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

Well, there is also Hast, which was the location of a top-secret Rebel shipyard. Granted it was attacked by the Empire, but I imagine that the New Republic got it back up and running.

I don't have my Atlas handy, but is Nocto (Ariam Sector shipyard location[/i] in the Outer Rim as well?

--Adm. Nick

 

Nocto is in the Outer Rim, yes.

 

Please define shipyard.

 

Orbital manufacturing/repair facilities capable of mass producing large scale warships such as Star Destroyers?

I'm not talking about little family operated yards that can build light freighters or transports. I'm talking about the sort of strategic shipyards that are critical to galactic commerce and military production.

 

Didn't Fondor have ship yards in LotF?

 

And it's always had shipyards anyway, iirc.

 

Well, I'm back. Much to which I need comment, it seems. First off, we have...

Hm, I know that a few years back, I made the observation that the fighters couldn't all fit as they were drawn. Which calls into question why the ICS books are considered to be more definitive than others, methinks. If they're more than willing to abandon scaling accuracy for dramatic effect, what's the point? Also, why do the fighters scale properly to the rest of the vessel (most importantly, the portholes on the bridge) if they're not to scale with the hangar that they're sitting in?

I've stated as such in previous posts: But yes, the GladStar was originally envisioned as a VSD escort, but the designs were sold to and then changed by KDY to make it into a more multirole vessel.

There is no explicit statement that size is a defining characteristic of the majority of Star Wars combatant types. This doesn't even hold true in the real world all that often--compare a contemporary U.S. aircraft carrier with anything currently in service with Russia, Britian, or France. They're all warships of similar design intent and capability, all different sizes, and all still aircraft carriers. And need I point out the Kaloth-class battlecruiser being barely larger than a Nebulon B-class? Or all the instances in which "battleship" is used as a generic a la 'warship'?

What, pray tell, are they downscaled from? None of the aforementioned ships is a reduced version of a previously-larger ship, as far as we know. I'll grant that the uncertain lineage of the GSD makes it possible for it to have been intended to be larger at one point, but even assuming that it was, she's designated as a Star Destroyer once it's all said and done.

 

Eriadu has shipyards comparable with Sluis Van.

Cracken's Threat Dossier states that "The Imperial OB [Order of Battle] calls for each sector to maintain two deepdock shipyards, plus as many orbital yards as were necessary to maintain the sector group . . . These great shipyards not only repaired but also constructed Imperial ships from light cruisers to Imperial Star Destroyers, usually by local contractors under corporate supervision." So it seems you can assume that each Outer Rim sector has at least two shipyards that meet the basics of the definition (assuming by "orbital," you meant "spaceborne"; if you specifically wanted orbital, the number becomes lower and much less specific).

 

So what? The Venator and Imperial are also meant to be escorts, among several other roles. ROTS:ICS explicitly says the Venator is both a battleship escort, a starfighter carrier, fast enough to chase down blockade runners and yet large enough to be a command ship on independent missions. The Imperial and Tector classes then phase it out, and lo an behold, we see the Imperials as battleship escorts, starfighter carriers, chasing down blockade runners and acting as independent command ships in the OT.

Apart from carrier roles and a lack of battleships to escort, real-life destroyers do pretty much the same thing.
In the past, they were more focused on escort (alá the original Gladiator), but with the new naval situations, the only thing seperating them from cruisers is their size. So, size-based classifications are used in real-life, even if the 21st Century Warship program would potentially make that irrelevant. Up until that could happen, history has shown a difference in types being mainly dependent on their designs, and therefore sizes. You can't argue away historical realities and I certainly don't plan to disgard naval terms when they are used in fiction. If they wanted fictional names, they should invent them from the ground up.

A half-assed reason like "Star Destroyer doesn't mean Destroyer, but something that can destroy star systems" is not satisfactory. Especially since the navy that uses these ships, classify mid-sized warships as them, but reserve other classifications for larger designs. Again, Star Cruisers, Star Battlecruisers and Star Dreadnoughts, all of which are names based on real-life, historic warship types. Even if the Empire's Star Destroyers and Star Cruisers are only divided by their sizes, it's at least tangially related to real-life naval developments.

Then why does WEG provide caveats seperating corvettes, frigates and cruisers? Even pointing out that these are usually bigger and bigger in size? Why does Heir to the Empire Sourcebook say everything from 400 meters and up in length, is a cruiser? Why not a destroyer, frigate, corvette etc.?

