Where do all the warships go?

[Rem 12]

It's apparent that the galaxy is a pretty violent place. In the 63 years between 22BBY and 41ABY we have four galaxy-spanning wars: the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War (Empire vs. Rebellion/New Republic), the Yuuzhan Vong War/invasion, and the Second Galactic Civil War (GFFA vs. Corellia & co.).

With the exception of Imperial/Imperator-Class, we see very few ships from one war fighting in the next. Surely major warships have a service life in excess of twenty years, so what happened to all the ships of wars past?

For example: the Republic had a massive fleet at the end of the Clone Wars, but afterwards the Venator-class is never mentioned again despite being the staple of the Republic fleet. Additionally, what happened to all the Separatist ships that would have been captured intact after the 'Master Signal' shut down all the droids? Melted down? Mothballed? Sold to the Corporate Sector?

I know the out-of-universe answer to some of this is "(source) was written/produced before ROTS" but still, only the ISD and the SSD (and maybe a Mon Cal subtype if you can keep them all straight) are still in use 20-40 years after construction.

[The Romulan Republic]

It's apparent that the galaxy is a pretty violent place. In the 63 years between 22BBY and 41ABY we have four galaxy-spanning wars: the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War (Empire vs. Rebellion/New Republic), the Yuuzhan Vong War/invasion, and the Second Galactic Civil War (GFFA vs. Corellia & co.).

With the exception of Imperial/Imperator-Class, we see very few ships from one war fighting in the next. Surely major warships have a service life in excess of twenty years, so what happened to all the ships of wars past?

For example: the Republic had a massive fleet at the end of the Clone Wars, but afterwards the Venator-class is never mentioned again despite being the staple of the Republic fleet. Additionally, what happened to all the Separatist ships that would have been captured intact after the 'Master Signal' shut down all the droids? Melted down? Mothballed? Sold to the Corporate Sector?

I know the out-of-universe answer to some of this is "(source) was written/produced before ROTS" but still, only the ISD and the SSD (and maybe a Mon Cal subtype if you can keep them all straight) are still in use 20-40 years after construction.

Actually, that's not true. I believe the Rebels did use some Clone Wars separatist ships, including at least one Lucrehulk as I recall. The Y-wing and the Dreadnought class cruiser saw service in both the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War. Also, I'm pretty sure at least one Executor class and some Rebel/New Republic designs from the previous war were used against the Yuzhan Vong.

[Riquende]

Certainly the Rebel Alliance was in no position to be picky over the capital ships they were using (though may have had problems filling some designs with crew).

I think that the Empire would have taken all the Venators, Acclamators, etc and put them to work escorting convoys in 'safe' regions, or perhaps converted them to bulk cargo ships. They may have broken up a lot of the Seperatist ships that were designed for non-humans given the makeup of their armed forces.

I reckon the general rule would be that previously front-line ships would get put on backwater patrol routes, or some other unglamourous duty, and far away from the big set-piece battles central to most episodes/movies/books.

[Darksider]

Empire at war and the Rebellion comic series show that the Empire is still using Acclamators as late as 1 ABY, and there are mentions of Venators in Imperial service. Such ships were probably relegated to patrol duties while newer ships such as the Imperator-class formed the frontline of the Empire's forces.

As for CIS warships, a significant number were scrapped, at least two were acquired by the rebellion, and several were hijacked and used to form the backbone of Gizor Dellso's Confederate Remnants before they were crushed by the empire.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I'd assume the same thing happened to Venators that happened to the early Victory-class. Which is they got further relegated to more and more backwater areas, were put into storage, or were sold to places like the Corporate Sector.

[Connor MacLeod]

The Warships go off screen. Because its a big galaxy. and we only see a tiny part of it even with all the novels, comics, animated crap, etc. We see. Even if you include the games.

[PainRack]

The Empire did go through a period of military buildup to justify its rule.

A series of new warships, a "rennovation" of the Empire military to discard the image of the Republic Venators that went into battle with the Jedi could also explain why the warships did go into retirement/rear area service.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, I don't think there's that much to explain. The OP badly underrates, I think, how many ships were reused.

[Rem 12]

D'oh, I forgot about the Dreadnoughts.

A series of new warships, a "rennovation" of the Empire military to discard the image of the Republic Venators that went into battle with the Jedi could also explain why the warships did go into retirement/rear area service.

I hadn't thought about that sort of politics, but it does make sense that Palpatine would want as many reminders as possible of Jedi being the "good guys" done away with.

[StarSword]

Political considerations aside, Wookieepedia posits that the Venator-class was too reliant on its fighters. (They cite The Forced Unleashed Campaign Guide for this.) I also note that it wasn't nearly as heavily armed as later ships. This would mean it ran counter to Tarkin Doctrine design philosophies.

[Batman]

Well the Venator was primarily a carrier, look at all the volume it uses for hangar space. It's sort of a reverse Imperial class that way-it's mostly carrier with a smidgen of heavy guns while the Imperial is mostly cruiser with some carrier capacity. It being pretty much the only fighting ship we ever see (other than the-pretty nifty looking, if you ask me-Corvette precursor) might be because of the Republic not having dedicated fighting ships due to a fighter-heavy doctrine, and given the size difference, it's entirely possible that the Venators still outgun the Dreadnaughts, explaining why we never see any of them in the movies or Clone Wars cartoons, NTM they would tend to be shunned due to having no fighter capacity under such a doctrine (the firepower discrepancy is hard to believe given three of them allegedly could hold their own against an ISD as of DFR, but those were heavily refitted NR era ships so might have had considerably more firepower and resilience than a Clone Wars era line Dreadnaught).

[Eternal_Freedom]

On a side note, IIRC DFR correctly, those three Dreadnoughts where holding the ISD at bay because Bel Iblis had fitted all his ships with multiple heavy ion cannons which were screwing up the ISD's systems. Such weaponry was not typical of Clone War era dreadnoughts. (Turbolasers and laser cannons IIRC).