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

Well, there's opinion, and there's the available documents and research on the ships' design and construction. The USN already had a total of 17 "fast battleships" (two North Carolinas, four South Dakotas, six Iowas, and five Montanas) built or on order, all of which were capable of at least 27 knots. The need for more 30+ knot capital ships was addressed by adding the fifth and sixth Iowas ahead of the Montana-class; the only capital opponents the USN was really concerned with having to run down were the four converted Kongos and as it was the Iowas were viewed as having sacrificed too much protection for an extra six knots of speed. Overall the USN's concept of the battle line was to prioritize armor and firepower over speed (as seen with the Montanas reverting to a 28-knot top speed in return for a 33% increase in firepower and armor over the Iowas); their view was that if you kept coming at something the enemy wanted to defend they'd have to stop running and fight eventually. As carrier escorts, the Baltimores were just as fast, about 60% of the cost, required less crew (approximately 1,150 as opposed to 1,500-2,000+) and carried a comparable AAA battery (same six twin 5"/38s, 2 fewer quad Bofors and 10 fewer single Oerlikons). That's not to say the Alaskas weren't good ships; they were however in no way designed to fight battleship-level opponents and it's telling that they got pushed back on the priority list to the point where the two finished in the final year of the war were quickly mothballed afterwards, the third was cancelled at 84% completion, and the last three were cancelled outright in July 1943.

As far as an armor/shields comparison and "protection where you need," you have the "all or nothing" armor scheme that was used by just about every US capital ship design after 1912 as well as all British and Japanese designs from Nelson and Nagato onward. The post-WWI British designs tended to have less armor than their counterparts on the superstructure and (in the KGVs) turrets; they figured their ship captains would choose to fight from the bridge rather than an armored conning tower anyway and from WWI experience they felt increasing magazine armor and flash-protection measures in the turrets was more efficient.



Going back to canon, the Executor and later the Xyston-class are good examples of why shielding is so critical - in both cases the loss of shields exposed them to hits on vulnerable spots that doomed them. Armor might keep an unshielded ship from losing structural integrity under fire, but it will get hurt and vulnerabilities like command positions, hangar bays, engines, reactors, sensors, and the like will be exposed.

 

Difference is they knew when to stop pasting ships in ROTJ, oh and the movie was good. I just can't make myself care about some slightly altered or cg kitbashed ship designs that were miniscule on screen in a movie that I thought sucked. Show me the new models close up LFL, maybe then I would care to have an opinion on them.

 

The issue is completely unrelated to pasting. ROTJ absolutely didn't know what to stop pasting ships, you just cared more because ROTJ had an actual battle scene where we saw a good deal of the action up close. Complaining about pasting isn't going to solve anything, it's not the source of your issue in the first place.

 

Sounds like they're complaining just to complain.

 

I would expect TRoS had a way bigger budget than RotJ did, given Disney's deep pockets, so I was hoping for a better look at that sudden fleet, rather than just a big copy and paste job. Not to mention how much special effects have progressed since then. Something more like the Battle of Coruscant or Scarif. Well, that would probably be too much to expect from JJ.

It looks nice, from a distance, but then the trailer already had most of the fleet shots anyway. When there are that many ships, it just feels like overwhelming rather than impressive. It would be nice if some sourcebook detailed some of those kitbashes, they could probably use more creativity than TRoS allowed, since this movie fell back on lazy designs otherwise (the Xyston, Y-wings, B-wings, Tantive IV, although at least some of the other smaller ships were more original although none of their designs stood out to me).

 

About the budget.... I've been thinking about this for a while... Does anyone feel like this movie doesn't really use it's budget for anything in particular? Not that anything looks bad, everything looks as it should. But there isn't a BIG setpiece, a major CGI character or an expensive actor. The most expensive looking thing in the movie is the big set of the Resurgent exterior and the big CGI battle, but that one is so foggy and with so many recycled assets that doesn't feel like there is big budget used there.

