StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Hello folks! Since I couldn't find anything with this type of name or title in the forums, and because I was curious to start this conversation up with others besides my local gaming group, I figured I'd start here. This is a versus thread. I'll periodically list two ships to be in opposition to each other and we'll hash out in debate which would come out on top. These ships may or may not have encountered each other in the movies, books, or comics, or they might have, but we're going to debate them anyway. Deadliest Warriors meets Star Wars.

There are some base-line rules to consider:

(1) The ships in question are at peak performance, having no damage or system failures before their "encounter".
(2) The ship has the full complement of starfighters, assault shuttles, etc, as listed in their EU/Cannon pages on Wookiepedia.
(3) The crews of each respective ship would be, in general, all competent and motivated at their jobs.


ROUND ONE

Lucrehulk-class Battleship

Specifications
Addendum Notes: This ship will be as it was during the height of the Clone Wars, not it's pre-CW outfitting.

V.S.

Imperial 1-class Star Destroyer

Specifications

Let's see, purpose-built warship from the keel up(ISD-I) against a bulk freighter retrofitted with turbolaster and other military systems.

The Imperial crew is more used to fighting combats against people capable of shooting back at them, while the TF crew generally uses their militarized frieghter to bully competitors and people owing them money into submission.

The ISD-I's shields and armor can survive asteroid impacts, while a single N-1 starfighter was able to slip through the Droid Control Ship(a Lucrehulk)'s shields.

ISD-I has a mixture of light and heavy turbolasers and ion cannon(60 each of the heavy TLs and ion cannon emplacements), while the Lucrehulk has only forty TLs, all medium emplacements, IIRC.

ISD-I's hull form allows all weapons to bear along forward arc, while the Lucrehulk's turbolasers do not allow them all to bear on any one arc of fire.

ISD-I wins.

*cure the music for Devil's Advocate*

What about the massive number of starfighters that the Lucrehulk can carry? And yes, while the ISD can bring nearly it's entire armament to bear in one forward arc, the Lucrehulk may have stronger armor and shields; as would be demonstrated by the ability to have a larger (number of) reactor(s).

From Wookiepedia, a proper Clone Wars-model Lucrehulk takes a whole flotilla of Republic Star Destroyers to put down. An ISD is not stronger than, say, three Venators; this ought to be a fairly clear Confederate victory.

The TPM ships are a different model, only partially converted to warships, and have no bearing on this discussion.

Yeah, I'm actually inclined to go with the Lucrahulk on this, all other factors (environment, quality of the crews, etc.) being equal.

I don't know if it makes a huge difference but the Lucrehulk is almost certainly 90-95% manned by droids, if we're going with a standard Clone Wars crew. The ISD by contrast would have a mostly human crew with droid/computer complementation.

Probably doesn't affect the narrative that much, but it's still something to consider. For example, the Lucrehulk's captain could merrily open most of its interior to vacuum without worrying about his crew, and thus containing atmosphere isn't an issue for him except in the spaces where organic crew actually work. The ISD captain has to actually be concerned about that, since losing meatbags means he's short of hands.

It depends in part on the approach each side takes. As I see it, a one-on-one battle like this allows for three broad strategies.

1) Long range bombardment. This involves the two ships approaching at sublight speed and one or both firing at relatively long ranges.

2) Fighter attack. This involves one or both ships hanging back and relying on their starfighter complement. Basically carrier battle in space.

3) Short range attack. This involves one or both ships charging into close range at higher sublight speeds, or one ship using hyperdrive to launch a sneak attack on the other. The latter can be devastating, but is also the most risky.

I am inclined to believe that the ISD has a clear advantage in the first case, a long-range artillery duel. It has many more heavy guns (if we're going with the Legends version), and while the layout is not ideal for employing its firepower, it can at least use the heavies by dipping the bow. The Lucrehulk is at a serious disadvantage in terms of firepower, though it may in theory be saved by its shields.

