Thoughts on Capital ship Class, where are the BBs

[Destraex]

Favorites

 

Fighter:X-Wing (yes I'm old school multi-role when it comes to fighters)

Corvette:Corellian Gunship

Frigate:Nebulon-B2

Heavy Frig: Assault Frigate or MC40

Destroyer: Star Destroyer Imperator II

Cruiser: Executor SSD (although the textures for this ship spoil it ATM I am sure they will improve)

 

Thoughts on ships Classes

 

So where the hell are the BB battleships? LOL

Cruisers are supposed to be smaller than battleships in most fleet or the same size with less armour (i.e. the HMS Hood is a heavy cruiser)

most of the ship classes follow regular Navy classifications but the top end is a little confusing, I guess they are cruisers as they are supposed to be faster than lumbering battleships. I reckon this is a community thing rather than a SW thing as the top end is probably not officially put in any class so the community guessed. Calamari Cruiser is a fitting name but in theory a Star Destroyer is just a name and not a Destroyer DD by class at all BUT a Battleship

 

SD = Battleship - heavily armed and armoured capital ship at the top of the food chain. Normally the guns and armour are on par with any other forces common ships of the line and thus one would not expect to be outgunned by a single ship. The loss of one of these ships equals a major loss that would take at least a year to replace.

Calamari = heavy cruiser - just as big as an SD but still heavily armed and much less well armoured. Could be faster than an SD too.

SSD - Super Heavy Battleship - bigger than the standard battleship and better in all respects except for speed. Usually the Flagship of a fleet, the loss of such a ship causing a setback measured in decades.

 

The only thing that does not fit is that they all carry a large complement of fighters which also makes them ALL non-dedicated carriers or (a new class is born) Combat Starfighter Carriers

 

Early in WW2 most carriers gave up their main armament as they never came within range of the enemy guns and tryed to avoid them, escorts were much more viable. Since in space their is no gravity it is entirely possible for Starships to keep up with Starfighters and so engagements between the heavies becomes much more likely. Starfighter only advantage becomes maneuverability.

 

Scouting and Patrol without committing large assets is also an advantage of the starfighter, the imperials having a major problem with this not having Hyperspace capable fighters at the time of the movies.

 

As I said I like the combat and tactics and happen to be a star wars fan of the original movies. The above are some thought which may or may not help Evil with balance.

[Destraex]

OK here are the current classes for NAVYs real world History that I know of in order of size and importance, I have included typical weight of the ships in tonnes to give an basic idea of size.

 

Combat Classes

BB - Battleship 45,000

CV - Carrier 27,000

CVL- Carrier, Light 11,000

CVE- Carrier, Escort11,000

CB - Battle Cruiser 27,500

CA - Heavy Cruiser 13,600

CL - Light Cruiser 10,000

CL - Anti-Air Cruiser 6,000

DD - Destroyer 2,400

DE - Destroyer Escort 1,400

SS - Submarine 1,525

PF - Frigate 1,430

PG - Corvette 1,000

PC - Patrol Craft 284

SC - Sub Chaser 98

PT - Patrol Torpedo Boat 45

 

 

Support Ships

AD - Destroyer tender

AO - Oiler

LCx - Landing Craft

AE - Ammunition, explosives ship

AP - Personnel or troop transport

LSx - Landing Ship

AF - Provisions ship

ARx - Repair ships

LVx - Landing Vehicle

AG - Miscellaneous auxiliary ships

AS - Submarine Tenders

WPx - Coast Guard Cutters

AH - Hospital ship

ATx - Tugboats

AK - Cargo ship

AV - Seaplane Tender

AM - Mine sweepers

 

 

Tell me if I missed any, as you can see there is a big gap between Destroyers and Battleships in the Star Wars universe. It seems that SSDs would be the Battleships\Carriers of the SW universe. And you can see that if a Mon-Calamari is a Cruiser then the makers of these ships were not told what they were up against when the designated them. Maybe they wanted to scare the Imperials LOL as a Destroyer in the Imperial NAVY is just as large as a BattleCruiser in the Rebel NAVY.

 

For the Starwars Universe in the case of the SD and Mon-Cals Carrier must be added to the designation whatever they actually are.

 

Obviously the Submarine and their Tenders cannot be transfered to the Star Wars universe but may be special ships capable of travelling through specific gas populated star systems like water for space but gas - did that make sense.

 

Also atmosphere capable and non-atmosphere capable vessels complicate things further. I assume a lot of worlds have non-standard atmospheres making it hard to say what ships would fly in what atmospheres.

