Evolution of the Imperial Star Destroyer

[Andras]

You can't have a thousand-thousand worlds (TTW) in the Old Republic, and the same number of worlds in the Empire after it's added countless sectors and regions. In addition, at 50 worlds per sector in the Old Republic, you'd have 20,000 sectors (less a number due to the larger sectors 'in the latter days'). It's a contradiction between the books open to interpretation. The authors do like to use the phrase TTW over much I think. There's the TTW of the OR, the TTW the rebellion is on, and the TTW in the iron grip of the Empire. I think they are getting hyperbolic, and perhaps not entirely factual when using TTW.

Worlds completely loyal to the Empire might not consider themselves 'caught in the iron grip of tyranny.' Do you think Kuat thinks that way? The Deep Core worlds? So one can interpret that as the million worlds the Rebellion is active on perhaps, due to the increased security measures the Empire is taking rooting them out.

Also, there's no organization known as the 'Sector Fleet'. There are 4 Superiority Fleets in a Sector Group, plus a Deepdock Fleet and Support Fleet. I already said that there were more Sector Groups then sectors when I mentioned the Priority Sectors and the forces assigned to them.

[feld]

I've had some thoughts on the evolution of the Imperator/Imperial Class Star Destroyer. But the conversation here appears to have moved on to other topics. Being new I figured I'd ask if it were appropriate to post a possible alternate ISD evolution or start a new thread.

v/r
feld

[Andras]

Take it back to ISD development, I'm done here. No point in having 2 threads with similar titles.

[Abacus]

Sponge, for crying out loud, I'm not talking about the total tonnage of the fleet; I'm talking about numbers of hulls. The flagships are massive, but that does NOT mean that the Empire has an equal tonnage invested in its smaller ships. If they did, they wouldn't need the massive flagships in the first place- why bother with a Death Star when a tiny fraction of the Death Star's weight in Star Destroyers is quite capable of destroying a planet?

There has to be a reason. Either building such a huge number of individual hulls is not cost-effective compared to one large station, or the Empire faces human factors that limit the absolute size of the fleet in hulls, not in tons. Or something else I haven't thought of. But the result is clear: the Empire choose to limit the total number of hulls to levels well below their nominal industrial capabilities, and instead invests those capabilities in building a relatively small number of much larger superships, up to and including the Death Stars.

You're forgetting other geopolitical factors. When the Emperor had the Death Star built, it was in order to take a greater personal control over the Imperial Fleet and thereby his power as Emperor of the galaxy. It wasn't a case of simply deciding whether to use a single super laser or a whole fleet of ships to destroy a target world; but to be a representation of power (going back towards the Tarkin Doctrine) and thereby the Emperor.


***

As far as the number of ISDs present in the galaxy at the time of the Battle of Endor, I always go with the prescribed and accepted, Lucas-approved number of 25,000 over all. With the subsequent rise of warlordism, defection of Imperials to the New Republic, and other conflicts these numbers dwindle down to the next EU proven and Lucas-approved number of 200. Of course there is no mention of the supporting ships: Victory-class SDs, Dreadnoughts, lesser Cruisers, etc. With as many millions of worlds that existed in the SWG then it seems clear to me that even 25k in number, the ISDs would be overworked. Which is why you see details of older/smaller ships being used to patrol systems where threat levels were lower.

As far as manpower is concerned, we need to remember that just because the Clone Wars ended did not mean that Palpatine did not stop using clones. We know that clones were used by the Imperial war machine as late as 10 ABY during the Thrawn campaigns. Clones would have filled the need for regular line troops, pilots, and ship crew that regular recruitment and conscription could not fill, meaning that there was a disproportionate amount of clones used in lower spectrum roles than higher; there being few clones reaching any kind of command rank. So that solves the issue of manpower, at least during Palpatine's reign and Thrawn's.