In the second case, the Lucrehulk has the advantage in two respects. Its fighter complement is 1500 Vulture droids, compared to 48 TIE fighters; giving an overwheming numerical advantage. The other advantage is in anti-fighter protection, with 185 quad laser batteries and 520 assault laser cannons; not including the turbolasers, which may or may not be suitable for anti-fighter work. The ISD in turn has 60 XX-9 heavy turbolasers, listed in Wookiepedia as being unsuitable for anti-fighter work.

I'm inclined to give the third case to the ISD on account of its firepower. In the case of a sublight charge, the ISD can keep most of its topside firepower (including at least half of the heavy turrets) aimed at the Lucrehulk by orienting its topside towards the Lucrehulk as it passes. The Lucrehulk can respond with maybe half of its 48 outer-ring turbolasers, assuming they are positioned equidistant around the ring. If the ISD passes at a 90 degree angle (bridge tower aimed straight at the Lucrehulk) it can use all its turrets; while also allowing the Captain to perform a Marg Sarbl if he was so-inclined. In the case of a close-range hyperjump, the firepower advantage is also in the ISD's favour.

Juubi Karakuchi wrote:It depends in part on the approach each side takes. As I see it, a one-on-one battle like this allows for three broad strategies.

1) Long range bombardment. This involves the two ships approaching at sublight speed and one or both firing at relatively long ranges.

2) Fighter attack. This involves one or both ships hanging back and relying on their starfighter complement. Basically carrier battle in space.

3) Short range attack. This involves one or both ships charging into close range at higher sublight speeds, or one ship using hyperdrive to launch a sneak attack on the other. The latter can be devastating, but is also the most risky.

I am inclined to believe that the ISD has a clear advantage in the first case, a long-range artillery duel. It has many more heavy guns (if we're going with the Legends version), and while the layout is not ideal for employing its firepower, it can at least use the heavies by dipping the bow. The Lucrehulk is at a serious disadvantage in terms of firepower, though it may in theory be saved by its shields.

In the second case, the Lucrehulk has the advantage in two respects. Its fighter complement is 1500 Vulture droids, compared to 48 TIE fighters; giving an overwheming numerical advantage. The other advantage is in anti-fighter protection, with 185 quad laser batteries and 520 assault laser cannons; not including the turbolasers, which may or may not be suitable for anti-fighter work. The ISD in turn has 60 XX-9 heavy turbolasers, listed in Wookiepedia as being unsuitable for anti-fighter work.

I'm inclined to give the third case to the ISD on account of its firepower. In the case of a sublight charge, the ISD can keep most of its topside firepower (including at least half of the heavy turrets) aimed at the Lucrehulk by orienting its topside towards the Lucrehulk as it passes. The Lucrehulk can respond with maybe half of its 48 outer-ring turbolasers, assuming they are positioned equidistant around the ring. If the ISD passes at a 90 degree angle (bridge tower aimed straight at the Lucrehulk) it can use all its turrets; while also allowing the Captain to perform a Marg Sarbl if he was so-inclined. In the case of a close-range hyperjump, the firepower advantage is also in the ISD's favour.

Yes, the ISD has a better design, but a Lucrehulk is still clearly far bigger. At close range, even if the ISD can use twice as many of it's turrets, it stills outguns it.

Juubi Karakuchi wrote:It depends in part on the approach each side takes. As I see it, a one-on-one battle like this allows for three broad strategies.

1) Long range bombardment. This involves the two ships approaching at sublight speed and one or both firing at relatively long ranges.

2) Fighter attack. This involves one or both ships hanging back and relying on their starfighter complement. Basically carrier battle in space.

3) Short range attack. This involves one or both ships charging into close range at higher sublight speeds, or one ship using hyperdrive to launch a sneak attack on the other. The latter can be devastating, but is also the most risky.

I am inclined to believe that the ISD has a clear advantage in the first case, a long-range artillery duel. It has many more heavy guns (if we're going with the Legends version), and while the layout is not ideal for employing its firepower, it can at least use the heavies by dipping the bow. The Lucrehulk is at a serious disadvantage in terms of firepower, though it may in theory be saved by its shields.

