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

Impressive list. I hope I can add to this. [image=http://swg.allakhazam.com/images/RebelGunboat.jpg]
[image=http://swg.allakhazam.com/images/mobs/ImperialGunboat.jpg]
[image=http://swg.allakhazam.com/images/mobs/CalHandro'sShip.jpg]
I hope these are new.

Also, I may have missed them, but I don't think that I've seen these RPG ships:
Yinchorri fighter
Gozanti Cruiser
Taylander shuttle
Vanguard-class Heavy Assault Gunship

Finally, thank you for finally showing me the Kaloth crusier

 

I vote Fleet Junkies--Your Capital Ship Harbour

 

Springing off finally being able to take a proper dekko at the old WEG material... we need to sort out class designations...

The standard WEG system was introduced on pp. 50-53 of the RASB, and maintained by them reasonably consistently thenafter:

Following are the standard Imperial classifications of capital ships; with some variations, these are also used by the Alliance and by many other spacefaring species. It should be noted however that the distinction between vessel types is often muddy, and individual corporations or navies may give their ships wholly inappropriate classifications

The classifications given are: starfighters (crew 1-2); (hyperspace-capable) fast attack craft and (sublight-only) patrol vessels (crew 4-20); corvettes (crew 40-200); frigates (crew, up to 1,000); cruisers (everything larger, up to and including the Super-class, "with the exception of a few bizarreties such as the Death Star battlestation"). It's implied that frigates have a support role, while cruisers are designed to frighten enemies, and where that fails, for ship-to-ship combat.

The ISB (p. 51) gives a length-bracket for system patrol craft at 100-250m, while the HttESB apparently defines Star Destroyers as a distinct "large" subclass of cruisers, and pegs the standard minimum length for a cruiser at 400m, though noting the 350m Carrack as an exception (I can only find the Carrack reference in the combined TTSB, though; p. 214)...

Out of all this, we seem to be able to infer the following (figures in italics are inferred from those stated explicitly, underlined figures derive from the statistics of specific classes):

patrol craft - 100-250m; crew, 4-20; sublight only
fast attack craft - 100-250m; crew, 4-20; hyperspace-capable
corvettes - 100-250m; crew, 40-200; multi-purpose scout/pickets
frigates - 250-400m; crew, 200-1,000; support/escort ships
cruisers - 400m->20km; crew, >1,000; psychological impact and fleet combat
[Star Destroyers - >900m; crew, >5,000; large, arrowhead-hulled modern cruisers]

Now while some of the RASB/ISB narrative may have been redefined as "certain point of view" stuff by the Prequels, this is still the canoncal "standard Imperial system" of the movie era, also adopted in outline by the Rebellion. There are, of course, wobbles at the edges of the classification-brackets, like the Carrack-class; and there are "muddy" exceptions - why are the Alliance's modified Rendili Dreadnaughts and largest Mon Cal cruisers described as "frigates"; and where do carriers fit in? Also, the "corvette" designation seems to covers a lot of different type-names - blockade runners, destroyers, gunships.

But as an overall system to help classify and simplify things... well, this works, doesn't it?

For those who I know will object to the fact that the "cruiser" bracket extends 50x in length alone, I merely observe that that's why we have the terms "Star Destroyer" and "Super Star Destroyer" (even if ItW cites the latter only as "Rebel slang"; at the least, the term is also used by non-Rebels). Given that the ISB (p. 57) calls the Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser "the largest vessel of its time", we might infer that the cruiser bracket was stretched to breaking point by the construction of ever-larger ships during and after the Clone Wars.

Of course, we know that there are larger, older ships, but would it be too much to classify the old multi-km dreadnaught/battleship/warship designs as obsolescent, and to include the Mandator-IIs among the "few bizarreties"? As to the TFBB, I merely note that the ex-TF "heavy munitions cruiser" Admiral Korvin is bigger.

While there may be tweaks and minor twists, I think it remains canonical that this is the standard system used by the Empire (and apparently the Alliance/NR). Anything that doesn't fit - Rebel Assault Frigates and Headquarters Frigates, Seperatist Communications Frigates and Light

 

Sr: the Chiss Star Destroyer, as AdmiralWes pointed out elsewhere, is actually coned shape....

Well, they're called Victory-class Star Destroyers, but Troy Denning has indicated in his A&A thread that these are Star Destroyer analogs rather than VicStar variants; either way, though, they don't affect the definition - they're either simply Chiss analogs, or they're a modified version of a dagger-hulform design...

IMHO?