 

Maybe the reason for recycling assets like for the allied fleet is to show that there was more than, I don't know, two or three of just the one ship! Besides, each system likely uses ships that have upgraded tech but look decades old. I liked seeing all those ships from different eras, because it meant they still existed and weren't sent to the scrap pile because they were five or ten years out of date. It's like seeing old steam engines still running on this world even though we've moved passed diesel engines into whatever the hell we have now for rail transportation.

 

Resistance shuttle

 

It is my understanding that GCW-era Mon Cals were virtually unarmored, making up for that with a comparatively rugged structure and redundant shield generators. The extent of redundancy has only ever been specified as being "triple redundant" on Home One. Applique armor may or may not have been installed similar to modern IFVs, with the only confirmed example being the MC75's armored "collar."

The post-GCW MC85 likely had much thicker armor simply by virtue of being a dedicated warship, and sports a bubble shield instead of the traditional hull-hugging variation used by earlier MC cruisers. I believe the bubble shield could have been more efficient due to a smooth ellipsoid likely having a smaller surface area than a hull-hugging shield, which extends over every notch, curve and crevice on the ship's surface, of which there are plenty in a Mon Cal; it's the same principle as a straight line from point A to point B being shorter in length than a squiggly line connecting the same points. Greater efficiency translates to slower depletion and faster replenishment under fire, which would've been handled by the many backup generators per Mon Cal doctrine.

 

There have to be a lot of EU designs in the background barely identifieable... Can I demand for Hapan Battle Dragons somewhere in there?

But if they only took what they had models for, how many different designs could it be? Hundreds? Any chromium Naboo ships aside the N1s? Separatist vessels? Did they only use models from movies or also games? We know they upgraded some from Rebels, TCW and animation for using them, like in Rogue One, but any from games? If so there are plenty more to choose from. No need to upgrade if in far back only even.

Here's hoping for Lobot piloting Lady Luck. Hondo's saucer fleet! The Moldy Crow?

 

Do you mean as a narrative point or a fictional technology? We don't actually know how these things are supposed to "work" in Star Wars, which is part of the problem.

All good questions. Regardless of the answer, this is basically about using a solid structure to redistribute the energy transmitted by a projectile. Even "thick and strong" is a form of energy redistribution. And then there are energy-manipulation technologies we don't understand in the real world, like repulsors. The deisgn of "armour" might vary considerably, too?

This is true - I really like the way that the heat sink aboard the Stalking Moon was a plot point in Edge of Victory: Rebirth. And there are also other positions that need to be exposed, like sensor mountings and weapons turrets, hangar bays and access hatches - while even "stopping" armour might take damage that progressively weakens the hull.

One important angle of shields is that they try to prevent any hull damage by preventing impacts altogether, rather than simply "defeating" them (or more exactly, limiting them by absorbing them in specific structures).

That's a lot of ships, but isn't that just the total number of ships on both sides - including the 10,000 ISDs and an unknown number of TIE Daggers?

Or a Force trick. So, what, this is N'zoth all over again?

Because Mon Calamari ships weren't built as genuine warships, they presumably only carry retrofitted armour, if any - but they may emphasise ruggedness of construction, designing the "unarmoured" spaceframe in a way that can take damage while protecting key hull areas. There's a difference in concept between a hull with "battleship armour" and a hull that's designed to take hits and retain integrity.

At the same time, their shields are strong - in the pre-reboot canon, the statblock (for what that's worth, and if I'm reading this correctly) implies that they're designed to stay up six times as long as an ISD's system by switching projectors - and more explicitly, their gunnery systems are designed to fight with accuracy at long range, in contrast with the ISD's emphasis on firepower over precise aim, while they're statted with equal speed to any large Imperial capital ship, meaning that they can keep that range.

The entire concept seems different from the ISD. While they look like a bluff-bowed battlewaggon, they fight like battlecruisers.