In the second case, the Lucrehulk has the advantage in two respects. Its fighter complement is 1500 Vulture droids, compared to 48 TIE fighters; giving an overwheming numerical advantage. The other advantage is in anti-fighter protection, with 185 quad laser batteries and 520 assault laser cannons; not including the turbolasers, which may or may not be suitable for anti-fighter work. The ISD in turn has 60 XX-9 heavy turbolasers, listed in Wookiepedia as being unsuitable for anti-fighter work.

I'm inclined to give the third case to the ISD on account of its firepower. In the case of a sublight charge, the ISD can keep most of its topside firepower (including at least half of the heavy turrets) aimed at the Lucrehulk by orienting its topside towards the Lucrehulk as it passes. The Lucrehulk can respond with maybe half of its 48 outer-ring turbolasers, assuming they are positioned equidistant around the ring. If the ISD passes at a 90 degree angle (bridge tower aimed straight at the Lucrehulk) it can use all its turrets; while also allowing the Captain to perform a Marg Sarbl if he was so-inclined. In the case of a close-range hyperjump, the firepower advantage is also in the ISD's favour.

Thing is, combat isn't that clean-cut. Any combat we'd be talking about is going to be all three of these combined, with 1&2 and 2&3 happening simultaneously.

Abacus wrote:Thing is, combat isn't that clean-cut. Any combat we'd be talking about is going to be all three of these combined, with 1&2 and 2&3 happening simultaneously.

Almost certainly. It probably comes down to relative firepower and shield power. Can the Lucrehulk withstand the ISD's firepower long enough to swarm it with Vulture droids? Can the ISD cope with the Vulture droids long enough to damage the Lucrehulk suffciently?

Unfortunately, I can't answer either with any confidence.

If you want to keep the number of guns for the ISD-I given by WEG, you should also keep the firing-arcs assigned by that source (which would be 20 left, 20 right and 20 front, IIRC). So nothing with "the ISD can bring ALL its weapons to bear in an Alpha-strike".
Considering, that SW-warships can direct all their reactor-output through the guns (and even charge up single weapons for a considerable amount of time (see Munificient-class frigate or DS-superlaser) with the ships full reactor-output multiple times) they don't even need to be capable of bringing all weapons to bear on a single target.
Also how do we know, that a clone-war-refitted Lucrehulc with all the additional weapons and their support-systems (reactors, power-trunks, weapons-bracings) still has a complement of 1,500 Vulture-droids and all the other vehicles aboard?

I have to give this to the Lucrehulc, given their size and volume, not to mention the ROTS:ICS.quote about a "flotilla of Venator-SDs needed to bring down their shields" a single Lucrehulc should be equal to four to five ISDs. That would also match with the number of heavy TLs. 12 for the ISD-I, while the upgraded Lucrehulc would have 48.

A game-changer could probably be the Skipray-blastboats and Assault gunboats the ISD carries aboard, since the Lucrehulc has nothing comparable aboard. Also the human crew of the ISD might be capable of outsmarting the rather limited droid-brains of the TF-battleship (although imperial crews haven't shown themselves to be very smart, too, but that might be a bias of the source-material).

Going by ICS stats (and OP does say we're using legendary stats) - derived from volume, the Lucrehulk has greater shield dispersal than the ISD has output; the ISD couldn't bring its shield down by bombardment. IE in a gun battle, the ISD can keep firing until its fuel runs out, and can't hurt the Lucrehulk.

In the various cutaway shots, the Lucrehulk has three generators bigger than the one on the ISD, one in the core ship, two main generators in the ring (that Anakin shot).

FTeik wrote:A game-changer could probably be the Skipray-blastboats and Assault gunboats the ISD carries aboard, since the Lucrehulc has nothing comparable aboard. Also the human crew of the ISD might be capable of outsmarting the rather limited droid-brains of the TF-battleship (although imperial crews haven't shown themselves to be very smart, too, but that might be a bias of the source-material).