Star Frigate, Star Destroyer, Star Cruiser, Star Battlecruiser, Star Dreadnaught????

Is what Curtis Saxton would like us to think. But standard Mon Cal Star Cruisers are smaller than standard Imperial Star Destroyers, and I don't think there's a single canonical "Star Frigate"... it is possible that "Star Destroyer" represents a term originating in a different (Kuati?) designation-pattern, but there's no explicit evidence either way... and in any case, "Star Destroyer" has become enmeshed in the standard system as a "super-crusier" designation...

However, you do have a good point - some ships just don't fit in the system, which is expected of a galaxy of shipbuilders.

Thanks!

May I ask where you discovered the Munitions Cruiser is larger than the TFBB??

Actually, you're right. That turns out to be hopeless fanon.

Korvin, apparently a purpose-built warship, is the largest ship of Sienar's squadron, but Tarkin's flagship, the "converted hauler" Rim Merchant Einem is compared favourably with her, as "a larger vessel filled with many more weapons"; given the makeup of Tarkin's force, she must be one of "two converted midsized Hoersch-Kessel Drive cargo haulers - smaller than the ungainly craft that had blockaded Naboo, but of the same type". Ergo, the scale runs Korvin => Einem => TFBB. Nevertheless, "battleship", if it's even a formal designation, isn't a standard one according to the WEG (Imperial) system; firstly, they're converted cargo haulers, and more to the point, they should presumably be cruisers, or perhaps carriers, by the standard system...

Of course, you could argue from this that what we're dealing with is an Old Republic system that stopped at 600m cruisers, small by other people's standards; but nevertheless, this is the canonical standard system, and it was extended with Star Destroyers as "super-cruisers"... arguments in favour of lots of big ships (or their being any use at much) remain sketchy at best...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Once again, I am ignored. oh well, i'll put my 2 cents in.

I the movies, it frankly sounds like they are "Star Destroyer-Class Crusier" but I geuss we can't go on that.

It sems simply that Crusier, destroyer and dreadnaught (and all variations thereof)are used interchangigbly. However, only crusier is ever applied to unarmed ships.

So crusier means large ship, while destroyer and dreadnaught mean large war ship

 

Maybe cruiser in the Naboo cruiser referred to a hyperspace capable, mid sized craft? (ie, a civilian cruiser)

So if some civilian ships are referred to as cruisers, perhaps that's why the Star Cruisers are named so (the early models were originally civilian liners, at least according to official NR info)

 

I apoligise for my rudeness then.

By the way, is there a two pic per post limit? Cause I wonder the picture of the warlord heavy crusier didn't work.

 

so the estimated 25K-50K ISDs in the empire in the empire were all super cruisers, including all varients of them like dominators, tectors etc along with smaller newer ships like the harrow and the defender/nebula/rejuvenator classes, not to mention the thouands of reserves and left overs from the clone wars that encompassed venstars and vicstars and whatever other ships carried the 'star destroyer' moniker should be called 'super-cruisers' on their blueprints?

Personally this seems more like the norm for large ships and saying they are 'super' is just saying 'my SUV is bigger than your SUV marketing bullcrap' Granted, they are in comparison much more powerful than anything else below them in tonnage.

also most of the time star destroyers seem to be dispatched for piddly missions like commerce raiding (a lot of what thrawn did with them) attacking star fighters and rogue transports (a lot of what they do in the movies and many books), holding blockades and doing customs inspections (again books), drop off troops or fighters and act as a support base, sit around a planet waiting to one of the above(this is essentially what weg suggests) and when possible acting as intimidation tools (either through existing or by actually going somewhere). however we do know that they are capable at engaging in large scale battles (endor, coruscant, bilbringi, most NJO)

I short they do all the above daily because they can, you can't send 10 strike cruiers or 6 dreadnaughts or 100 gunships to do the same job, they would fail on one or more of the above accounts. So why aren't they in their own class because of their capabilities? if we go by the ewoks weg model the classification tells us nothing about them because it is too broad and doesn't seperate their utility from other ships with more dedicated roles and observed usages.

the common definition for class/classification is:

a group, set, or kind sharing common attributes
a division or rating based on grade or quality

systematic arrangement in groups or categories according to established criteria



super-cruiser does none of this other than add a pretty title that confuses the issue and broadens the scope of the heavy ships group rather than refines it. In fact destroyer is the best term for day to day observed usage of SD's until you move them into a fleet engagement with similar tonnage ships, then they necissitate a much heavier classification (hmmm star destroyer makes a good arguement for a class type...) and your reference for the Heir to the mpire source book seem to further indicate that the standard star destroyer is a unique class (a subclass of a larger braket yes, but definately not a super-cruiser) additionally on a side note, your own wording of the cruiser bracket indicates that the executor is the top range of normal warships and the bizarrites are the stuff thats bigger --> "up to and including" if you want to rephrase that feel free, but otherwise I think you are slipping



also mcewok, could you find justification for between 500 and 1000 2km+ ships in the entirety of the empire? with the executor class holding a number of around 10 at any one time (due to attrition)?