EDIT: @DarthCane - I've dropped out my original reply to you on the Alaska, which seems wildly off topic. I remain unconvinced by your argument, but I suspect neither of us is really willing to concede here, so there's no point in continuing...

Yes, we agree on this part.

A well-designed ship can partially mitigate this by enclosing power and propulsion within a hull structure that absorbs the damage even if unarmoured, and ideally, weapons and command positions will be armoured, but flight decks in particular are a great big vulnerability that there's virtually nothing you can do to protect.

Good point on the way that the Profundity's "armored collar" may add extra plate amidships, perhaps protecting the main power systems (though the Visual Dictionary does refer to the "armored forward hull" as well).

The rest of this paragraph broadly reflects my own thinking - good catch on that phrase "triple redundant", though. That's presumably where the idea that the Home One had three shield layers comes from, though I suspect that the intention was more likely two backups for every generator...

Regardless, if we take the "three layers of shields", and "three sets of generators" to be separate canon artefacts relating to separate aspects of the system aboard Home One (i.e., three sets of three generators each), that fits with the WEG statblock for a normal MC80, which will normally allow six "saves" to get the shields back up, correlating with two sets of three generators each.

For whatever the old WEG numbers are worth, the MC90 has the same shield strength as a normal MC80 of pre-Endor type, but a slightly tougher hull fully equal to an ISD - whereas the MC80B is statted with 33% stronger shields, and gets eight saves - a number that fits with two sets of four layers. Fan speculation, obviously, but everything fits neatly in a way that appeals to this Ewok.

What's your basis for the idea that traditional Mon Cal shields are typically close to the hull? Not challenging the statement/analysis of the design difference, which I very much like - I just don't recognize/recall the reference, and am curious.

I'll also raise the possibility that any armour scheme on an MC85 is going to be compromised by hangars and other big weak points like the ion scoop. Even TIE strafing seems to knock holes in the topside hull of Raddus. As with real-world modern warships, they may just not bother, and put all the emphasis on the shield...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

@Thrawn McEwok

The article specifically says "There are over 14,000 starships in the big arrival shot of the galaxy coming to the rescue". So yes, 14,000 ships are arriving in that shot. Even if we assume that the majority were starfighters and freighters, there were hundreds of actual capital ships in that arrival shot. Hell, just based on the ones at the FRONT of that armada, we see over two dozen Mon Calamari cruisers and at least as many of those new "Neb-BF".

Mon Mothma decentralizing the majority of NR warships to member worlds seems to have paid off.

@Sans_Fi

I don't know enough about movie budgeting, but I'd assume that the Battle of Exegol was rather expensive, ditto the stuff they filmed in Jordan. Furthermore, there are some IMPRESSIVE sets that were built. Hell, they made a full size CR90 corvette (or at least the front half of one), I imagine that cost a few pennies.

--Adm. Nick

 

Both.

Regarding fictional technology, there also is the https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Metal-Crystal_Phase_Shifter technology developed in the Maw that can disintegrate starship hulls.

I am thinking it may be either related to overloading any energy absorption technology integrated into hulls to the point of disintegration, or it is related to the Mandalorians rifle and weapons that can disintegrate entire beings on the spot!

But its ability to ignore/bypass shields entirely puzzles me as to how that might work to get around shields that easily. Only explanation I could come up with for that is from TFA how Han ignored planetary shields of Starkiller Base by hyperjumping right through them based on their pulsing frequency and hitting the "empty" tightspot between both pulses.

That then leads me to the "how do shields work" question. Are all shields pulsed or are others permanent? As of TFA, tight pulses seem to work (so long nobody is as crazy as Han) but why pulse them in the first place? Energy saving? Or would they have to be only because they are planetary shields and other smaller ones work different?

As with all things energy, frequency is an important factor in real life tech and in fictional one. And you wouldn't want anybody to figure out your pulsing and frequency to fire right through your shields. Star Trek had nice episodes and movies even where exactly this was used to fire right through shields by spying their pulse frequency.

