised that wookieepedia even had a length listed since there hasn't been any official numbers released. It also must have changed recently because a week or two ago it was listed as ~1000m.

 

The Vesper page and Dawnbringer page still say ~1000m at the moment.

 

Since you tagged me, I'll add that the fleet centred on Home One is too top-heavy with cruisers to match the pre-reboot "21-ship" task force configuration, which wouldn't have more than about five ships larger than a Nebulon-B (the largest we see is reinforced to a flagship and six cruisers); I have no strong views on what the balance of ships "means" here, except as an obvious reference to the Alliance fleet shots in the movies...

But then we have unanswered questions about the Defender, starting with what the exact role of the type is; the Vesper is "built for diplomacy and exploration, not war", according to its page at StarWars.com, which suggests they might not be a combat-oriented type, and that the impression of a large conventional fleet on guard is a little bit misleading - consular ships for diplomatic missions?

Another question is about their size - Wookieepedia's claim that the Defender scales out at 700m recalls the pre-reboot Defender-class carrier and Majestic-class cruiser... but precisely for that reason, it strikes me that it might just be mendacious fanon, and @Grevious_Coward has produced a much larger length; I don't think asking questions about the precise length of an A-wing and X-wing is going to skew them much out of the Imperial-class size-bracket based on his working, so the questions that need resolved are whether internal hangar shots give a different scale, and whether the size implied by the hangar is the same as the size implied by the bridge - the bridge height would be the metric I'd find the most compelling, because it's a lot more precise and directly relevant to the hullform than the potentially-inconsistent relative scale of a background snubfighter...

I like the point that a group of Defenders can be used to carry a decent number of starfighters, though they seem a lot of ship for the trouble, especially up at ISD length - don't they have just six parking slots in each hangar, for two squadrons each?

More generally, the emphasis on unsupported starfighters that's implied by Adelphi Base and the patrol in Skeleton Crew is obviously something that I like - and as you say, it also matches the emphasis in the pre-reboot material; that's something my recent attack-run through the novels made me very aware of, too...

I'd imagine that two or three fighters makes a minimal reconnaissance patrol - if they run into something they can't handle on their own, they can bring in a squadron or two...

As you say, they can't perform boarding inspections, but they don't have to - those can be done when ships are docked, and for ships that dodge New Republic ports, you can use agents to track down illicit landing sites...

That's the answer to that, then - thanks!!

- The Imperial Ewok