This number would give us one heavy larger than an ISD per sector group with some of the ships being assigned dedicated defense roles and special fleets/kingpin egotrip status (IE we never see them most of the time) and ISDs taking flag position in less important sectors.

This would also allow us to say that the Byss fleet could possibly be a recall of the sector group flagships/defense forces and special fleets/king pins and would easily add up to the ships seen in DE and not neceessitate millions of random big ships we cannot account for.

this 500-1000 would also include all of the documented ship types seen (executor kin, possible 8km weg SSD variant, jerec's veneagence, geils armada and carrier, shockwave, allegiances, tagge and wemis cruisers, praetors, mandators, procurators, at least 3 major distinct classes seen around Byss (6.4km, 4-5km, 3.1km)) an

 

The problem with the system WEG (and McEwok] propose is, that

a) it ignores everything ABOVE the level of sectorgroup (like oversector and combatcommands, BlackSword anyone?),

b) is by its own admission incomplete and biased towards the rebels point-of-view.

 

Sr: Yet we have Mon Cal cruisers that are tougher than certain SDs, and these Star Defenders, equivalent to SSDs.

Oh, undoubtedly (though to be fair, we don't know what a Defender's actual armour/speed/big-gun/fighters/planetary-assault balance is)...

And just because a Mon Cal cruiser is smaller than an ISD and more than a match means nothing. Technological capability increases, so ships are smaller with more powerful reactors. The Majestic cruiser, a 700m ship, is as heavily armed as a 1600m ISD.

Is a Mon Cal "more than a match" for an ISD? I'm not entirely convinced... Likewise, the Majestic, with only 30 heavy TLs against 50/60 doesn't have the weaponry to attack an ImpStar head-to-head - I suspect she's designed to use her armour to go in close and grapple.

But yes, there's no easy solution - that's the point I'm trying to make, I guess. We can manipulate the information on design and designation several ways to construct different classification systems, but as it stands, we have a corvette-frigate-cruiser-Star Destroyer classification system (plus "bizarreties") that's identified as the Empire's formal way of doing business, and which works.

Arguing that Star Destroyer = uber ship, doesn't work in my opinion. It depends on the political bodies biast.

No? I'm not saying that only SDs are überships; but that, within the Empire's (and NR's) classification system, they represent a class above common cruiser classes (Strike, Dreadnaught, Vindicator, Majestic) and in terms of military strategy, they fulfil a "ship of the line" role - previously held more by Dreadnaught Cruisers than Star Dreadnoughts.

Is there a problem with that?

MercenaryAce: It sems simply that Crusier, destroyer and dreadnaught (and all variations thereof)are used interchangigbly. However, only crusier is ever applied to unarmed ships.

My interpretation would be that "dreadnaught" is an old term for "ship of the line", now superceded by "[Star] Destroyer" for newer ships; "cruiser", I'd say, has a wider application, and is used in several distinct usages... four of these define increasingly precise size/role brackets:

1.) capital-scale spaceships, civilian and military that can cruise - ie operate unsupported over long distances. (idiomatic)
2.) capital warships that can cruise - ie operate unsupported over long distances. (idiomatic)
2.) front-line warships over ~400m (the formal meaning in the Imperial classification system).
3.) front-line warships of approx. 400-900m (the practical meaning in the Imperial classfication system, because of Star Destroyers).

Two others don't really refer to capital ships:

4.) smaller civilian ships (cf. "cabin cruiser").
5.) smaller police ships (cf. "police cruiser").

But that's all just my interpretation...

EJ: I think you've misunderstood what I was trying to say - which is simply this: in the official, formal, canonical terminology of the Empire and NR, "Star Destroyer" is not fully detached from a wider "cruiser" designation.

To all intents and purposes, "Star Destroyer" is a distinct designation for larger ships, 900m and above, but it's not quite detached from the wider "cruiser" bracket; "super-cruiser" is simply a term I came up with to help explain how SD stands to the 400m-900m "cruisers" within this bracket. That?s all.