The Rebellion was always a collection of separate groups rebelling for their own reasons. It wasn't a combined effort until Mon Montha made Ackbar an admiral and made him supreme commander. And even then it was always dangerous to concentrate the Rebel military, due to the fact that the Empire would undoubtedly hear about it and send overwhelming force to destroy it, as they tried on numerous occasions. So, until the Battle of Ender, the Rebellion is forced to stick with hit and run tactics, harassment, sabotage, etc. Only after the loss of centralized governance with the death of Palpatine is the Rebellion able to muster its full strength, take Coruscant, and then become an official government and military.

As for the organization of the Imperial Fleet, I would judge the article on it by Wookieepedia to be fairly accurate. And from it again backs up the idea that smaller warships were used to support a lesser amount of ISDs; an entire sector fleet was not made solely, or the majority, of ISDs.

A sector group could be expected to contain at least 2,400 ships, 24 of which were Star Destroyers (Imperial-class Star Destroyers were the norm, but some groups contained older model Star Destroyers), and another 1,600 combat starships.

Which again, leads me to believe that the 25K EU number of ISDs is accurate. This leaving lesser ships to number in the hundreds of thousands.

[Simon_Jester]

There has to be a reason. Either building such a huge number of individual hulls is not cost-effective compared to one large station, or the Empire faces human factors that limit the absolute size of the fleet in hulls, not in tons. Or something else I haven't thought of...

You're forgetting other geopolitical factors. When the Emperor had the Death Star built, it was in order to take a greater personal control over the Imperial Fleet and thereby his power as Emperor of the galaxy. It wasn't a case of simply deciding whether to use a single super laser or a whole fleet of ships to destroy a target world; but to be a representation of power (going back towards the Tarkin Doctrine) and thereby the Emperor.[/quote]"Or the Empire faces human factors..."

That was a bit ambiguous, I admit. The desire to maintain rigid political control over the fleet was definitely one of the things I was thinking of when I wrote "human factors." As others have pointed out, given a reasonable span of command, a fleet much larger than several thousand ships winds up having impractically many layers of command between the Emperor and the actual ship captains.

As far as manpower is concerned, we need to remember that just because the Clone Wars ended did not mean that Palpatine did not stop using clones. We know that clones were used by the Imperial war machine as late as 10 ABY during the Thrawn campaigns. Clones would have filled the need for regular line troops, pilots, and ship crew that regular recruitment and conscription could not fill, meaning that there was a disproportionate amount of clones used in lower spectrum roles than higher; there being few clones reaching any kind of command rank. So that solves the issue of manpower, at least during Palpatine's reign and Thrawn's.

Raw manpower really shouldn't be the issue. Just as the individual star destroyers are overworked policing many systems each, the individual star destroyers each have a potential population of billions per ship to draw on for their crews and support personnel.

[feld]

Loved Star Destroyers for a long time. Have many technical history theories but I'll spare you the bulk of them. My main controversial conjecture about Kuat's Star Destroyer development is that the Tector-class came before the Imperator/Imperial-class.

The idea is that the Kuatis had long appreciated that space warfare was trending toward battles close in over heavily inhabited worlds like the Battle of Coruscant in RotS. They realized that ships would be:

1. Close to each other (in terms of space weaponry), necessitating heavy shields and armor
2. All over the place in the sky relative to each other, necessitating having guns everywhere

I think that they designed most or all of the familiar ISD components (reactor, engines, guns, and armor configuration) for the Tector to fight such battles. I imagine the Tector as an Imperator/Imperial-I with most or all of the dorsal terraces removed and the dorsal surface (including the guns) mirrored on the bottom side. This design doubles the number of heavy guns and gives Tector the ability to project the same firepower into the dorsal or ventral sectors. I'd actually prefer to use fractal's more logical "half v" arrangement of heavy guns because it lets the ship put more firepower directly forward...but then I'd have to explain why the ISD didn't do that.