Aircraft carriers mainly carry aircraft, not guns, for their offensive capability, that is their main definition. You're using that as an argument that all other types are not defined by their dimensions, something which is pretty explicit at all point in naval history. Battleships were the largest warships afloat, battlecruisers were of a similar size, but had lesser armor in order to make them go faster (improvements in battleship engines made that type obsolete). Cruisers were primary combatants with lesser armaments than battleships and were smaller in size. Destroyers were originally lighter escorts meant to intercept and chase hostile seacraft, later becoming more like cruisers in roles and size. To say that none of these definitions are showcased in real-life or SW designs, is just ludicrous.

The Dreadnaught-class is a downscaled battleship, since ROTS:ICS compares it with a battleship of the Trade Federation in that paragraph. The downscaled cruisers likely compare the same way to the Imperial Star Cruisers and the Subjugator-class heavy cruisers, ships larger than the Imperial Star Destroyers and Confederate destroyer designs, respectively. The d

 

You're drifting away from your initial point, that the GladStar was designed to be an escort. It may once have been primarily intended for that role--a frigate's role--but it was then repurposed into a multirole warship that could escort, but could do any number of other things as well. The VNSD, ISD, et al are the same way.

I agree completely with "...difference in types being maintly dependent upon their designs..." but the, "...and therefor sizes..." not so much. I've already pointed out the aircraft carrier bit, but what about assault ships? Should the Wasp magically turn into a carrier because she's larger than a Tarawa? How about the fact that the U.S. operated frigates that were larger than destroyers through much of the Cold War? You're perfectly content to ignore historical realities, so long as they don't muddle your overly simple definition system.

And I could've sworn that 'Star Destroyer' wasn't a pre-existing U.S. Navy designation for a type of ship circa 1977. Guess I was way totally wrong about that. I could've also sworn that it's been confirmed--repeatedly--that George opted for the term 'Star Destroyer' because it sounded cool (it reminded him of 'fighter-bomber') and not because he was going out of his way to craft a detailed and nuanced space warship classification system modeled on then-contemporary Western naval nomenclature.

This is an opinion, not a fact.

Awesome, show me the explicit ships of these types. I will wait. The only ones I'll allow you are Executor and Eclipse, and I'm not debating the etymology of 'Star Dreadnaught'. As it stands, there isn't a single explicit Imperial 'Star Cruiser' known to exist, and the battlecruisers do so only as names with no details or defined naming conventions.

Maybe because these are general

 

Now you're just contradicting for the sake of contradicting people.

Using carriers as an example for anything but carriers is nonsense. They carry planes, nothing else defines them, unlike destroyers, cruisers and battleships. I like how you ignore the fact that those frigates (which were cruisers in all but name) became redesignated as cruisers because the Navy saw a gap in their forces. Gee, a shiptype that's larger than destroyers being redesignated as an earlier shiptype known to be larger than destroyers.

Again, battleships were defined by their size and firepower, same with battlecruisers, with the only difference being in armored hull. Cruisers were always second in size after those ships and destroyers and frigates came after that again. That was an historical reality, not the nonsensical "size means nothing" ideology you seem to fall for. It's pretty clear you don't have any kind of understanding how and why ships are constructed the way they are.

Battleships are large for a reason (the power equipment and amassed armament), destroyers are lighter for a reason (to be quicker and more maneuverable). They don't make designations arbitrarily, which you seem to think, given you see nothing strange about a navy that has patrol cruisers a few dozen meters long, corvettes and frigates that are several hundred meters in turn and then suddenly cruisers again a few hundreds to several thousands of meters long on top of that. The same naval-based terms being used in mixed designs only make sense with different standards and company practices, not because the navy expects them all to be on par, regardless of size. Size is a crucial factor for any design, anyone who's ever worked in shipyards or industrial plants or at least studied engineering knows this.

As for Star Destroyer, Star Destroyer can easily mean "a destroyer among the stars" rather than "a warship that can destroy star systems", which technically none of them can do.

Again, the pre-war Trade Federation fields battleships as their largest and most heavily armed warships, cruisers as their second largest warships, lighter destroyers for convoy escort and as blockade runner hunters and missile frigates as support ships. (AOTC:ICS, Starfighter)
In the Confederacy, the Separatist Quarren add a destroyer/carrier design to combat Republic Star Destroyers in groups, (ROTS:ICS) a heavy cruiser to combat multiple Star Destroyers and smaller craft on its own, far from support, (SW:TCW) the Banking Clan a frigate to support the fleets and act as nodes in a comm network, while the Commerce Guild donates a light destroyer design to support the fleet and carry out raids on Republic supplies. (ROTS:ICS)
The Republic and later the Empire uses Star Destroyers for much the same purpose as the TF and Confederate destroyers and their most important sectors are guarded by various Star Battlecruisers and Star Dreadnoughts. (AOTC:ICS) Again, their Star Destroyers are eclipsed in size by Star Cruisers and Star Dreadnoughts, as size is used in ITWT to differentiate the types. The author who worked on those books differentiates between the Star Destroyers, the Star Battlecruisers and the Star Dreadnoughts by their sizes and subsequently the roles they play within a given navy, which is partially based on real life naval history, where battlecruisers and dreadnoughts were larger than destroyers.