But for what it's worth, only four hullforms are seen in any great numbers - VicStars, VenStars, ImpStars and DefStars; and three of these date from the Clone Wars.

also mcewok, could you find justification for between 500 and 1000 2km+ ships in the entirety of the empire? with the executor class holding a number of around 10 at any one time (due to attrition)?

If you mean front-line warships, I'm not sure I see any canon evidence for the Empire using large numbers of such ships, or any real use for them.

Unless you have significantly heavier guns or heavier armour (for which there is next to no canon evidence), all you?

 

I don't see at all why the byss armada couldn't have mandators, praetors or procurators floating around, we don't know their distribution other than single comments to their existance. We also don't know what they look like. We, like you said. can't rectify scale issues, but we know that some of the ships are larger than normal ISDs, if nothing else I'd say you can't say either way if they are or are not older designs because like many things introduced with the prequels they make OT fans heads hurt...

We never see most of the defense forces of the core and we almsot never see an entire sector group at once (especially pulled away from its defense duties) mostly what we see is rimward usage of a star destroyer as a patrol vessel and personal transport for god awful EU plots.

Personally it makes more sense to retcon the DE ships into the CW era ships because then we
A) eliminate trying to explain new ship classes

B) eliminate the necessity for massive turnover of large vessels when we know that ships have functional lifetimes of over 100 years if well maintained and retrofitted

C) show some degree of consistancy across what is considered by all to be a jumble of EU author shenangins

 

Yeah, everyone vote for their final pick. Then we will have the new title that we need!!

--Adm. Nick

 

Revoting Fleet Junkies--Your Capital Ship Harbour

 

Funny, how can the Dreadnought-Class-Cruiser (better termed a frigate) be supposed to be a "ship of the line", if there has been peace for at least thousand years, the Old Republic itself had no standing military and the ships it commanded are not part of a Navy, but the JudicalDepartment, in other words part of a police-force?

 

Quest: Thanks!

EJ: I don't see at all why the byss armada couldn't have mandators, praetors or procurators floating around, we don't know their distribution other than single comments to their existance. We also don't know what they look like. We, like you said. can't rectify scale issues, but we know that some of the ships are larger than normal ISDs, if nothing else I'd say you can't say either way if they are or are not older designs because like many things introduced with the prequels they make OT fans heads hurt...

I don't see any problem with the OT and the Prequels actually. What makes my head hurt is the mess made by people who think that because an SSD is obnoxiously big and militarized haulers are 3km wide doughnoughts, we need to throw out everything we were ever told about pre-Clone Wars warship design....

There is, let me say it bluntly, no problem with reconciling the OT with the Prequels themselves. The problem comes when people use the different emphasis/POV in the Prequels to engender contradictions in the EU canon.

Yes, there could be a lot of big ships at Byss; I can't stop you wanting there to be - we can, ultimately, agree to disagree. But, what I can do, I hope, is point on the one hand to the "sector fleet in the system" reference at Wizards.com, the canon treatment of ImpStars as ships of the line, and the lack of canon evidence for large numbers of larger ships; and on the other hand I will suggest that there is a pattern of interpretation at SWTC which is geared towards a non-canon argument that ImpStars are "mere destroyers", and constructing a classification around that theory.

Are these big, enigmatic ships really necessary?

We never see most of the defense forces of the core and we almsot never see an entire sector group at once (especially pulled away from its defense duties) mostly what we see is rimward usage of a star destroyer as a patrol vessel and personal transport for god awful EU plots.

So glad you lack bias here.

But; "A sector group can be expected to contain at least 2,400 ships, 24 of which are Imperial Star Destroyers, and another 1,600 combat starships" (ISB, p. 108); these ships are not all intended to be concentrated in one place at one time. And again, none are necessarily bigger than ImpStars....

Personally it makes more sense to retcon the DE ships into the CW era ships because then we
A) eliminate trying to explain new ship classes

B) eliminate the necessity for massive turnover of large vessels when we know that ships have functional lifetimes of over 100 years if well maintained and retrofitted

C) show some degree of consistancy across what is considered by all to be a jumble of EU author shenangins

But, the VenStar ceased to be front-line after RotS; but, we have no evidence whatsoever that any of the larger DE ships are front-line vessels; but, few of them are accurately scaled in any way. I can understand that you might want to simplify things by reconciling DE and ICS/ICW ships; but I say to you that the latter exist in real life purely and only because of a severely debatable fanboy interpretation of the former...

