Whats with the Katana Fleet?

Im reading the Dark force rising (The Thrawn Trilogy ), and they are like going crazy about the Katana Fleet. What'so important about it? is it that huge , that it can destroy the new republic?

 

You'll find out, but basically it's 200 Dreadnaughts under the command of a supposed tactical genius against the morons that are the New Republic government. Not necessarily a good idea when Thrawn is starting to win even when he's outgunned--if he makes that up, it's pretty much over.

 

In terms of ship strength, the NR and Thrawn's faction were about equally armed, except the NR had a much greater amount of territory to cover. With the Empire suddenly getting an extra 200 ships, this alters the balance of power radically.

 

wooow i didntt get to the part were thrawn get the katana fleet. Will it happen in the second book or the third book?
Thx

 

It happens in the 2nd book. And the Fleet only required 2,000 men to man her, instead of 16,000. So not only was it an extra 200 powerful, though aging ships, but she didn't require a whole lot of manpower.

 

It's not a huge galaxy changing addition to his fleet but it was definitely a boost that allowed him to majorly upgrade his war machine without costing a single cent.

 

To be precise, the Empire actually claimed 179 of them, if memory serves. It was not as large of a victory as they'd hoped, Han Solo rammed one of them via slave control into the Star Destroyer Peremptory, destroying both ships in the process. The remainder wound up in Bel Iblis and the NR's hands.

EDIT- just masking additional spoilers for htaker, in case he doesn't want to know any more about DFR's conclusion

 

It's not a huge galaxy changing addition to his fleet but it was definitely a boost that allowed him to majorly upgrade his war machine without costing a single cent.

In the hands of a mastermind like Thrawn, that was indeed a huge galaxy changing addition.

EDIT- removed that one comment, since he obviously hasn't read The Last Command yet, he probably doesn't want to know that

 

It was 185, IIRC.

 

I'll point out that the only reason Thrawn had to rely so heavily on tthe Katana Fleet was because Palpatine was diliberately reassigning ships from the Imperial Fleet to the Core in preperation for his return...

TC

 

And Thrawn was probably shifting stuff from the Empire proper into the EotH (like manufacturing facilities, which the EotH needed badly), to boot.

The Katana dreadnaughts were probably primarily used for patrolling Imperial territory, thus freeing up Star Destroyers (though some Katana ships did see frontline action)

 

Not sure if that took, or if it boosted his strategic strength terribly much, since it's been established that Palpatine was siphoning away *Thrawn's* ships and resources back into the Deep Core.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, over the long run.

 

Winter said that the Empire had taken nearly 180 dreadnaughts by the time they arrived.

I'm actually curious where most of them went after Bilbringi. Were they absorbed into line duty, destroyed in the Imperial Civil War, or Shadow Hand, or what?

 

I'm actually curious where most of them went after Bilbringi. Were they absorbed into line duty, destroyed in the Imperial Civil War, or Shadow Hand, or what?

I'd say a good majority might have been with the remnant of Thrawn's fleet under Pellaeon's command. Did he participate in Shadow Hand? My SW EU knowledge has atrophied. I'm sure a lot of them went into line duty however.

 

To understand the impact the Katana Fleet had on the state of galactic events, you have to take into account the situation that the galaxy was in.

The New Republic had control over 3/4 of the known galaxy at this point, yet they held just the slight advantage over the Imperial's in warships. As others have said, the the NR had alot more space to cover than the Empire, but with the same amount of ships.

Recall that when Thrawn attacked the Bpfassh and other surrounding worlds that it was a stretch for the New Republic to amass a relief fleet of 112 warships, of which almost half were devoted to carry cargo. Not only that, but Heir to the Empire leads us to believe that Admiral Ackbar was forced to assign many of his warships to either cover convoys or serve as quasi-cargo vessels.

Now, into this comes the Katana Fleet. Suddenly, 200 old cruisers becomes a major weapon of war. Whoever got their hands on it would have edge over the other.

--Adm. Nick

 

I don't see how elements of my post had TLC spoilers in it. All I did was mention Thrawn's tactical mind, 2,000 men per ship, etc. All of which has been seen in the first book. But okay, sure, edit away.