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Enterprise65
Enterprise65
8 months ago

Imagine if this monstrosity just appeared over a major city like NYC, Shanghai or Tokyo. Most of the population would just fall down dead of a heart attack or brains popping off in total terror..

Last edited 8 months ago by Enterprise65
FollowTheBlu
FollowTheBlu
1 year ago

Is that 5 gravity well generators I see?

Fractal-fan
Fractal-fan
1 year ago
Reply to  FollowTheBlu

I don’t know, but those would have to be very small generators.

FollowTheBlu
FollowTheBlu
1 year ago
Reply to  Fractal-fan

Unless most of the globes were inside the ship to better protect them.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
1 year ago
Reply to  FollowTheBlu

Extrapolating the curve of the domes, they look like they’d be about the same size as the generators on an Immobilizer 418 Cruiser, maybe even approaching the size of the ones on the Interdictor Star Destroyer.
Not a bad size for them, and plenty powerful enough to stop an Assertor’s prey from getting away.

Draco
Draco
1 year ago

Just Imagine this thing flying towards you out of hyperspace. and all you have is an X-wing.

FollowTheBlu
FollowTheBlu
1 year ago
Reply to  Draco

An X-Wing is bigger than an A-Wing, so if an A-Wing took down the Executor, an X-Wing should be enough to kill the Wrath, right?

This should be marked NSFW
This should be marked NSFW
1 year ago
Reply to  FollowTheBlu

An A-wing did not singlehandedly take down the Executor. The Rebel Fleet concentrated their fire on the Executor which brought down its shields before an A-Wing kamikazed into the bridge. Before the Executor’s other auxiliary bridge could be brought online, it was caught in the Death Star’s gravity well…

So theoretically, in a 1-v-1 between an A-Wing and an Executor, my money is on the big guy….

FollowTheBlu
FollowTheBlu
1 year ago

Yeah I know, I just tried to make a (fairly bad) joke

123
123
2 years ago

Hey, are there more closeups to this model? It will be totally awesome!

TheSpartan
TheSpartan
3 years ago

If I would see this, my heart will stop. The weapons on this thing can destroy an entire fleet, but it’s got the most iconic flaw in Imperial ships, the shield generators.
Btw nice model

Kouta
Kouta
2 years ago
Reply to  TheSpartan

Weeeeel, it aint a flaw, its already shown that those things are hard to destroy (what we see in ROTJ was AFTER the whole fleet bombarded the Executor, so the shields protecting where offline for a short while thus the awings could actualy destroy the bridge deflectorshield dome (and remember, if it would not have ben for the rebellion luring the fleet OVER the deathstar II , then the executor would have recovered from that AND continued to fight (she has more than one controll center on her). Otherwise a flight of 4 Xwings would wipe out ISD’s left and right. Even Squadrons is waaaaay off of what it actualy takes to beat one (or do you think its easy in x wing alliance to actualy fight ONE isd WITHOUT her fighters? Nope, you will run out of ammo prior to you dealing the kill blow to ONE of those shields). What the failnon shows us is not what the actual ships where like too. There are already data on ALL SW ships (the prominent ones at least) showing that an ISD II carries not only turbolaser and ion canons with her, but also concussion missles AND lasers en mass. What the essential guide to warefare did was taking REALITY (of all things) and tried to push it onto SW, wich failed.

Plutra
Plutra
2 years ago
Reply to  TheSpartan

The deflector shield domes were exposed for a purpose. I remember reading that not only did it provide a higher efficiency of projection with less interference by being within the ships hull, but also allowed for them to run hotter than internally mounted deflectors. The result was was a vastly more powerful deflector shield that cost a lot less energy to produce. So the idea was that if the OP deflector shields on these mammoths went down for any reason, overexposed generators are the least of your problems.

Bob
Bob
3 years ago

Could you make a zoomed in version of the ship

Cage Wyatt
Cage Wyatt
3 years ago

Armorment and complent? Im not a fan of the armorment of the canon version so im asking for the original details.