The top end of Confederate crews, like General Trench, known for having developed tactics that largely defeated the use of cloaking devices, aren't demonstrably worse than the better Imperials, and reasonably the average ability of a late war Lucrehulk of the type shown is probably similar to the Empire's; most of its officers will be combat veterans, while the younger members of the ISD's crew may well have careers mostly filled with police work and chasing smugglers.

As for gunboats, the Lucrehulk can always task some of its three thousand vulture droids to bring them down?

Juubi Karakuchi wrote:Almost certainly. It probably comes down to relative firepower and shield power. Can the Lucrehulk withstand the ISD's firepower long enough to swarm it with Vulture droids? Can the ISD cope with the Vulture droids long enough to damage the Lucrehulk suffciently?

Unfortunately, I can't answer either with any confidence.

As we're using the stats on those pages we can say exactly:

ISD output: Peak: ~7.73 × 1024 W
Lucrehulk Shield Dispersal: 1.08 × 1025–4.32 x 1025 W

IE Between 10 and 43 vs 8 - so yeah, the Lucrehulk can disperse the entire output energies of an ISD even if it routes all other power to engines, shields, etc and ploughs it all into shields. Curtis always set dispersal below overall generation capacity; that gives the Lucrehulk plenty of power to shoot back and run its other systems.

The ISD has almost ten times better accelleration (given that it's a dedicated warship vs a converted freighter spaceframe this makes good sense), so it can potentially get a better position, but the Lucrehulk has aft-pointing heavy guns so that may not be terribly useful.

In the one Clone Wars example I can recall, the Lucrehulk is the flagship of a Separatist fleet blockading Ryloth. Anakin ends up using one of his Venators in a suicide run in order to destroy it, thus crippling the entirety of the CIS fleet, letting Ashoka trap their frigates in a Marg Sabl closure maneuver(borrowed from the Timothy Zahn novels).

In that case the Lucrehulk defeated his trio of Venators in the opening round, destroying one and crippling a second, at least partially through a fighter attack. Though that Lucrehulk was backed up by a half dozen Munificent class frigates.

This leads to a question I have always wondered. Why do Star Destroyers have so few fighters relative to the Venator class? It has a mere 48+12(fighters/bombers) to the 420 of a Venator class. One problem with those numbers is that it shows 192 of those fighters as the Actis class, which we only eve see flown by Jedi in current sources. It is thus likely those numbers are merely theoretical, with the numbers carried in service often lower, both to give greater maintenance abilities as well as due to a lack of sufficient pilots.

From various depictions in Clone Wars, we also see that the average Venator class generally carries far less fighters than it could based on the hard numbers. So it could be that the ISD was designed to carry closer to the average number of fighters often carried during the Clone Wars, with a focus on having a more survivable ship with a less vulnerable hanger.

Adam Reynolds wrote:In the one Clone Wars example I can recall, the Lucrehulk is the flagship of a Separatist fleet blockading Ryloth. Anakin ends up using one of his Venators in a suicide run in order to destroy it, thus crippling the entirety of the CIS fleet, letting Ashoka trap their frigates in a Marg Sabl closure maneuver(borrowed from the Timothy Zahn novels).

In that case the Lucrehulk defeated his trio of Venators in the opening round, destroying one and crippling a second, at least partially through a fighter attack. Though that Lucrehulk was backed up by a half dozen Munificent class frigates.

This leads to a question I have always wondered. Why do Star Destroyers have so few fighters relative to the Venator class? It has a mere 48+12(fighters/bombers) to the 420 of a Venator class. One problem with those numbers is that it shows 192 of those fighters as the Actis class, which we only eve see flown by Jedi in current sources. It is thus likely those numbers are merely theoretical, with the numbers carried in service often lower, both to give greater maintenance abilities as well as due to a lack of sufficient pilots.