This reminds me of the differences in starship design in the ancient times and now. As per EgtW and else, modern ships seem rather compact with hulls fully enveloping them with armor. Only the aforementioned weak spots have weaker armor but from the outside it looks all the same. Whereas in the distant past, ships had no complete set of armor and only reinforced plating over special sections of a ship, sometimes even it looked like hull-shields attached to poles around the ship at a distance instead of close up enclosure. Remnants of these designs can still be seen in some Separatist frigate designs. Even the old Katarn games had a level in, I think it was Dark Forces 2, where you venture between inner and outer hull into the empty space between both on a larger spacecraft!

I like it when authors mind technology and details they can use for their plot. Like when some authors played with the environmental systems on a ship gone crazy or such bits.

Regarding my earlier assumption of different types of shields (aside the anti energy and anti projectile shielding): Most ship shields we saw absorb the shot or dissipate over its surface and curvature. But I am not sure if I recall it right, we also saw shields that can mirror the incoming shot back outward. This of course is impractical in spaceflight for you do not want other ships to be hit by stray shots of your attacker ricocheting wildly. I think TPM personal shields of the Gungans had that effect. Maybe such shields are stronger and longer lasting given they do not need to dissipate or take energy but can mirror it right back, yet impractical for spaceflight.

If Gungan shield tech is related to their energy bubbles below, we may glimpse another interesting aspect: Giant animal mounted shields held energy shots and projectiles both off but allowed slower droid troops to pass through, only stopping high velocity objects. Regular particle shields can keep water at bay but would need to be deactivated to allow ships into a submerged hangar. Gungan shields though do not and have a permeable quality where beings and technology can pass through.
Is it only about speed though? Why is water stopped, water isn't fast. How about slowmoving fish? Wasn't there a TPM easter egg about fish floating throug the bubble and falling to the floor? (nice new fishing method they found there!).
So, as noted above, if Gungan shields can mirror incoming shots back outward as well as repell water yet allow beings and slow moving objects through they are incredibly advanced. Maybe they figured out how to use the shield pulsing to adjust it just so some is allowed through and others isn't.

Mon Calamari's shield tech is also impressive, but mostly based on lots of generators and overlapping with secondary shield systems most other ships would not bother with. But given they also can and have been submerged and needed to solve the water problem and the entering and exiting hangars or doors below water, are they related or closer to Gungan shields than one might think? Are both layers of shields on a Mon Cal vessel the same types or different shield types that complement each other nicely to minimize weaknesses?

 

Not sure if we're allowed to post them here but concept art for Trevorrow's IX script is floating around, including

Spoiler

the Eclipse on Coruscant

 

I was waiting and wanting that piece of concept art for that too, but...

Spoiler

Are you talking about the the shot of, I don't know, the Independence Day looking ship over Coruscant? Or is this something else. I am pretty sure from the script description that is a First Order mobile base of operations and not the Eclipse. I sure did love the sound of this script, and as described, would have loved to see the Eclipse and Kuat Drive Yards in live action, in all their glory.

The leaked pictures of the new First Order Star Destroyers were pretty neat too from the actual Art Book. One reminded me of the Legends Vengeance. Maybe some of those were meant to be the Eclipse as well.

 

Spoiler

I think you might be right, I had assumed it was the one given that's definitively in the same script but it might be a different type. Rumors are we're going to get more art soon so hopefully that includes something about Kuat and the actual Eclipse that gets stolen.

 

Okay. That's impressive.

The number is so incredibly big that I'd want to be absolutely certain this is the number following the Falcon, rather than just a misphrasing of the total number of CGI ships in the entire sequence, but that's still a huge technical achievement.

I'd be fasicnated to get a glimpse of the CGI for some of the ships in this sequence from other angles, or to know more about how they were designed.

You're as bad as me.

In quick response to your varied thoughts...

* Daala's pocket superweapons are so much "outside the usual rules" that they don't seem to be much use in determining those rules?

