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

I pictured the vast bulk of the fleet being multirole corvettes, fielded in squadrons with a tender and a VSD-sized heavy frigate as the flagship. Those would be spread around sectors and suffice for normal patrol duties. A smaller number of carriers and battlecruisers would serve as the core of "numbered" fleets, retained for action against peer-state threats. Fleets would be headed by Star Defenders (at most two assigned per), with maybe a total of four dreadnoughts as the big guns, not assigned to any fleet.

The funny thing was that I kind of thought the "primary" size classes I came up with - a 280-meter corvette, an 880-meter frigate, and 2,400-meter carrier and SD/battlecruiser designs - were a bit outsized for their type designations (the Munificent-class "frigate" aside). Then the new movies come along and except for the ~500-meter frigates outstrip those (to say nothing of the new standard for dreadnoughts set by the Supremacy). It is somewhat nice to see an across-the-board uptick in ship sizes, even with the supposedly complacent New Republic.

 

Star Wars is all about the aesthetic - Napoleonic naval warfare married to world war 2 dogfighters. Turbolasers lob shots because cannons lob shots. Space gravity makes bombs fall onto the dreadnaught, which sinks under the space waves. It isn’t realistic, but Star Wars never was.

 

But there should be some consistency across the movies and some lines that should not be crossed.

Even thou SW is space fantasy, not science fiction, some semblance of "physics" should be maintained IMO.

Those bombs could fall because of magnets/inertia/etc., that dreadnought could "sink" because of gravity pull from D'Qar, and those turbolaser shots lob because something I guess...

 

It handles it quite well actually. The Reaper, Vengeance and Lusankya all carry nine squadrons of fighters while in Imperial hands. Five of squints and two each of eyeballs and dupes. Once the Lady Lucy is captured by the New Republic, it's fighter complement goes up to 15, adding two of X-Wings, B-Wings and A-Wings to it's previous complement of TIE's, which reflects the New Republic's stronger reliance on fighters. Having those large numbers of fighters definitely makes those Dreadnoughts more powerful as those snubs can screen the mother ship from bomber attacks. As the Battle of Thyferra showed, an SSD without it's starfighter complements is easy prey for Trench Run Disease.

 

I don't have a good explanation why, but the turbolaser arc at range is at least sort of consistent - the AT-TE's main cannon is shown to shoot laser artillery on a ballistic trajectory in TCW.

 

The AT-TE has never been called a laser, though (to my knowledge). It's been routinely described as mass driver cannon, making ballistic trajectories reasonable.

My problem with the ballistic turbolasers is twofold:

1. Arcs don't make any sense in deep space, regardless of what the bolt is made out of
   
2. It's internally inconsistent with how turbolasers behave in every other source

#1 can be resolved if we handwave them as some sort of advanced First Order weaponry. Though that then raises the question of why they were using arced blasts and not linear ones. It's a stretch but perhaps it was an attempt to get around the shields: if the Raddus has rear shields to maximum and those are impenetrable by direct blasts, perhaps the FO is trying to hit it with arcing shots that are aimed around the shields. It doesn't work, obviously (I think most of the shots hit the rear shield anyway), but it at least sort of makes sense.

#2 is more annoying. If they wanted to show some sort of new weapon, cool, go ahead and do that. But at least make it a different color or particle effect or something else to differentiate it from existing turbolasers.

 

What about the TL-50 repeater? That's not a projectile weapon to my knowledge, and it shoots a little laser grenade.

 

IIRC, the ICS or Visual Dictionary calls the long range shots "plasma" or something like that. I am at work, so I don't have the guide in front of me, but it distinctly calls them plasma as opposed to turbolaser bolts. Perhaps that is significant?

--Adm. Nick

 

This has been noted since ANH: http://www.stardestroyer.net/tlc/Nature/index.html

 

You are correct sir, from the visual guide:

To the discussion above, I am definitely fine with Star Wars stories playing loose with physics and not being F=ma hard sci-fi. I just chalk it up to super advanced technology we can't understand. Though I would always appreciate more consistency and common sense when it comes to such technical matters across the Star Wars universe.

 

This is always gonna be one of those things that varies from fan to fan. Personally, I'm not bothered by lasers/plasma/whatever having an arc, but I was bothered by the "dark energy" technobabble explanation for Starkiller Base, which I know others on this board have said they don't mind.

 

That's tamer than my interpretations - I figured since DESB gave the Eclipse-class 58 squadrons of TIEs (696 fighters total) and the Executor-class appeared to have more hangar space, I went and headcanoned 72 squadrons (864 fighters total). For an NR/GA ship I broke that down to 24 squadrons of E-wings for fighter-bomber duty, 24 squadrons of X-wings and 12 squadrons of A-wings for a fighter screen, and 6 squadrons each of B-wings and K-wings as heavy hitters. That would allow the dreadnought to just hide in deep space and launch simultaneous strikes across multiple sectors without even having to make a personal appearance, and still keep a formidable fighter force in reserve in case it gets ambushed.