Now, I'm not sure how much of the dorsal terrace they pulled but I imagine that Tector might not have any terrace or the iconic bridge tower. Her emphasis on close in ship-to-ship actions might make it worthwhile to place all command and control areas deep inside where they are protected inside more armor. Everything that lives in the dorsal terraces of the familiar ISD would have to either be removed or placed inside the hull. Obviously with all that space that we see in dorsal terraces gone, the ship wouldn't have as much room inside for fighters, AT-ATs, and troops as the more familiar Imperator/Imperial ships. Any service hangars it did have were probably small and inset into recesses in the brim trenches as with Venator's secondary hangars.

I think Kuat saw an opportunity as the Clone Wars went on for a Star Destroyer which used the Tector's components but fulfilled more of the "peacekeeping battleship" (combined space control, carrier, troop transport, and support platform) that the Victory-class performed in the Republic. So they inserted large hangar and cargo areas in the center of the Tector and added the dorsal terraces to reclaim needed space for the crew and expanded troop carrying space. This required compromising the ship's passive defense (shields and armor) and reduction of main armament (stripping the ventral heavy turbolaser/turboion batteries).

The Imperator design was, of course, much more useful to the nascent Empire which had just eliminated the largest regional navies in the galaxy that it didn't control directly (like Kuat's sectorial defense fleet). What they needed was a large deep range ship which could deal with most problems (insurgencies, disturbances, or large bands of pirate forces) anywhere in the galaxy.

v/r
feld

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Now that is an interesting theory.

Unfortunately part of it is contradicted by the evidence- we have an onscreen appearance, retroactively confirmed, of a Tector- class destroyer at Endor; It's seen in the fighter combat sequence, round about "we have to buy him a little more time" IIRC, when the camera passes over the underside of a domeless, bayless destroyer.

That was the ship that was later confirmed as the Tector, so they're definitely not top- to- bottom mirror images, however much sense that might actually make. Good thought, though.

Turret lineup- as we speculated earlier, the Imperator class is designed to fight above and below it's weight class, to crush small ships and to challenge large ones as part of a wolfpack, so think about trying to evade fire directed from a much larger ship, with turrets that bear forwards; most evasive moves are going to take you closer to it and further into harm's way, I reckon.

To actually choose and control the range, to avoid either being forced away or sucked in, I think you want the main arc of fire in a different plane from the direction your main thrusters fire in- you want to be able to fire broadside to broadside, spiralling in or out, closing and opening range as the situation dictates.

I'd prefer the half V myself, as still being capable of that with broadly effective forward fire, but I think there might be an internal space issue with the reactor and bays. The Venator and Acclamator, both of which have turret lines parallel to the keel, have major facilities there too- the Separatist ships, and the Executor, don't seem to suffer from anything of the sort. Perhaps it simply is a function of placement relative to the ship's main structural supports?

[fractalsponge1]

I'd prefer the half V myself, as still being capable of that with broadly effective forward fire, but I think there might be an internal space issue with the reactor and bays. The Venator and Acclamator, both of which have turret lines parallel to the keel, have major facilities there too- the Separatist ships, and the Executor, don't seem to suffer from anything of the sort. Perhaps it simply is a function of placement relative to the ship's main structural supports?

The Venator is an extremely compact design for what it offers. The close-and-parallel-to-centerline turret arrangement might just be due to the fact that there isn't much space to go around, period. The huge brim notches open into loading bays, which probably take up a fair bit of volume and are by necessity placed outboard. Might have been more trouble than it was worth to route power trunking and arrange for suitable bracing for heavy turrets placed farther outboard. There's less of an excuse for the ISD, but it's not a huge drawback given the maneuverability and role of these kinds of ship (in the small "d" destroyer role). Better placement would be more important in a less maneuverable ship, or one that would be limited by doctrine to a more restricted flight profile (i.e. a battleship).

More centerline batteries would probably be the ideal solution for all kinds of ships. The Legacy era Pellaeon seems to be an attempt at that; would be better if it weren't so damned ugly though

[feld]

Now that is an interesting theory.
I'd prefer the half V myself, as still being capable of that with broadly effective forward fire, but I think there might be an internal space issue with the reactor and bays. The Venator and Acclamator, both of which have turret lines parallel to the keel, have major facilities there too- the Separatist ships, and the Executor, don't seem to suffer from anything of the sort. Perhaps it simply is a function of placement relative to the ship's main structural supports?