There is one DE ship I'd like to equate with an ICS one: I'd like to see the Eclipse-class Star Destroyer as redesignation of the Mandator-II Star Dreadnought...

But maybe that's just me being cheeky?



[Everything else - later!!]

- The Imperial Ewok

 

So... while there's discussion going around about creating another thread, what about a whole 'nother site? By that I mean forum and site to publish all information that discussions turn out... it would certainly easier to follow with an entire message board established solely for fleet discussions. I myself don't often post in the FJ thread because I just can't keep up.

Just an idea... I set up a (free) web board on my own for another SW-related subject, so I have some experience with that... I have none at all with web page design, though, although I know of several semi-professional looking free web hosts (i.e., not geocities...)

Thoughts?

 

I must vote for:


Pan-Era Omnigalactic Fleet Junkie Chamber of Madness, Mayhem, and Unmitigated Chaos


Since I actually cam up with it

Although its not what I originally voted for.

ACE:

The Yinchorri fighter is not on my list bc we don't know its manufacturer. The list only inc ships with a known manfuacturer (hence no Adz-class Patrol Destroyer either).

The Gozanti Cruiser and Taylander shuttle are made by Brocklander, but both are civilian transports; the list is limited to military and paramilitary craft at the time.

Vanguard-class Heavy Assault Gunship actually is on the list under CEC

 

heh ewok obviously you misread or I failed to convey exactly the point of 2km+ warships I was talking about.

I never, in the scope of the current discussion, said they were front line and common ships (I said fleet flags and command bases, special fleets, defensive roles, kingpin ships and intimidation usage, all stuff you agree with)

I never said that the sector group doesn't contain thousands of smaller ships that have entirely different roles( I was only talking about ships ISD+ in size, pay attention).

I never said that an SSD isn't obniouxously big for 99.9999% of any possible use.

I never argued the utility of an ISD as being a ship of the line(In fact I listed the myriad of uses, maybe with angst towards early EU writing).

In fact, and this is something you completely ignored, never said that larger ships were actually better. (in fact I personally believe their utility is in most cases not worth the penatly to force projection: with the caveat that even with monumental reactor/shield inefficiencies of over 99% they still would mount large enough reactors to be worth bullet sponging) but the fact that they exist in print, means that they do exist and that shipyards have plans for them(economies of scale), and I refuse to believe that they don't serve a purpose greater than an ego builder.

I also really find it hard to believe that in the entire galaxy, with a ISD sized ship count that may exceed 50,000 there isn't room for 500-1000 ships of greater size built in a nearly 100 year period. at the rate warlords build SSDs (and zsinj operated an incredibly successful campaign with iron fist and wanted another SSD even though his supplies were being ravaged) it seems much more reasonable that they built many more smaller near ISD sized ships than constantly striving for executor like leviathans.

I can't help it that saxton rather than you is writing for starwars, maybe you should try to get your own book deal...

 

We have no direct evidence that the larger vessels from Dark Empire were front line vessels, which is true.
However, we also lack any direct evidence these vessels were not front line combatants.

Palpatine assembled that force of battleships by gathering them from units he could contact inside the Inner Rim of the galaxy. It took him a few years to gather the forces necessary to assault the New Republic, meaning these ships were arriving at Byss after leaving original deployments.

The vessels were front-line combatants somewhere in the galaxy, where and in what number is puzzling.


The purpose of the Executor-class Battleship and those vessels like it is one in which we were never allowed to see.
Executor, Allegiance, Giel?s Flagship, and the 2km+ Battleships at Byss are heavy fleet combatants meant to be flagships to Star Destroyer task forces.

Remember, after sustaining 20 minutes of being the center of the Endor Fleet battle the Executor was still sitting pretty, and was not destroyed until a convenient act of insurmountable absurdity delivered it as a sacrifice on the Altar of Plot Advancement.

An Empire, which could create a 900km Battle Station, in secret, in six months, would have no problem building tens of thousands of Star Destroyers and Thousands of Executor-level vessels if it so chose.

We know as Canonical Fact, thanks to Dark Empire, that Palpatine did commission the creation of mid-sized Star Destroyers that could serve as intermediaries between an Imperator and Executor.

Based on the ease at which Palpatine was able to gather these forces at Byss, we can infer the Emperor kept these vessels in the Inner Rim, explaining why the Rebellion never fought them.

Also, their sudden disappearance into the Deep Core, and the effect their loss would have on the Imperial Navy helps to explain the Rebellion?s successes in fleet engagements after ROTJ.