Fleet Junkie Project - The Second Galactic Civil War In Hindsight

I've been struggling with the ships specifically.

Hapan battle dragons are notably inferior through the early years of the NR, but were 'upgraded' to some extent to remove some of the limitations of their weapons, however they are still very small ships. Remember that 60+ battle dragons in conjunction with Han's entire Mon Remonda task force were necessary to significantly damage a supply restricted and hunted worn down Iron Fist (which from the books stand point is treated as a minimalist 8km vessel, retconning it to its full size would require a larger Alliance taskforce and either more or more powerful battle dragons, 500 meter laundry baskets would not cut it.) in LOTF we have battle dragons being deployed interchangeably with ISDs, given the volume of the vessel and the known capabilities the first proposal is that the Hapans commissioned a completely new line of battle dragons that are larger and more powerful probably not exceeding that of any ugraded ISD model in use by the GFFA, this evens out some of the issues with the vessel counts and the impact of the hapans.

which if the vessels were of this quality begs the question why an insular, infighting isolated star cluster could field significantly more vessels than the GFFA at discretion and still maintain an adequate internal security force against infighting (no house would contribute more ships than they needed to fend off the other houses)

On the Corellian side we have 3 corellian dreadnoughts worth 2 ISDs a piece and some utterly gutted Stridents (but these are historically inconsistent so we have some wiggle room here) other than that we have a bunch of junk trawlers mentioned that doesn't even qualify as military. Given the hyper nationalist nature of Corellia that set off the main insurrection WHAT did they actually have to give the NR that amounted to anything that they wanted to hold onto so much and were willing to start a war over? WHAT happened to their shipyards and defense forces, something really got missed here, when reading the novels I couldn't even understand the basis for the entire separatist movement as it was written because the corellians didn't have anything in the first place?

The Remnant has the Megador and I believe at least two other SSDs involved? as well as a token force of ISDs and Turbulent class (making the assumption that the turbulent is simply a smaller hull with similar combat capabilities to an ISD) from their perspective we can quantify the capabilities pretty easily

Most GFFA vessels fall into the ISD tonnage or other known categories, but again an incredibly underestimated military force even for peace keeping (which seems like the entire disintigration of the NR-> GFFA can be explained by saying that they simply didn't build anything when every two bit nation state was cranking out defense forces that could wipe entire fleets out... WTF)

 

Yeah, after NJO, it just seems odd how... small the GADF seems these days. To say Hapes is contributing 20% of the GA's military might seems kind of ridiculous, as while the GA is nowhere near as oppresive as the Empire was (at least, it didn't use to be, before LotF), it just seems odd that a fifth of the galactic navy is made up of Hapan units. It seems a far step-down from the Empire's thousands of Star Destroyers, and during RotS, they had a thousand Venators and probably near-equal Seperatist military strength there. Even during th YV War, during the Fall of Coruscant, don't remember if they cited exact numbers, but still seemed like dozens or hundreds of Star Destroyers were involved, not to mention all the stationary planetary defenses. Not to mention I don't see Hapan units meshing well with the rest of the GA, given that most of its nobles/officers seem quite egostitical at best. Not to mention, that after losing 1/5 of their military strength, I don't see how the GA didn't fall before the Confederation, since at Hapes apparently the GA and Confederation were very evenly matched in terms of how much military strength they could bring to bear. Unless the Confederation really took that bad of a beating at Hapes, especially as after that it seemed like most of the Confedration fleets pounded on the Fifth Fleet, and then the Second Fleet was wrecked after that. Considering Caedus could leave Kuat and take the Fifth Fleet with him to Kashyyyk, I still have no idea why the Fifth didn't join the Battle of Kuat to tilt the battle in the GA's faovr in the first place.

And I know Kashyyyk has been technologically advanced for millenia, but they never quite struck me as having major shipbuilding capabilities. They mention its mainly due to a new company, Kashyyycorp or something like that, but still, a planet's new shipyards could produce a fleet big and fast enough to possibly help tip the galactic balance of power. Not to mention how ridiculous it is that Corellia, Bothawui, Fondor, Commenor, the Hutts, Bespin, Adumar and others could muster a fleet large enough to take on the GA very, very quickly. Corellia and Fondor I could see, being that they're both major shipyard systems, and after seeing Kre'fey with his Bothan cruiser for most of NJO, I guess the Bothans build a lot of ships now, but that's not that relevant at the moment.