* I suspect the trick in TFA was based on the idea of "phasing through the shield" from Star Trek that you mentioned. Possibly less to do with purely mechanical aspects of the technology than with the oscillating cycle of energy.

* I'm not sure that the Prequel ships are definite examples of partial armour. As far as I know, the plated hull-sections on the Seppie cruiser and destroyer aren't explicitly portrayed as armour (and don't seem to be well-designed to protect all the vulnerable systems), but they're characterised in the cross-section with various other roles - as enclosing structures for large cargo bays and hangars, as heat sinks for cooling the power systems, and as structures which in some way "guide" the shield form.

* I'd be interested in specific examples of shields that can riccochet energy-bolts off them. Jar-Jar's hand-held Gungan shield in TPM is one - any others?

* Your observation that Gungan shields are used to keep the water out of their cities is a very apt reminder of that detail, which definitely suggests a reason for their tech - the entrance portal at the city allows through Gungans and Jedi while keeping the water out, while the defensive shield blocks blaster fire and apparently repulsor vehicles while letting battle droids march through. But is this that unusual? Conventional hangar shields are generally envisaged as allowing ships passage while maintaining integrtity (though I think the only time this is clearly seen in the pre-reboot films is in the added ESB scene where Vader's shuttle is shown entering a hangar while troops move about the interior), and the idea that slow-moving solid objects can push through shields has been around in sci-fi since before Star Wars. I suspect that this is how the Echo Base deflector was envisaged as working, too - the AT-ATs simply shrug their way through.

* One other thing we know can get through a shield perimiter is a shielded ship - X-wings vs. Death Star.

* The idea that the Mon Cal shields are also related to their use of underwater cities is intriguing. The strength of the system seems to be based on clever design rather than anything specifically innovative, unusual, or even technically demanding. The requirements are a lot of low-powered generators, a switching system to divert power between them, and perhaps some calibration to harmonize them.

* The suddenly reminds me of a detail in Shield of Lies, where Ayddar Nylykerka eyeballs Intimidator on the basis that "[a]ll of the late-production Super-class had that additional shield tower located on the centerline". Now, that's obviously something we're designed to read as a response to the sort of embarrassment that Executor encountered at Endor, but that's also, potentially, an Imperial adoption of the Mon Cal practice of adding backup shield projectors. Raising a question - if the two "shield domes" on top of the bridge are deflector generators, do they contribute to the same shield, or what...?



- The Imperial Ewok

 

@Thrawn McEwok

Current list of known classes in that arrival sequence below:



This doesn't include the various new Mon Cala designs, of which at least two appear to be new designs (the wide, flat one and the Scythe-class looking one). The MC75 appears to have several variants, including one with no ventral tower, one with "fins" off the stern, and a few others. The amount of "digital kitbashes" that appear in that shot seems to be pretty high, though they are less numerous than the established classes. Then there is the "Neb-BF", which appears very numerous too.

In short- we have A LOT to analyze once we get the digital release!

--Adm. Nick

 

Frankly, I always liked the idea that ships, at least big ones, had separate shield generators for different parts of the ship - after all, when the A-Wings blow up the dome things, the admiral is informed that the Executor lost its bridge deflector shields, not all its shields.

 

Actually, come to think of it, how could the A-wings have hit the shield generators in the first place unless the shields were already down?

 

Did you ever doubt that?

As cheesy as they may be... they exist, therefore I would not exclude them, though not making them the prime example may be better indeed. In the end of the day, it is the crazy stuff that truly defines Star Wars, not the parts where it plays within safe zones.

The Cross-section books had a great habit of trying to rationalise their function, but I found them going against original designers intent at times, like randomly attributing spacy-tech sounding functions to certain hull elements, nooks and bolts and the like. So I would not ignore these "other" functions, yet still keep designers intent and the visual feel of these ship parts in mind. If something in a movie looks like it has this or that function and is designed to invoke said idea, it probably might. Not saying Jabbas Sail Barges sails are actually sails... I know the limits to this approach.