I thought two things on that:
1. structural support (as you did above). That's inline with Saxton's notion that the main guns might provide tremendous thrust.

2. power transfer conduits from the main engines are an issue. It seems likely that hypermatter reactors output energy as plasma streams in the same way that most modern power plants output steam. You want to minimize bends in plasma conduits because bending the plasma stream causes it to lose more energy as radiation, making it harder to transfer energy from the reactor to distant users within the ship.

v/r
feld

[darthscott]

I don't know, but when I think of the level of technology and resources available of the Star Wars Universe I like to think big. I have always hoped that 25,000 number applies to the number of Imperator-class Star Destroyers alone. The reason we see them most frequently in the OT is that they are most mobile of the Star Destroyer fleet, hence good at tracking down Rebel forces.

I just think 25,000 SD's is way too small of a number to support a Galactic fleet and that the majority of the larger cruisers, dreadnoughts and other destroyer/frigate class guarded the Core Worlds and other important locations. Between the Republic/Local Planetary forces and later the Empire, I figure that all told you could have millions of capital ships at any given time. Then again I think all of the numbers out there concerning the SW Universe are pretty low. For comparison I think the 120 Battlestars and a few thousand support ships of the 12 Colonies of Man in the BSG is a pretty good number considering their level of technology and population.

[Abacus]

I don't know, but when I think of the level of technology and resources available of the Star Wars Universe I like to think big. I have always hoped that 25,000 number applies to the number of Imperator-class Star Destroyers alone. The reason we see them most frequently in the OT is that they are most mobile of the Star Destroyer fleet, hence good at tracking down Rebel forces.

I just think 25,000 SD's is way too small of a number to support a Galactic fleet and that the majority of the larger cruisers, dreadnoughts and other destroyer/frigate class guarded the Core Worlds and other important locations. Between the Republic/Local Planetary forces and later the Empire, I figure that all told you could have millions of capital ships at any given time. Then again I think all of the numbers out there concerning the SW Universe are pretty low. For comparison I think the 120 Battlestars and a few thousand support ships of the 12 Colonies of Man in the BSG is a pretty good number considering their level of technology and population.

You also have to remember that as far as I am aware, according to SW standards, any ship above 500 meters in length was classified as a capital ship. Of course there are different types of capitol ship, so I believe that the 25k number is accurate to the number of ISDs built. And like I said previously, this number was supplemented by hundred of thousands of other types of capitol ships, from Dreadnoughts to Victory SDs to Executor-class SSD.

[bz249]

Now that is an interesting theory.

To actually choose and control the range, to avoid either being forced away or sucked in, I think you want the main arc of fire in a different plane from the direction your main thrusters fire in- you want to be able to fire broadside to broadside, spiralling in or out, closing and opening range as the situation dictates.

Don`t really agree with that, since there are so large power differences a destroyer force trying to outmaneuver a battleship would result in a battle of attrition, the thing battleships are excel in. Such a battle would result in the dreadnought slowly blows up the small destroyers while she has enough time to refresh her shield.

The real chance of the destroyer group is to spit as much power as they can and hope to penetrate the shield of the battlewagon somewhere, to achieve this a destroyer charge offers the best possibilities (thus all gun pointing forward with a clean fire arc, while a considerable percentage of the dreadnoughts gun are masked).

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Following up on something from earlier, the Sector Group is, checking, a multi- service organisation, the total Imperial military commitment to the sector including CompForce, whatever other quasimilitary organisations exist, some civilian development agencies, customs, search and rescue and special police- although not Intelligence- and is not merely a joint but also a civilian command, answering to the Sector Governor or Moff.

'Sector fleet' is a fanon term as far as I can tell, a shorthand for the purely naval component of the sector group, and has no official status.

In terms of the personnel factors relating to the size of the fleet, there's enough meat out there to man thousands, tens of thousands of ships per planet. Droids, even, if there's that much of a shortfall.