I could see Hapan battle dragons being on par with other major capital ships these days, given that Hapes has probably gotten their hands on modern technology, and the new SotG book mentions a Nova-class cruiser, and that they borowed/stole a lot of ideas from major shipyards throughout the galaxy, so after "borrowing" so much stuff, it seems really odd that they wouldn't redesign Battle Dragons to be on par with something like a Star Destroyer or something. Although those Corellian dreadnoughts, estimated at twice the threat potential of an Impstar, was almost able to break through and destroy Tenel Ka's ship. And a rebuilt Hapan fleet sucessfully beat back the Yuuzhan Vong too, so obviously, their tech has probably improved.

I'm also kind of curious how the Imperial Remnant fleet compares to the GA's fleet these days. They lose a SSD, and it all happens off-screen, and yet, there are still dozens of Impstars guarding the Roche system I believe? I haven't reread the any LotF book recently (its just too depressing), but it just seems...monotonous how Caedus kept looking for non-GA fleets to reinforce GA fleet strength, first he guilt-tripped Tenel Ka into giving more fleets than she could afford, leading to her nearly losing her throne, then he tried for the Wookiee's fleet, then he got the Imperial Remnant's fleets. The Remnant's fleets though, even after all the losses they took (I'd hope a SSD would be a significant loss), when they "join" (the term being used loosely) the Jedi Coalition, they're enough to help convince the GA Admirals that the Jedi have rejoined, and those fleets are enough to instantly end the war.

Ugh, fleets in Star Wars always give me a heada

 

I'm not really a fleet Junkie but the fleet information in LoTF seemed random at times (without thinking too hard about it) so I wanted to check out this thread. Good information.

I have a question....and this may sound stupid.

In the Battle of Kuat in Particular, you talk about crippled ships. What constitutes "Crippled"? Absolutely decimated or are most crippled ships more like just out of the action for this engagement but just need to have some critical systems replaced and can be good to go in a week if the Engineers push repairs?

After all, in a heated battle if a ship is no longer a threat to your side you aren't likely to continue to pound it when your firepower would be better suited to a functional enemy. I could see a lot of these crippled ships being relatively in tact.

 

They need to start writing fleet sourcebooks or an Essential guide to Fleets.

 

Balmorra

The GA Fourth engages the "Hutt armada" and a supporting group of Commenori star destroyers. I was under the impression that the Fourth took a beating at the cost of basically destroying the Hutt and Commenor groups, which can't field any signifigant forces at Kuat. This does raise the possibility that Commenor can field 1.5-2 fleets (one to attack and the other for home defense). I also wonder about the Fourth as it's relatively intact at Fondor, despite the pounding(?) it took at Balmorra. I could be wrong, but I read Inferno as the Fourth was taking heavily losses, hence the multiple requests for retreat. I dunno though...

 

Small question here, Sinre---is it officially the Second GCW, or did you make that name up?

 

That's official.

 

Gotcha, thanks.

 

Yup. Invincible calls it the "Galactic Civil War" on page... 3 I think?

I've got a vague memory that it actually manages to misspell it too but it might just have been another word on the same page.

The "Second" part is obviously conjecture to some extent but follows logical convention.

 

I'm intrigued and puzzled - when did the GA start building SSDs? I know we saw Lusankya and Guardian in NJO but those were captured ships, weren't they?

Guess I find the continued use of Star Destroyers strange in the EU - given what they represent, I'd have thought Mon Cal cruisers would have been the preferred capital ship.

 

Didn't John once say the Pellaeon-class Star Destroyers were a bit smaller than ISDs? It would fit the gradual movement towards Legacy-period ships.

That said, I might be completely misremembering and he may actually have said they were a bit bigger than ISDs... I think I'm remembering right though.

My guess was that they brought in the "Galactic Civil War" term in Invincible after it became more than a two way war with the "Jedi Coalition" involved. GA-Confederation-Remnant-Coalition-Mandalorians War presumably would have been a bit of a mouthful.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Galactic Alliance prefers Star Destroyers over Mon Calamari cruisers. The Alliance uses Viscount-class Star Defenders, Mediator-class battle cruisers, MC90 Star Cruisers, and Mon Calamari heavy carriers.

The larger use of Star Destroyers in Legacy of the Force is probably intentional. It makes the GA look more Imperial. Note too that Star Destroyers tend to get referenced more in relation to forces under Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus. When we see other GA officers- Niathal, Limpan, Akoto- we see a more Mon Cal cruisers and other warship classes.

Alot of it depends on the author. Authors like Luceno and Allston typically mention Mon Cal cruisers frequently, making them key parts of fleets. Other authors, like Troy Denning, tend to use the generic "Star Destroyer" to describe just about everything.

(To be fair to Denning, I was real happy when he described the Fifth Fleet in Inferno as consisting of Mon Cal cruisers and heavy frigates.)