While the Seppie ships may only look the part and not have actual external hull-shields, ancient designs of the Alsakan etc. conflicts from the Essential Guides do have that.

There really aren't that many examples. Prime still is Gungan shields, in Lit there would be Isolders personal shield in COPL and some artists depict shots reflected off of shields wildly, while others draw more of an absorption effect to visualise shields. But that is artistic freedom and hardly a rule there. Depends on artist. WEG illustrations and comics did that a lot.

Prequel movie shields seem to have also a ripple effect like water surface when dissipating the hit energy.

Echo Base shield was actually ending above mountains and AT-ATs walked through below its edge in a canyon in Legends.

Regarding Hangar shields: May them allowing passage have to do with phasing and oscillation cycle as well yet one where slower objects can pass through whereas defensive ones only highspeed like hyperspace velocity can? They are a different kind of shield from defensive shields then.

Tell me more! Was it specifically stated that a shielded ship enabled them to penentrate the shield? Or was the DS only shielded against Capital ships and their weapons? It might have energy shields further out in range than close range particle/missile shielding.

If shielded objects could penetrate a shield easily.. why not build shielded torpedos? hehehe... wait, the Galaxy Gun fired shielded huge scale torpedos through hyperspace! No planetary shield could stop them!

Interesting Shield of Lies bit I totally forgot about! Well the shield domes contribute as far as I know to the same shield. Though there may have been some sources that specified that one is for the entire ship, the other for the bridge tower I vaguely recall.

Again TPM springs to my mind: The Gungans employ several shield generators in the field that once activated slowly unify into one giant shield. Maybe the two dome shields work the same way to create the same shield but each got a major focus area that, if one is destroyed, remains protected while the other area is open to attack.

Pair that with X-Wing and Tie-Fighter or ship shields in general that you can angle around the ship, double forward, double aft, etc. as in the PC games of old. The Stardestroyer Cpt on the Executor even screams to "increase power to the forward deflector shield" as the A-Wing is closing in as if intending to double shields to the front or redirect power from engines or weapons to shields, as also was a common aspect of the games power distribution system I loved.

Now a third shield dome solely used for the Bridge protection may be interesting.

We know shields can be extended to envelop other ships and protect them as done in TLJ with the Resistance fleet. Or they can be pulled in tight around the ship itself only. If about the same range, shields may merge into one larger shield as seen with the TPM Gungan porteable shield generators. Yet, if you operate two shields at different ranges, one close around the vessel, the other further out, they might not merge and you have double layer shielding effectively!

While merged shields have the benefit to be stronger, one giant hit takes them out and you are done for. Double layering them may add the benfit that if the outer layer is taken out, the lower is still there until you bring up backup generators as the Mon Cala love to do.

 

That question wins the day!

As games protray it, they can't! You have to either weaken shields shot by shot to the point of collapse to get through, or you hit them with enough firepower at once to overload and collapse so you get through. Unless you fly through energy shields (not particle shields) with your ship and fire below the shield at the dome. A-Wings got pretty close before taking them out.

 

It would make sense if the A-Wings are firing all of their concussion missiles into the shield domes, not lasers blasts. Missiles going through the energy ray shields.

 

According to one of Saxton's commentaries the Executor does actually have several sets of "globes" which, given how the "shields fall" as soon as the bridge ones are destroyed, are unlikely to be used as backup but rather as a way to effectively cover the whole ship with indipendent sets. It's a bit far fetched, but I like to think that when Ackbar ordered to "focus on the power generators" what he meant was to focus fire on the area around the bridge to overload the shields there, it's not like they could actually target said power generators with the shields up anyway.
Also a bit off topic, but Saxton does provide some fairly good points on why the globes were not actually meant to be the generators in the movie. Of course, that doesn't really matter now given how heavily canonised this assumption is now.

 

Actually don't most games have it so that the Star Destroyer is completely invincible until you destroy those globes? Which for some reason are never covered by the shields...