 

P.S. I was talking about the last HOOD the BattleCruiser that got smashed by the German NAVY. This Battlecruiser was certainly as well armed as a battleship but lacked the armour for a stand up fight. The idea of a cruiser is to have a ships that is fast enough to run from those that are just as well armed and well armed enough to kill anything that can catch it. Specifically used for commerce raiding. These were a failure in ww2 as they were hunted and held by the smaller ships while the bigger Battleships caught up and hammered them OR as in ww1 they took their place in the battle line at Jutland and suffered a hammering because of their lack of armour. Basically they look like battleships as they are the same size (although most are much sleeker) but lack the armour to make them faster. Offcourse by the nature of a converted mon-cal liner this could not be helped. But why Cruiser?? Or why Destroyer? Is Star Destroyer just a name?

And a feared one at that

[Shadow_of_Thrawn]

i've always regarded the ISD and MC-80 as "standard" battleships, with everything else falling on one side of the line or the other...even though the Mon cal is more lightly armed...one other thing that you mentioned was that the mon cal cruisers were less heavily armored...from what i know this wasnt true, and that the armor and shielding on the mc-80s is what allows them to stand up to SDs

[Shadow_of_Thrawn]

i've always regarded the ISD and MC-80 as "standard" battleships, with everything else falling on one side of the line or the other...even though the Mon cal is more lightly armed...one other thing that you mentioned was that the mon cal cruisers were less heavily armored...from what i know this wasnt true, and that the armor and shielding on the mc-80s is what allows them to stand up to SDs

[Shadow_of_Thrawn]

one other minor thing...i think the designation for a modern frigate is FF or FFG if it has guided missiles, i think PG is more of a missile gunboat

[EvilleJedi]

mc class ships have slightly weaker hulls but more shielding. they are less 'armed' also.

[Admiral-Ackbar]

I agree, calling Star Destroyers destroyers is putting them down... they are big and powerful, and can destroy anything pretty darn quick

[DarthFelth]

i wouldnt class a Mc80 on the same lvl as a ISD as alot of them ships were just converted cruise liners and the like

[Homer]

I agree, calling Star Destroyers destroyers is putting them down... they are big and powerful, and can destroy anything pretty darn quick

 

Think about the name again. It's star destroyer. It's a name made from a meaning.

 

= Ship that can destroy stars. Even though it is not meant in a physical way (like SD has the firepower to blow a planet up), but it has enough firepower to gun a civilisation on a planet back into the Stoneage, thus the name.

 

greets

Homer

[Admiral-Ackbar]

Very well, I understand, but the power is equivelent to a battleship... even if they arent called that

[Homer]

SW has never cared for any (usefull) class destinctions.

 

I'm not saying that I think it's a good way to deal with game material, but it's the way it's done.

 

The only way to make classes out of ships is volume, but SW goes for length (if anything is used at all)- giving rather funny results considering the shape of many ships.

 

The best way to deal with it would be volume, however, a typical SD is roughly 50 000 000 m^3 (a tad more within the +10% range) which would mean that battleships are at 10 000 000 m^3+

 

However, SSDs go for 12 000 000 000 m^3.

 

The prime question is more if a SD is the battleship or the SSD as the SSD is pretty much 20 times bigger.

 

But most usual hardcore fans will scream at you if you start viewing things unrelated to the incompetent SW EU authors point of view

 

greets

Homer

[Admiral-Ackbar]

Yes, Yes, he speaks sense... listen to him!

[Ferigad]

I would say that the SSD is a "Special Starship" like the "Death Star" , a Special Single Star Destroyer.

 

A SSD is so big and needs so mutch ressources that it falls more under a Special Catigoration like ehm....i would think "Super Battleship" or "Capital Ship"

 

But a Star Destroyer i think falls under the Category "Battleship" couse a Star Destroyer was made for the Battle, as a Primary Warship for the Rulership of the Empire

[Fuzzbutt]

even tho that SW is basically a WW2 fighter movie (at least the battles are anyway, space fighters wouldnt bank like that in zero G). A Star Destroyer Mark II was the front line Imperial battleship, it had upwards of 200 guns and carried 6 fighter wings (4 space superiority fighter wings , 1 bomber wing, and one recon) plus its own army (Stormtroopers, Imperial Army troops, AT-AT's etc) AND its own fleet of shuttles, assualt craft and landing craft. This made it a HUGE ship. The Star Destroyer was something to be feared, so to be calling these monsters destroyers is a huge mistake

 

As for the Super Star Destroyer it was the equal to an entire fleet of ISD Mark II's. The SSD carried literaly thousands of guns, 12 fighter wings, was 16km long and was crewed by a quarter of a million men and women. The SSD was the command ship of the fleet, when the Rebels and then the New Rebublic were hunting the SSDs down they sent entire fleets and if half of them returned they considered it a fair trade. I dont really know what to class to put them in, Heavy Battleship? (doesnt sound big enough) Super Battleship? (maybe)

 

anyway most of the ship classes are bang on, but the high end ships need alittle work.