Of course, by Legacy it appears that the Mon Calamari shipyards are the dominant producer for the GA Navy. The Scythe-class battle cruiser, GA frigate, Sabertooth-class assault ship, and GA shuttle are all Mon Calamari designs. Thus far, the only non-Mon Cal desing when has seen in the GA fleet was the Pride of Corellia under my hero Admiral Nict D). That ship appears to be a gunship sized warship.

--Adm. Nick

 

Well, the book said "many" P), and that could potentially mean the Megador as well. It might even be one of the starfighter carriers also mentioned in the SSD profile in the same book. But I'd like the Galactic Alliance to follow suit from all the other eras and have some new command ships being built.

Well, that depends. With the increased amount of classes retconned into the Rebellion era, and the explosive expansion of the shipyards from that time to the late Legacy era, they might have reached Kuat levels in terms of contruction capability.

I guess that's almost consistent with some of the portrayals of the ship in Bantam era novels. The thing supposedly withstood an Ex and a fleet of Star Destroyers in Darksaber, apparantly. Although that part's hopefully downplayed in modern canon, the MC90 as a whole seem to follow the design characteristics of the Nebula and Scythe classes: small, large space for reactor and heavily armed. Subsequently takes longer to construct and is expensive.

 

When did all these fleets come about? Last i read the 5th was the most recent.. Granted that was early New Republic but im curious to when they we're made & the details etc..7th? 10th? WTelbows!

 

Given the ambiguity of the use of star destroyer in the books I think it is implied to mean the movie fan friendly design, but there is nothing explicitly excluding some of them from being other Star destroyer types (especially with the RPG definition of Star Destroyer) they could all be nebulas and republics or even providences except when explicitly mentioned otherwise

the palleon even at a relatively short length of around 1.2 km is incredibly massive, at 1500m it is nearly 3 times the volume of an ISD and can mount a reactor of a much large Star Cruiser, so I think it was a valid design direction.

 

While it was nice to hear that the Fifth Fleet had Mon Calamari cruisers, rather than the generic Star Destroyers... I still find it depressing that when Mon Cal cruisers show up in a Denning book, they're part of a Fleet that's protecting a ship while it sets a planet on fire, and then at least half that fleet is blasted into oblivion. At that point, I wish they had just stuck with the generic Star Destroyer descriptions.

Argh, the %^#$ing boards are acting up again, I had a nice long reply typed up and it won't let me make long posts! Oh well, hopefully it'll let me post more than a few sentences later. Though knowing my luck, by the time the board fixes itself, I'll have forogtten what I was going to type.

 

Yeah, it was nice to see Denning use Mon Cal cruisers. We see Mon Cal cruisers as part of the Second Fleet, Fifth Fleet, and Ninth Fleet. Plus, if the Ocean is a Mon Cal cruiser as many assume, we also see Star Cruisers in the Third Fleet. Plus you have the blurb from the NEGTA's (Mon Calamari section) that mentions Mon Cal starships being one of the preferred warships in the Galactic Alliance.

Not that Mon Calamari shipbuilding dominance is or should be suprising. They have a long history of serving the Rebellion/NR/GA, plus they typically put out some of the best capital ship designs in the galaxy.

--Adm. Nick

 

Hm, how far back does Mon Calamri shipbuilding goes anyway? Specifically, warship building. I remember the original story was that the Mon Calamri were peaceful explorers, then ran into the Empire, then they converted all their ships to warships to help the Rebellion, but that's been retconned as just Imperial propaganda (at least, I think that was how it was retconned). Now, of course, we have the Mon Calamri active and involved with the greater part of the galaxy at least as far back as the Clone Wars, and I think the Recusant-class was originally a Mon Cal design too, before it was stolen, I think? Though by the YV War at least, the Mon Calamari Shipyards are probably turning out lots of warships by then. I'd hope they'd be at least on par with Fondor, if not Kuat, by now, as I think there was a Dooku quote comparing the Mon Calamri shipyards to Fondor?

For LotF, at least, since I think the galaxy is still recovering from the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War somewhat, it makes sense for the GA to still be using both various Star Destroyers and Mon Cal designs, since Star Destroyers are still durable ships (expensive, but they're a proven design), but by the Legacy era, I could see the GA using mainly Mon Calamri designs, though that depends on other shipyards being able to follow the same plans, which shouldn't be impossible. Though actually, I wonder if the Dac shipyards would be producing any Star Destroyers during LotF. They built the Imperious, though that was when they were under the Sith then, of course. Too bad figuring out Mon Cal ship classes isn't exactly an easy thing- like the Viscount is a star dreadnought, but how often has it appeared? Oh well, guess for the casual fans, just the standard Star Destroyers and Mon Calamri cruisers are easiest to picture.