From various depictions in Clone Wars, we also see that the average Venator class generally carries far less fighters than it could based on the hard numbers. So it could be that the ISD was designed to carry closer to the average number of fighters often carried during the Clone Wars, with a focus on having a more survivable ship with a less vulnerable hanger.

The ISD carries a range of other stuff, prefab garrison bases, AT-ATs and their landing barge. Sentinel Landers. A whole bunch more stuff.

It seems that the ISD would be required to use it's speed, range, and available support starfighters and missile boats to try and overcome the disparity in starfighters -- all while avoiding a close engagement with the Lucrehulk itself. Considering the arguments thus far provided, it looks like we have a winner.

Seven votes in favor of Lucrehulk, two or three in favor of the ISD, and maybe one or two undecided.

ROUND ONE: Lucrehulk-class Battleship versus Imperial-class Star Destroyer

Winner: Lucrehulk-class Battleship


-------------------------


ROUND TWO

For round two, we'll slide down the size chart a bit to these two iconic ships.

Munificent-class Star Frigate

Specifications

V.S.

Assault Frigate Mk. 1

Specifications

Dreadnought: 1.93 × 1024 W
Munificent: 2.07 × 1023 W

So 19 vs 2 - Dreadnought has ten times the power output and would take it in a stroll.

The assault frigate is a rebuilt dreadnought but carries similar firepower. The background states that the new guns tax the Dreadnought's power supply, implying the assault frigate uses the same generators as the Dreadnought.

Neither has much fighter capacity to speak of. The Assault Frigate can support fighters via umbilical, and the Munificents often travelled with Vultures clamped onto their void spaces, but neither has bays for them or a set number.

The Munificent has a siege gun, effectively, if it can charge up it could one-shot the Assault Frigate (or an ISD, or a Lucrehulk...) but we rarely see them do that so most likely they don't usually get the chance to do that.

I say the Assault Frigate takes it unless the engagement heavily favors the Munificent - such as the Munificent being protected from scans or hidden behind a stellar body and having time to charge the cannon.

Agreed. Not much for me to add to that. Assault Frigate takes it barring some very unusual circumstances.

It would interesting to see the good guys get a hold of an operational Clone Wars-refit Lucrehulk or two instead of having to rely strictly upon the Mon Cals for their biggest ships. In fact, it would please me to see them obtain an entire flotilla of lost separatist warships, droids and all.

This goes both for the OT-era Alliance and the ST-era Resistance.

Galvatron wrote:It would interesting to see the good guys get a hold of an operational Clone Wars-refit Lucrehulk or two instead of having to rely strictly upon the Mon Cals for their biggest ships.

Funny you should mention that.

In fact, it would please me to see them obtain an entire flotilla of lost separatist warships, droids and all.

This goes both for the OT-era Alliance and the ST-era Resistance.

In the newer book "Tarkin" it mentions on numerous occasions how the Separatist left overs were impounded, sold off to places like the Corporate Sector, or destroyed.

That's why I said "lost." Think of it as a separatist version of the Katana Fleet from the the Thrawn trilogy.

Hmm... Lucrehulks are a lot bigger than those dinky Dreadnoughts. Imagine getting your hands on 200 Lucrehulks complete with droid and fighter compliments.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Hmm... Lucrehulks are a lot bigger than those dinky Dreadnoughts. Imagine getting your hands on 200 Lucrehulks complete with droid and fighter compliments.

It would've definitely given Thrawn far more of an edge against the Republic, wouldn't it. I'd say it would be an open question whether he would use such an obvious Separatist craft and military, though. It might have given the impression of a resurrected Separatist movement, which while perhaps strategically useful-- and Thrawn is nothing if not strategically minded-- would ultimately counter his ambition of a resurgent Empire.

As of the Rebellion era, that might be actively counterproductive. 200 battleships isn't enough to defeat the Empire, but it absolutely would be enough to justify every scrap of Imperial propaganda ever written.