Quality rather than quantity may be a problem, considering what state the Republic's armed forces were in and how much they had to expand. The real world equivalent would be any of the small professional forces suddenly asked to expand into mass citizen armies- the average level of competence nosedives, as trained professionals get spread out so thinly the organisation breaks down.

On the job training is a particularly stupid and wasteful way to learn to be soldiers or sailors, but it's happened in human history before. The staff and administration not knowing how to do their jobs or even what their jobs are supposed to be can paralyse the organisation, render it ineffectual. The British army of WWI was a particularly bad example of this.

Clones were not the worst method of dealing with this problem, and I think you want them primarily for the implant knowledge, to take the positions that are harder to work up to efficiency in, mainly staff.

As far as I know, from adding up all the mentions of them in the EU, we end up with about forty Executor class ships, and probably more under construction. Add a largely hypothetical maybe eighty to a hundred Mandators, not all of which would have been active- ten to twenty in peacetime- and there are indeed a lot of command ships, not enough for Sector but that, with battleships, should be enough for regional and oversector command.

Actually, there's a thought. Dockyard time. What proportion of their time do Star Destroyers spend on deployment? Six years logistics, fuel for maybe three hours at full output but a far greater period of extended cruise, but they still have to come in sometime for repairs, refuelling, transfers, leave and general social time.

There's no way their record can be a hundred percent; off the top of my head the figures for wooden hulls- comparable because of the logistics- varied to the point where some ships with hard- driving commanders spent upwards of eighty-five percent of their time active, mainly the very small ships, but an average ship of the line would be spending half her life in port somewhere.

There aren't going to be twenty- five thousand active at any given time. I think the current theory is one in three forward deployed, one in three preparing to deploy, in transit, or returning from operations, one in three stood down? That dovetails nicely with the three destroyers of a Superiority Force, six of a Superiority Fleet. For major operations this changes of course, for maximum effort all three probably, but not on an ongoing basis.

I very much doubt that anyone with an alternative uses plasma conduits, or that any civilisation with more than three brain cells to rub together hasn't spent a great deal of time and effort looking for something better- assuming they're even possible, they're a damage control disaster waiting to happen. Any breach is a failure of the system- lose the vacuum and your entire power net just crashed- and a small plasma bomb detonating inside the ship.

Apart from the hoses- we are basically talking about fantastically complicated and expensive hoses- you'd need many, many powerplants, at each main reciever of power, to convert that back into some usable form. There go the economies of scale. Hey, I have an idea. Electricity. Room temperature superconductors, if possible- they're vastly less likely to explode and probably a damn' sight simpler to maintain than a plasma conduit. Also, assuming they're not actually hideously toxic, and that's what insulation is for, they can actually be laid as bypass cable round damaged sections of the ship.

bz249, I do think you've misread the numbers and have this backwards. Executor outgunned her support craft a hundred and eighteen to one- straight down the throat offers a maximum chance for a quick decision, yes, but it also slants the situation in the battleship's favour. Fire control limitations, engaging multiple targets at once- and there's a simple solution to that, "Sectoral targets, batteries by local control, fire at will"- are the only reason any head on attack is goign to last longer than seconds.

A straight fight favours the stronger ship, a shifting fight favours the harder target.

[bz249]

bz249, I do think you've misread the numbers and have this backwards. Executor outgunned her support craft a hundred and eighteen to one- straight down the throat offers a maximum chance for a quick decision, yes, but it also slants the situation in the battleship's favour. Fire control limitations, engaging multiple targets at once- and there's a simple solution to that, "Sectoral targets, batteries by local control, fire at will"- are the only reason any head on attack is goign to last longer than seconds.

A straight fight favours the stronger ship, a shifting fight favours the harder target.