EDIT: Adding some smaller answers, because, who cares.

The Carrack has been called a "gunship" in at least one story (Darksaber), so I guess the whole "light cruiser" thing isn't entirely set in stone. Then again, with different classifications and eras, that is understandable. Gunship actually makes more sense, since it exists in a post-peace time era where most mainline warships are much bigger.
No, the TF battleship is compared with the Rendili Dreadnaught in the book ROTS:ICS, which is itself "downscaled" and therefore compared to a larger and more "true" battleship design produced by a more resourceful and wealthier power. No fanon about it being a cruiser, the Lucrehulk-class is a

 

Maybe it's just me, but that sure looks like the back of another TF battleship. I don't see anything that makes it look like a new, previously unseen design.

--Adm. Nick

 

It's easier to see in motion. The thing has four engines, not three, and it has some protrusion on either side at the top. I recall an old ILM spoiler about putting Farscape ships in as easter eggs, might be something like that.

 

In Flashpoint: Brak Sector, there's an interesting statement on the Imperial forces...
"Because of Lant Mining Corporation's loyalty and influence, the Empire correctly surmised that only a minimal show of force was necessary to keep the sector in line. As Brak sector's importance has increased, so has the Imperial presence.
Imperial forces were strengthened as LMC became a major supplier to military industry. However, it wasn't until the construction of four fleet staging areas that the Imperial military became a prominent feature of the sector. For the first time, the Imperial Sector Group was increased to standard levels to protect the new facilities."
While there's a 'standard' level for Sector Groups, note that Brak Sector did not receive one until it became a vitally important sector to the Empire - and it was located in the Expansion Region, not in the Outer Rim.
The CSWE also gives the most recent answer about how much of the Imperial Fleet was in reserve:
"All told, the Empire built more than 25,000 Star Destroyers, holding half of them on reserve in the Galactic Core to protect key military, industrial, and political systems. The Empire could strategically deploy the ships anywhere on short notice."

Brett: Looks like the CSWE has identified the Shockwave as an Imperial-class SD, for whatever that's worth.

McEwok: As much as I hate to say it, I have to retract my statement that the term "star battlecruiser" would probably be incorporated into the Imperial/Republic system. The CSWE has depreciated the term - while "Star Cruiser" and "Star Dreadnaught" both show up, with the Mandators still labelled as the latter, the Procurators and Praetors are both labelled "battle cruiser", exactly as it appears here - two words, no capitalization, no 'star' in front. The Quaestor is also described in exactly the same fashion.
You might also be interested in the entry for KDY which states it "began experimenting with the development of massive starships shortly before the onset of the Clone Wars."

 

"All told, the Empire built more than 25,000 Star Destroyers, holding half of them on reserve in the Galactic Core to protect key military, industrial, and political systems. The Empire could strategically deploy the ships anywhere on short notice."

Is that under "Star Destroyer" or "Imperial-class"?


Mac

 

That's also from as far back as the NEGTVAV, blackmyron. The Encyclopedia adds that this was under the auspices of the Techno Union, which KDY was a member of at the time. Following the break with them before the war, Kuat decides to build starships for the Republic from that point on.

As for battle cruiser, it's used for all classes previously identified either by Star Battlecruiser (Praetor, Procurator) or Battlecruiser (Bulwark, Kaloth). This doesn't change their designations any more than skipping the Star prefix on the Imperial, Victory or Venator class, which has happened in multiple sources.

 

All right, I know what you're up to...

But yes, it's listed under the "Star Destroyer" entry, and not the "Imperial-class" ones.

 

I just want to know by what arbitrary fan law does McEwok decide that while all other capital ship articles in Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded refer to specific models (CR90 profile for the Corellian Corvette, EF76 frigate for the Nebulon-B, MC80 cruiser for the Mon Calamari cruiser), this does not apply to the ISD-I profile for the Imperial Star Destroyer article, which contrary to his fanon idea, says there were over 25,000 of those particular ships built?

 

In regards to the 25,000 Star Destroyer quote, I fall between ThrawnMcEwok's and Tziz's viewpoint.

On one hand, I do not suscribe to Thrawn's view that the 25,000 figure includes all wedge shaped warships, such as the Gladiator-class, Vindicator-class, or Acclamator-class.

On the other hand, I do not have any problem with the idea that the 25,000 figure includes the following classes:

Exeuctor-class Star Dreadnought/Star Destroyer (15 or less)
Imperial-II or Imperial-II class Star Destroyers (probably at least 20,000)
Victory-I or Victory-II class Star Destroyers (less than 5000)

Of course, I am a "moderate" on fleet size/scale issues, so me falling between the minimalists and maximalists is probably no suprise to anyone.