 

P.S what is up with the names of the ships? its an Interdictor cruiser and Imperial Star Destroyer

 

P.S.S im a purist and hate the new movies, Lucas you bum stop messing around and shell out the cash for better script writers and people that can ACT!! geez AND NO JAR-JAR ARRRRGGG.

[EvilleJedi]

It seems there is a misconception about the imperial navy. In terms of stats the Imperator (this reference superceeds 'Imperial' but for slang you can call it 'Imperial' if you want, similarly the interdictor is slang for saying immobilizer 418 or whatever) is nothing but a destroyer.

 

YES it has many guns

 

YES it carries the equivalent of a planetary defense force

 

HOWEVER, there are many production imperial cruisers that could smoke an ISD I or ISD II without thought, that are intermediary in size between the executor and the ISD. Most of these ships were tied up in the core defendending the populated worlds or are sector or personal command ships. ISDs were very common and were pretty much patrol and intimidation vessels, they were used in fleet actions as escorts for mor valuable ships. There are very few books that describe the core worlds during the emperors reign, so we have a limited window to see them. However, if you look at dark empire, the cruisers surronding Byss are the remnants of over 6 years of rebel attrition and in fighting amoung warlords. Even Thrawn was concerned when he could not sway the warlords and eventually decided that he would run his own hit and run war.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

I think you're slightly mistaken. If you concider the way ISDs are regarded in the post-Empire books, you see that they are still thought of as the greatest weapon the Empire had, capable of taking out even the greatest of the Mon Cals in the Emperor's days. Even the Home One would be hard pressed to handle a single ISD II. Surethey were common, but that means little as to their strenght. As for the Dark Empire referrence, while it does take place in the SW universe and aye, even the novels refer to it, such source are not quite dependable for ship and tech stats. The ISD is far more than a destroyer, it is a battleship. The fact that the word destroyer is in it's name is not a reference to its capabilities. Is the TIE Defender restricted to a defensive role because it's called a defender? I don't want to dictate to you what you do with your mod because I've no skill with that, and I'm sure that more ships of greater size would be welcome, but your interpretation of the ships in the SW universe is, in my opinion, off a little. Concider the weight placed on the ISDs in Rebellion, X-Wing Allince, the XvT games. I don't think there are intermediary ships between ISDs and the super-cap class, at least none that are officially recognized.

[EvilleJedi]

I am not basing this off of the name 'star destroyer' (notice that an SSD is not in the destroyer category)

 

allegiance is definately recognized and it would chew an ISD II apart (considering that it is basically a leveled up version of it)

 

MC-90's are designed specifically to hunt down and kill ISD II's, that's the reason they have the huge amounts of shields. effectivly they should be able to take on an ISD II and still have shields

 

Defender SD's are new republic ships and are 90% of an ISD II

 

GOlan III's are designed to drive off or kill ISD II's and they are relativly common

 

 

 

the later NJO mon cal cruisers (mediator) obviously outgun ISD II's (they can go toe to toe with the vong cruisers which basically eat ISDs, given that the remnant got its ass handed to it at bastion and those were ISD II's with improved shields)

 

shockwave is an example of an intermediary ship and there are other references in other comics and books, basically saying that dark empire is poor documentation leaves you with the movies and factually flimsy books (where everything is a destroyer or a cruiser or a queisenart and the heros always win and where authors make the imperial fleet look like a bunch of flipping morons, led by the occasionally 'brilliant' character that say 'ah' a lot...)

 

Han Solo even said during a scene in one of the movies that he was expecting the 'big corellian ships' and only got an ISD after him, he was realitivly unconcerned by the ISDs and was more worried about the fighters

 

at endor the 7-12 rather crappy mon cal ships survived a point blank engagement with an SSD, 9-12 ISD I's and 10-13 ISD II's

 

my point is that the documentation of ISDs is abounding because they are COMMON, consider the ratio of ISDs to SSDs, it's nearly 1000/1. you don't make battleships common unless you have something bigger. My goal is to classify ships how the imperial navy would classify them, not based upon a counterforce classification

 

the novels are written for familiarity, not for technical accuracy, the games are similarly geared for familairity and functionality within their own self contained worlds (I mean come on, a decent person could kill every ship in existance with a single x-wing and a few hours if it was based on the games)