The trick is that the battleship does not have to engage multiple targets. She choose one destroyer blows it up, than shifts to the second blows it up, then to the third... etc. A destroyer force would be quickly annihilated that way. In a long battle a DesRon continously lose firepower while the battleship has the same hitting power until she starts to take structural damage, thus the destroyers only have chance if they can decide at the very beginning where they have the best ratio. Attacking from one direction also helps to mask some of the battleships guns, so I still see no reason not to charge with lighter ships with all forward gun arrangement (if i can not avoid battle).

[fractalsponge1]

For a squadron of small ships vs a big one, fighting at range vs closing for decisive action really depends on the objective, doesn't it? If the destroyer squadron assaulting a star dreadnought wants to live, then the best option is indeed to maneuver as hard as possible right at the edge of effective range, ducking in and out of the effective fire envelope, landing what fire they can. Pinning action, buy time, drain hypermatter and the stamina and adrenaline of the dreadnought's crew, so that larger ships that might withstand a battery volley from the target can catch and actually do real damage in concert with the small ships. That must be the normal course of action of destroyers vs dreadnoughts, unless massive losses and brute, unflinching aggression are always expected.

If destroyers are all you've got, and you really need to actually damage a dreadnought, not just harass it and possibly force it to retire and refuel, then closing makes the most sense. You'll have to expect and accept horrendous losses, but otherwise the big ship's shields will win out against a throw-weight equivalent destroyer swarm, and nothing will really have been accomplished. Big risk, big rewards.

You can use a maneuverability edge to close from a blind angle, of course, and maneuvering while closing and landing fire might be a little better than flying straight for continuous alpha and get obliterated by the first return volley... so being able to maneuver and fire freely still has advantages in both scenarios.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The squadron of ships better be darn numerous if they are assaulting a lone star dreadnaught at range. Star Dreadnaughts such as the Executor have been known to squash flat ISDs at range with incredible speed. Don't forget, the further out you are, the more guns the Star Dreadnaguhts can train on you. Range is something the Star Dreadnaughts have an advantage of.

You might actually get more success at point blank range actually, because it limits the firing arcs available. That probably did help Ackbar because his ships could actually use the Executor's bulk to protect them from batteries that cannot angle themselves to strike close ranged vessels.

[fractalsponge1]

It's not range that matters - it's hit rate. I don't think there's any indication that turbolasers increase in range with size, and in any event ships like Executor don't obviously mount guns much larger than on destroyers. At higher range, the low hit rate by both sides means that the destroyers cannot beat the dissipation of the dreadnought's shielding, whereas a dreadnought has so many guns that it will almost always be able to kill a destroyer, even if a miniscule fraction of the fire connects.

[Patroklos]

More importantly it masks you from the majority of the rest of the Imperia fleet. If you are on the Starboard side of the Executor then not only are you only dealing with half that ships weapons, but it is probably blocking half the Imperial fleet from shooting at you as well.

[fractalsponge1]

Half the Executor outguns the rest of the Imperial fleet - an advantage, but relatively speaking a small one.

[NoogDeNoog]

It's not range that matters - it's hit rate. I don't think there's any indication that turbolasers increase in range with size, and in any event ships like Executor don't obviously mount guns much larger than on destroyers. At higher range, the low hit rate by both sides means that the destroyers cannot beat the dissipation of the dreadnought's shielding, whereas a dreadnought has so many guns that it will almost always be able to kill a destroyer, even if a miniscule fraction of the fire connects.

Is that true, size of a turbolaser has nothing to do with it's range?

The turbolasers on a corvette have the same distance as the turbolasers on a SSD??

[fractalsponge1]

Within the same general range, I mean, like comparing two heavy teraton-range turbolasers. At least I'm not aware of anything that says much about it, apart from the stated range of the Venator's heavies (and even if ECM allowed you to target at that range, hitting with lightspeed weapons against a maneuvering target is going to be by luck alone).

[NoogDeNoog]

fractalsponge1

Sir, your ships models are amazing. What program do you use? and what program would you suggest for a beginner?

[Simon_Jester]

Clones were not the worst method of dealing with this problem, and I think you want them primarily for the implant knowledge, to take the positions that are harder to work up to efficiency in, mainly staff.