I doubt that my middle ground will prevent another round of salvos between the respestive "fleet commanders" I mention above, but from time to time I like to post to remind any lurkers that Fleet Junkies have a middle ground as well.

--Adm. Nick

 

Actually Nick, I'm probably right there in the middle with you.

The CSWE implies inclusion of the Exes in the count, and the VSDs appear part of the "24 Star Destroyer" count in the Trax Sector Fleet. The Tectors are probably in there as well, but I presume them to be much less common that the ISDs (considering their lack of ability as a carrier or planetary occupation), and less so as the Trilogy SB suggests they're being converted to ISDs anyways over time. The vast majority would be the ISDs, though, and the VSDs only included because the Imperial Fleet hadn't phased them out completely yet.

 

No, I genuinely disagree with your assessment of the available information.

"Using battleships as an example for anything other than guns is nonsense. They carry guns, nothing else defines them..."

Fixed to illustrate logical flaw.

Additionally, the reclassification, as per the 1975 U.S. Navy reclassification effort, was done mainly for political reasons to address the so-called "cruiser gap" of the Cold War. While the Soviets had nineteen cruisers, we only had six at that time, even though the Soviet cruisers were considerably smaller than our own. Additionally, you're neglecting the fact that frigates, under the '75 reclassification, were "generally midway between cruisers and destroyers" in size and tonnage, and were differentiated based on their capabilities rather than their specific length. You're also blatantly ignoring the fact that the Ticonderoga-class was built to the scale of most contemporary destroyers and only wrangled into the cruiser designation through--lo and behold--capabilities. The Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer is longer and far heavier than the Ticonderoga-class cruiser.

Nobody's arguing that a contemporary [sic] battleship isn't huge: Their defined capabilities, which dictate their designation, are that they have the biggest guns and maximum armor. This more or less requires great size to accomplish, but it isn't the size that defines the ship, it's the role for which that vessel is built. I said this in my previous post, but I guess I wasn't clear enough. So, for clarity's sake:

Yes, certain types of ships tend to be certain sizes. This is usually related to the amount of space needed for them to fulfill their missions. Battleships tend to be huge because it takes up a lot of space to mount the heaviest guns and armor. Destroyers tend to be small because they don't need as much of it in order to be fast. Ditto frigates, who often require even less space to be escorts for fleets or submarine hunters.

Star Wars generally tends to be the same. Star Destroyers tend to be large because they need to be in order to act as battleships, carriers, assault ships, pursuit ships, and command vessels all at once. But a Star Destroyer's keel can be laid down and built into another type of vessel, and even though it's of nearly identical size, its capabilities change its classification.

 

Even Saxton calls them 'freighter-battleships'.

The quote from the ICS:ROTS mentioning 'self-made, downscaled ships' is indeed intriguing, mainly for that first part - who knew that Rendili StarDrive was based on Utapau? (A wholly irresponsible interpretation would be to assume the statement refers to known ships manufactured by the limited resources of Utapau like the Porax-38s, and they purchased the Dreadnaught from elsewhere). Of course, even more devastating is next line that says 'their biggest anti-pirate Rendili Dreadnaught is one-fifth of the size of a Trade Federation Battleship'. Even the most ardent minimalist would have to concede that it unmistakably states that the former is smaller than the latter.

 

Rendili does have a system of smaller shipyards in the Mid and Outer Rim. Utapau is in the Outer Rim. They make their own Rendili Dreadnaughts. 2 + 2 = 4.

And what does the author of these two books say on the matter?

Boldened for emphasis. Just so we're clear on this.

Oh, if anyone can show a point in world history where battleships and battlecruisers were smaller than other types of warships, please do so. Historically, the heaviest guns were carried by the largest warships in the fleet, their dimensions were designed to manage the guns and their support apparatus. You're ignoring that, BrettBass, to post some nonsense to mock my "carrier" argument. It's false and it shows a blatant ignorance of actual naval history.

 

Let's take your circumstantial 'shipyard' at face value and follow this to the logical conclusion:
Utapau has an arms embargo against it. Utapaun Rendili Dreadnaughts are self-made. Utapaun Rendili Dreadnaughts are 'downscaled'. Rendili StarDrive does not have an arms embargo against it. Therefore depictions of Utapaun Rendili Dreadnaughts do not represent Rendili Dreadnaughts in general.
However, like I said, there's nothing in the numerous sources that depict Utapau possessing a Rendili - or any other corporation - capital shipyard. Feel free to think otherwise.

Bold all the authorial intent you like - but it's still fanon if it's not in a licensed work.