 

if you really want to get down to it, the terms destroyer, cruiser, battle cruiser and battle ship is determined purely on the tonnage, this is the real world precedent that I am deciding classes on. for example, battle cruisers during WWI had similar if not larger guns than the 'battleships' but they had nearly no armor in comparison and their lower mass allowed for heightened manuverability and speed

 

4 dreadnaughts are enough to make an ISD question an engagment, around 5 strike cruisers, victory destroyers can lay down some impressive missile salvos that shred the ISDs crappy shielding. granted this is situationally dependant and commander dependant, but you should be arguing that the ISD II is classified as a battle cruiser, not a battleship, there's a huge difference between those classifications. personally I tend to classify the ISD II as a pocket battle cruiser. but the tonnage classifies it as a destroyer. also note that the weaponry is not reduced in any way in the mod. I am not minimizing its excessive firepower... it's just a really expensive big gun

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

They do have something bigger, but the resources for an SSD are also 1000x more than that of an ISD II. Aslo, you can't compare ships based on the over-all size of them. Bigger does not always mean better. As for mon-cals, they were always heavily sheilded, but weren't armed in the same proportions as ISD IIs. ISDs also have greater hull plaiting than Mon-Cals. There is also no place that says ISDs were common. They weren't used for system patrol, that's what Carrak Cruisers and Lancer Frigates do. Only fleets existed that were accompanied with ISDs or ISD IIs.

 

As for Bastion, you have to remember that the Vong had superior numbers and were capable of removing the shields from any ship. If you want to get what are generally agreed to be accurate stats for ships, play XWA. I didn't see any Mon-Cals there that could go head-to-head with an ISD, let alone and ISD II.

 

As I said before, there are ships that could out-gun and ISD or ISD II, times change and the tech will evolve too, but I think that the role of the ISD is as a battleship, not a glorified destroyer.

[EvilleJedi]

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/

 

especially the star destroyer and warships of the empire categories

 

I'm afraid if you don't see that in a positive way then we will be at odds on this topic permenently.

[lina]

I would think that the Execetor class would be most closely put in the DBB classification. SW has nothing to do with modern navies really, because SDs are not destroyer class... they are star destroyers. Destroyers sought submarines and transports to sink or to defend convoys. As said above, Star Destroyers are capable of destroying planetary systems. But if you compare it to the WWII navies, the ISDs would be comparable to the Bismark class probly... at about 37k tons if i remember right. The Execetor would be comparable to the Yamato class DBB at 87k tons. The Yamato weighed more than the Empire State Building. I s'pose the empire decided they had enough resources that they didnt need to build smaller support craft save for fighters seeing how space doesnt limit speed due to mass. So..... if ya have enough resources to build them, why build the smaller, faster, less armored craft? Just erase all the smaller classes, make a couple major classes and give them scary names with reference to genocide if ya mess with the empire, and go with that. This makes sense to me.

Oh, to add to WWII ship classes, Battlecruisers can be armed with anything a BB has. I believe the best armament on a WW2 battlecruiser was 14" guns though. Most were 12.5". The heaviest guns were of a BB were on the Iowa class BBs which were 16" and were outdone only by the DBB of the Yamato classes 18". Germany had a larger one planned that never came out that had 20 20" guns that was to weigh in at over 100k tons. The only difference between a BB and BC is really armor. BCs typically had 6-8" steel side hulls and BBs had around 12". The hood actually outweighed some WWI BBs, so when distinguishing between BB and BC, you really have to look at the hull plating. In every other ship class, ya look at the weight, and in this case, its typically true too with only a few exceptions, but you can always tell by the armor plate. But honestly, no matter what you call it, it does what it does. I'm positive that if a president really wanted to call the next BB made (which will never happen) a Cole class destroyer, it could be done. Wouldnt make sense, but if the person who sets the designation is stupid enough, anything can happen. Hehe. Well, good day to yall and everyone who posted had valid points and i had fun reading them. Sorry for my mindless babbling, just hopin something i said helps. See ya later.

 

Lina

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

I respect that Mr. Saxton has put a lot of time into this, but these technical commentaries are simply his view of the way the Imperail navy is built and, if you examin all of the other materials available you will find that his views actually contradict what one can ascertain from LucasFilm sanctioned material. I suggest you read the fine-print at the bottom.

 

I suppose that this is pointless in the end. It is your mod and you will do it as you wish, as is your right. AND I will enjoy it whether you use Mr. Saxtons views or those that I consider more accurate. The bottom line is, the mod rocks, hands down, and if the ISD isn't a BB, it still rocks, I'm just arguing over a matter of Imperial pride I suppose.

