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

The idea that TIEs are not assigned to individual pilots goes back at least to Star Wars Adventure Journal #10, which I was looking at apropos of the TIE/gt yesterday. That's presented as a Rebel Alliance document, so could be retconned somewhat...

I have a vague idea that some WW2-era air arms didn't formally assign individual planes to specific pilots, but I can't find much immediately on google - the only reference I came up with quickly was to B-17s in the Pacific, which surprised me...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I'm sure that kind of thing happened more often in WWII when aircraft were less sophisticated.

I can understand how with the amount of Ties produced and in service that the maintainers can keep them all at the same specifications. At least to a degree that jumping in a different fighter for each flight doesn't affect their combat effectiveness.

My real world experience just makes me cringe thinking about it lol

 

Certainly TIE Fighter strongly implied that regular pilots were simply assigned craft based on availability and mission. However, it also seems implied that this wasn't true for the more high-end craft, like the TIE Defenders or the Missile Boats.

 

Bomber pilots are said to require specialised training (and presumably the same goes for other heavily specialised crafts like the Boarding Craft or the Reaper), and it's often said that only elite pilots are allowed to fly interceptors and defenders.
It might be that each pilot, while not assigned to a particular ship, is assigned to a certain type of ship (which could change as he advances in rank).

 

For what it's worth, my head canon on this topic has been that, by this point in the war, most if not all Acclamators and other dedicated troop transports/assault ships are tied up in the Outer Rim sieges that are ongoing, and that as a result, Venators are being pressed into troop transport duty to put out emergent fires such as Kashyyyk and Utapau.

 

I feel like Venators would be in even greater demand than Acclamators, so using them as stopgap troop transports still wouldn't make sense.

 

That may be. Though I'd imagine that - as someone mentioned earlier (apologies to whomever that was, I can't remember) - there could conceivably have been a shift in production focus to more versatile designs like the Venator later in the war, in which case Venators would likely far outnumber more specialized designs like the Acclamator (which would align with what we see onscreen in ROTS). In such circumstances you'd probably be more likely to have a jack-of-all-trades ship like a Venator to spare for an issue that springs up, rather than a specialized ship, which would make the most sense to have committed to a pre-planned campaign. I'm certainly no military strategist but it seems to me to be most intuitive to hold your more versatile assets in reserve rather than the specialized ones - allows the most flexibility in responding to unforeseen needs.

 

The Acclamator is also a jack-of-all-trades though. We've seen it used as a troop transport, starfighter carrier, and a battleship/cruiser...all the same things the Venator does. The Venator is really just a better Acclamator.

 

No sure those light quads on the Acclamator pack the same punch as the heavy doubles of the Venator.

 

Yeah but at the start of the Clone Wars, that's all they had right? Unless I'm mistaken.

 

Personally, I think that the Acclamator-class is both a better looking design. Furthermore, it has those four capital ship grade torpedo/missile tubes on the bow that make it extra deadly. It's probably my favorite Prequel Era design. The VenStar just doesn't do it for me, plus unless the thing is a Tardis, the established Saxtonian fighter counts would never fit. Period.

--Adm. Nick

 

Wanted to ask, I was looking at the concept art for TFA and saw the Warhammer ships and that kind of got me interested in the concept. Like a siege ship designed to breach planetary shields for the NR. How big would such a ship be cause it certainly looks much bigger than the ISD.

Also, I like the idea of the NR using such a ship. Kind of seems like the NR equivalent of the Torpedo Sphere. Crack planetary shields and assault heavily defended worlds. Like was it something the NR made to break entrenched Imperial worlds post-Endor? I’m kind of mixing canon and Legends here but it’s just something that intrigued me.

 

Agree overall...just thing the command tower could have been a little nicer...and instead of the light quads give it 3 dual heavies like the Venators.

 

EC Henry posted a video today on another of the ESB "Rebel rag tags":



I've been wondering about these ships for decades now. It's awesome that he's doing some in-depth analysis, along with some creative interpretation. His earlier video from a month or so back:



One important note: He keeps mentioning he's had access to the actual shooting miniatures. Any idea if they've been seen or discussed at all in the past? I remember seeing a single photo from the old StarWars.com Hyperspace site that showed the glass wall with images he refers to in his newest video. But other than that, zilch.