 

Have capital ships ever used tractor beams as a weapon? For example: pulling an enemy ship into another enemy ship? How strong are tractor beams? A destroyer easily pulls a corvette backwards in ANH. How many destroyers would it take to pull a VicStar-sized ship?

 

Pretty sure it has happened in Legends universe, but can't remember a specific instance off the top of my head. I guess technically Centerpoint Station and the Yo'gand's Core tactic could be examples of it. In the new canon the Starhawk-class battleship Concord did drag the dreadnought Ravager down to the surface with a tractor beam at the Battle of Jakku.

Not specific, but there is also this quote from the Legends universe from a Stormtrooper:

 

I seem to recall in the Lando comic he tricked 2 or 3 Star Destroyers into tractoring each other instead of tractoring the stolen space yacht he was piloting. I think they crashed into each other and were destroyed.

 

Ah, yes. Never underestimate the databank. I should make a pdf out of that thing. I'm thinking throwing ships into each other makes sense. I wonder if there's any counter-measures. Perhaps a fleet can use their tractor beams to hold onto eachother. A sort of invisible net. As more ships go down, individual ships are more vulnerable.

 

The latest issue of the Adventures comic includes a new ship class!

Spoiler

The Marsheem-class heavy cruiser. The Ishi Tib deploy three of them to attack and destroy an Imperial Star Destroyer. No mention if it's a locally-produced vessel or manufactured elsewhere, but it looks kind of like a mash-up between the Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser and a Mon Calamari vessel. Either way, it's cool to finally see the Ishi Tib getting some love as a Rebel ally species.

 

N O I C E
We're gonna need pics soon

 

Hm, usually tractor beams can move ships around but usually not as weapons- its probably just simpler to blow things up with turbolasers rather than trying to use a tractor to push a ship into another ship. There are a few instances here and there.

If I remember right, Thrawn ordered a barrage to disable a New Republic ship, then had the tractor crews move that ship in front of them as a shield against the rest of the fleet. That's Thrawn so unusual tactics is his thing. And the tractor crews on the Chimaera were particularly motivated after certain events (and with a Noghri on board).

In DNT, the Killik-occupied Victory Star Destroyer was held in place by many other heavy duty tractor beams (mounted on other Victory-class ships) so that it could be recaptured.

As mentioned more recently Lando got a couple of Star Destroyers to collide using their tractor beams.

And if I remember right, the Starhawk at Jakku (the Concord? Or maybe it was Amity) dragged the Ravager down into the planet surface as it was shot down too. That's all I can think of off-hand.

 

Oh man, I love this! We definitely need some pictures ASAP. I've always loved the Ishi Tiib (I have a soft spot for aquatic species apparently, lol), I am stoked they are finally getting their due as a member of the Alliance.

--Adm. Nick

 

Sorry for the delay in uploading. Here they are.

Spoiler

For some reason, I can't seem to just post them as images without them breaking so here's the link.

I should note that that second image isn't mentioned as a Marsheem-class. It was a random vessel hovering over the city that I assumed was an artistic take on a Providence-class or something. It wasn't until I saw the Marsheem-class that I realised it was most likely the underside of the vessel.

With its MC-series/Providence-class/Dreadnaught-class vibes, it could easily be a Mon Cal design.

 

I called it months ago when I said the Sullustan Dauntless heavy cruiser would work great as a Mon Cal type vessel, and lo and behold, there it is in living breathing canon.

 

Spoiler

While I can't imagine a random ship that appeared in one to three panels (depending on that underside shot) deliberately invoked Legends history, the confluence of Mon Calamari, Rendili Dreadnaught, and Separatist Providence influences did get me thinking. As per Legends, the Mon Calamari shipyards used to subcontract to Rendili StarDrive in manufacturing Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers. The Mon Calamari twist on the design was eventually stolen by the Free Dac engineers, who used it to construct the larger Providence-class. Tibrin itself was a loyal Separatist planet during the Clone Wars, and home to a fellow aquatic species, thus making it likely to purchase or be assigned such designs. Given that the Marsheem-class lacks an MC prenominal and uses a -class rather than -type postnominal, I'd love it if it was eventually retconned to be a Free Dac design - a precursor to the Providence-class, which featured their twists on the original heavy cruiser model before they stretched it out to make a destroyer/battlecruiser.

 

Guys, that vessel is like nearly identical to the Dauntless-class heavy cruiser! Just compare the main features, the resemblance is like 90% or more dead on!





Maybe the Ishi Tiib purchased the Sullustan hull that was the basis for the Dauntless-class (which in Legends was a civilian ship before conversion) and made it into their Marsheem-class??

--Adm. Nick

 

Huh, so I'm confused, is there a chance this ship will show up as part of the Rebel Fleet in Episode IX or as I'm starting to see it, Episode VI.5?

Or if it was part of the NR Fleet, it was blown away and we likely won't see it.....