 

P.S.: I also think that you should consider why he changed the name from Imperial to Imperator. To me, that fact alone would discredit him.

[Admiral_Sarn]

Fighter-Tie scimtar

Capital Ship-ISD

Cruiser-Titan Cruiser

Super Capital-Executor

[JanGaarni]

Keep in mind though, that Mr. Saxton has written both the Attack of the Clones Visual Dictionary and the Revenge of the Sith - Incredible Cross-sections, which used to be written by David West Reynolds, and was the consultant to Simon Beecroft who wrote the Attack of the Clones: Complete Guide to Incredible Locations, so he has his foot inside the door so to speak.

 

Yes, his site is based on pretty much all of Star Wars (official works mind you), which is the policy of Lucas Licensing has set (there's no more Canon and EU, only G-level, C-Level and S-level canon now), but I find his research most of the time alot more accurate and more thoroughly done than those who has the final say on things ... in my opinion of course.

 

I mostly go by what he has discovered over most online sites (especially fan made sites), and sometimes official sources aswell where the logic fails it.

 

It wasn't long ago since, I believe, StarWars.Com used the 8km SSD fallacy aswell (ok, it's been some years now ). It's since been bumped up to 12.8, perhaps in order to not disturb too much the Eclipse Class lenght description of 17.5 km - although the first description of the Eclipse Class' lenght was that it was "twice as large as the Executor" which later publications translated into twice as long. Much the same way as the poster for ESB said the Executor was "... 5 times more powerfull than a standard star destroyer" and it later became translated to mean 8km long. So the 17.6 lenght figure of the Executor doesn't really disturb the 17.5 lenght value of the Eclipse, as it is clear the Eclipse, while abit shorter, has alot more volume than the Executor. So much more volume, you could say it is twice as large as the Executor.

[zare]

I think that Han was concerned about huge Corellian ships for one reason only > It seems that Corellians tend to build awfully fast ships (i mean they name them BlockadeRunners right) and it would be a hairy situation for Millenium Falcon to escape them. As for ISD, you just had to move fast, get rid of strikecraft in pursuit and jump before Interdictor shows up....

[zare]

As for the question is "Destroyer" a proper name for a gigantic gun-bristling starship..... Destroyers didn't exist until torpedo-boats became more popular in WWI an Japan-Russian wars.

Fast moving and armed with highly devastating weaponry (although they had to fire them from close-up in those days) this ships were able to wreak havoc among larger capital ships - they were manouverable enough to avoid direct fire from heavy-caliber guns and fast enough not to be caught by automatic weaponry.

Destroyers were built as a countermeasure for this menaces and they proved very successfull. It wasnt until WW2 that destroyers became the backbone of the navies of that time.

 

They were the middleman between heavy/escort cruisers and battleships (both "pocket size" - Like Scharnchost and "full size" - like Bismarck). They did well until missiles came onboard ships. After succesfull sunking of Egyptian destroyer by means of surface-to-surface missile (fired from the ships that descended from torpedo-boats > missile boats) destroyers began to be replaced by a frigates. Frigates are now ships of choice for almost any modern navy - fast, reliable, heavily armed and armoured ships able to hold their own against almost any opponent. Modern frigates are even stronger designs than destroyers of ,lets say, 1970's. Today only examples of destroyers in modern navies are Arleigh Burke class (USN) and possibly few types still in service in RN - russian (ex-soviet) destroyers i don't count because they had a very different classification and were called destroyers only by western navies.

 

So lets get back to the subject.... Although those who know about ships do see sense in stuff like FFG, DDG etc, i don't think that the proper way to show all the firepower and brute force of a vessel (to the general public i mean) is to name it either with a codename or calling it a frigate or a battleship. But when you say a destroyer, and as such a star-destroyer then everybody knows what is it all about.

 

I agree that ISD is not in the class of destroyer but lets not forget that every navy (then why not the imperial navy also) has its own classification of vessels (having seen the gigantic ships in the mod i can understand why ).

Germany never named their battleships battleships because they were forbidden to have them by terms of peace treaty of Versay, but they called them pocket-ships and light-cruisers because they had the appropriate tonnage, but they were more powerfull than any heavy-cruiser or battleship that could be used by RN in Northern sea.

 

Israeli's have their corvette class (can't get the name right now ) that is as powerfull or even more powerfull than any frigate that the navies of the Mediterranian sea can field. Same goes to Sweden and Norway.

 

So i think that the ISD was called destroyer in the first place only because it sounded dreadful, menacing and powerful and i don't think that anybody had proper vessel classification in mind.

 

By the way if anybody is interested in great books about space fleet combat take any book by David Weber. They're great...