Haven't been posting much lately, but seeing these videos got missing the old forums again!

--danielc56

 

It's worth noting that the Acclamators featured in The Clone Wars feature a completely different bridge module that's much more similar to the later KDY designs, so different that I doubt it's a "stylistic choice".
I personally headcanon it as an Acclamator-II model, introduced later in the war to be up to date with the newer Venator.

 

Lucasfilm Story Group needs to get right on it. Does anyone have that picture from old Hyperspace site?!

 

Double post.

 

Here are the two I saved. I think that's all there ever was. Not much to go by.



If I recall, the text that went along with it corroborates the video's statement about these ships being painted on a glass plate to be used in fx shots. But those painted images came from actual physical models at some point. I'd love to know what happened to them.

--danielc56

 

I wasn't really disagreeing with you, I just over-edited my comments for excessive neutrality of tone.

True, and that's two years earlier than SWAJ #10. I wonder if there's an earlier reference...

Can anyone think of an example of a TIE squadron which doesn't standardise on a particular type - dogfighters, attack planes, or the rarely-seen-in-narrative-storylines reconnaissance variants? I would assume that the "no personal planes" rule applies within the unit - I can't imagine that a pilot from a TIE/gt unit would climb into an Interceptor just because he was the first flyer to the hangar, for example.

The one possible exception might be TIE Fighter, where the player gets to work through an entire roster of TIE types, but the game-mechanics there are justified in the associated narrative based on Maarek Stele's status as half-test-pilot, half-Emperor's-Hand...

@Commodore_Chris @Alpha-Red @Chris0013 @AdmiralNick22 - I've always liked the Brandon Badeux "variant" of the Acclamator from the comics (seen both in Star Wars Tales #21, and for Pellaeon's Leveler in Republic #64), which has a classic "v-shaped" ventral hull with a capture bay like the Venator, Imperial, Interdictor/Vindicator and Finalizer, in place of the rather more angular arrangement seen in Ep.II necessitated for ground loading, with huge landing struts, side ramps and flat-decked internal space...

Thanks for the link! I love the kitbashed wing flipped so that the nacelles become thrusters (and is that a tailfin at the bottom?)...!

,
Mac

 

Agreed that all the craft-hopping in TIE Fighter is mostly game mechanics, though we could say that Steele is a kind of special floating superace that can fly anything. Soontir Fel was certainly not a TIE Bomber pilot.

I always took it that the Saxton numbers were the absolute maximum capacity the Venator could carry if it carried nothing else but that one type of fighter. There's no way these things were hauling 400 Jedi Interceptors at a time - you could squeeze the entire Order into one battlegroup!

Those are gorgeous, and further proof that I should go back and read Republic.

 

Yeah, but if the Venator's designers built a ship that can carry that many fighters, and that capacity is never used to its fullest...then that's just a ton of empty space that's being wasted. Either fill up that space with more fighters, walkers, or assault shuttles...or install more shield generators or armor or turbolasers...or just build a smaller ship.

 

Resistance A-wings and the FO "Mandator" from Age of Resistance: Finn.

Spoiler

[SPOILER/]

 

I guess I'm in the minority for preferring the Venator over the Acclamator, and rather strongly! Acclamators just seems a little awkward and not quite ISD-y enough when first introduced, and the Venator was there when the PT finally had it's "reveal a wedge-shaped capital ship after the crawl" moment, so it had me from the start. And my fondness for TCW probably cemented the preference.

 

Yeah, I think as far as looks go, the Venator is one of my favorite ships.

 

I liked the Venator's red color scheme, nice way to mark it as a Republic ship (even if the giant doors were a bit silly). Though I liked the Acclamator as well as it worked as a proto-Star Destroyer- the wedge shape but obviously much smaller. I was always sad TCW basically downgraded it to just a troop transport (not sure it ever showed it had weapons on that show). And the tail fin felt distinctive (and I'm glad the later Imperious-class Star Destroyer had one too).