Cloned staff will need a fairly high degree of intelligence and initiative. That's not a show-stopper, but good luck getting them from, say, Kamino...

The kind of people willing to mass produce tailor made clones in the SW setting may not produce good staffers (or officers) very effectively. The industrialized education/socialization process doesn't help.

The trick is that the battleship does not have to engage multiple targets. She choose one destroyer blows it up, than shifts to the second blows it up, then to the third... etc. A destroyer force would be quickly annihilated that way. In a long battle a DesRon continously lose firepower while the battleship has the same hitting power until she starts to take structural damage, thus the destroyers only have chance if they can decide at the very beginning where they have the best ratio.

Or are whittling down the heavy's shielding, an option not to be despised if not always possible.

Attacking from one direction also helps to mask some of the battleships guns, so I still see no reason not to charge with lighter ships with all forward gun arrangement (if i can not avoid battle).

Hmm. Not sure. First of all, a lot of Star Wars battleship designs seem to have what ECR calls an "alpha arc," a direction in which all or nearly all their main ordnance can fire. They're usually not big spheres studded with gun emplacements or some such. Therefore, attacking from one direction masks some of their guns... until they pivot and bring their alpha arc to bear, at which point "into the mouth of Hell, charged the six hundred."

Also, while your smaller ships may be able to survive single hits from supercapital-class weapons (the biggest guns on, say, an Executor), they're sure as hell not going to survive sustained fire. Getting far enough out that the enemy can't score sustained fire at all increases your survivability, because they have to get lucky to bore through your shields faster than you can replenish. And because they have a higher turbolaser capture cross-section than you do, you can afford to do that assuming equally good fire control, assuming that their shields aren't so tough that you are forced to go for component shots.

The squadron of ships better be darn numerous if they are assaulting a lone star dreadnaught at range. Star Dreadnaughts such as the Executor have been known to squash flat ISDs at range with incredible speed. Don't forget, the further out you are, the more guns the Star Dreadnaguhts can train on you. Range is something the Star Dreadnaughts have an advantage of.

You might actually get more success at point blank range actually, because it limits the firing arcs available. That probably did help Ackbar because his ships could actually use the Executor's bulk to protect them from batteries that cannot angle themselves to strike close ranged vessels.

Yes, but situations where you can reasonably hope to get that close are going to be relatively rare, given the ship accelerations. You're talking about fighting at ranges of ten kilometers or less, with ships that have accelerations on the order of 10 kilometers per second squared.

Now, for fighters a point blank attack is the best bet, but for ships that can at least claim to be capital-grade without laughing (even though they be much smaller than a battleship)? Not so much.

[bz249]

Also, while your smaller ships may be able to survive single hits from supercapital-class weapons (the biggest guns on, say, an Executor), they're sure as hell not going to survive sustained fire. Getting far enough out that the enemy can't score sustained fire at all increases your survivability, because they have to get lucky to bore through your shields faster than you can replenish. And because they have a higher turbolaser capture cross-section than you do, you can afford to do that assuming equally good fire control, assuming that their shields aren't so tough that you are forced to go for component shots.

The critical question is than: is there a realistic distance from which a battleship can cripple individual destroyers while the latter ones have fair chance to deplete the formers shield. If such a regime exists then fighting at that range offers the best chance of killing or mission killing the battlewagon. That´s sure.

If there is no such range than the destroyer force steadily lose firepower as more and more ships fall victim to the battleship´s guns and then the only viable tactic is to hit first and hit hard and hope for the best.

[Abacus]

fractalsponge1

Sir, your ships models are amazing. What program do you use? and what program would you suggest for a beginner?

Don't clutter my thread with sycophantic verbiage. Thank you.

--------

I have to agree with fractal on this one, concerning the SSD. If I remember correctly, there is a battle described in one of the X-Wing novels between Zsinj and Han Solo; the former using a brand spanking new Executor-class SSD and the former using a heavy Mon Cal cruiser. I'm not sure if you would want to use it as a reference, I'll have to go back and find the necessary passages.