Ryadra777
3 years ago
Reply to  Cage Wyatt

376 720-teraton HTL (188×2)
2132 240-teraton HTL (533×4)
2048 40-teraton HTL (256×8)
280 240-teraton heavy ion cannon (70×4)

24-28 fighter wings. (1728-2016 fighters)

Cage Wyatt
Cage Wyatt
3 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

Thank you. Fo you know about troop complement and ground vehicle?

Ryadra777
3 years ago
Reply to  Cage Wyatt

Don’t know the amount of ground vehicles the Assertor have but I do know it carry a troop corps.

Victor
Victor
3 years ago

How many weapons is on the Assertor? Because I am interested. Btw props my fav dreadnought design out there, so good work Fractalsponge

Paul
Paul
3 years ago

God I love the assertor of all the huge overcompensating projects the Empire makes this ship is always the one that gets a pass from me. Even if ships that large don’t make sense it is just to damn beautiful and well made to hate it.

Jack
Jack
3 years ago

That gorgeous beast is my new favorite SD. When was this ship first developed and/or seen in battle?

Jason Skeans
Jason Skeans
3 years ago

good god the amount of guns on that

Cage Wyatt
Cage Wyatt
4 years ago

What’s the armorment that fractalsponge put on it? All I can find is the cannon armorment

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
4 years ago

Considering that the EU basis for the Sovereign is paper-thin (WEG straight up admitted that the ship never appeared in Dark Empire, and was only included so that PCs could have something to fight that was /like/ the Eclipse), I’m tempted to throw out the Sovereign entirely and use the Assertor in its place.

JAB
JAB
4 years ago

Please one render of the view from the back

ussiowa9
ussiowa9
4 years ago

The stern section needs some more anti-aircraft/fighter guns. Leaving it unprotected could end up being the ship’s Achilles heel. Other than that, this ship is an absolute monster. This dreadnought design, art & work is just mind-blowing. They most definitely should show your ship in the movies as a terrifying rebel fleet/base killer. Bet this beast would blow up a decent sized country if it has a big bow mounted main cannon. Great job.

Arlen Smith
Arlen Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  ussiowa9

It does have a big bow-mounted main cannon. It is called a super laser. Its that little notch on the front of the ship.

AssertorStarDreadnought
AssertorStarDreadnought
3 years ago
Reply to  ussiowa9

Have you heard of BDZ? A base delta zero, where ships focus maximal amount of firepower to obliterate a planet. Considering he amount of turbolasers on the ventral side, it could easily — and I mean EASILY — destroy a planet. Bow mounted batteries aren’t always needed.

xadrian
4 years ago

Thanks for letting me turn this into a microfighter. Still working on it, but I hope I do it justice.

Kemp
Kemp
5 years ago

This is still one of my favourite designs, where the executor and the eclipse look sleek this looks like a bar room brawler. It’ll take a punch and break your head in return.

A_Smol_Boi
A_Smol_Boi
3 years ago
Reply to  Kemp

The Executor is a knife. This thing’s a war axe

jeff
jeff
5 years ago

hey how big is it (like width wise)

Teemu
Teemu
4 years ago
Reply to  jeff

Its 15 km long

Phoenixx
Phoenixx
5 years ago

I tried counting the main guns and from what I could see this is what I counted.

Quad turbolasers 643
Octuple barette turbolasers 304

Ryadra777
5 years ago

So I was thinking about making my tier list on the Star Dreadnoughts, which based on how well they do on their Dreadnought role (Games, writer fiats and aesthetic opinions do not count) examples:
-How big it’s power reactor is. (The bigger it is you can have more options with either placing more cannons or placing lesser but more powerful cannons or both is possible. Also you get stronger deflector shields.)
-How tough it’s armour is.
-The utilities it can carry like sensor devices, communications between ship-to-ship, EW and gravity well generators.
-Weapon’s placements so it can have the best firing arcs (Unless it is a ball turret which is the superior to the normal turret expect costs.) and the amount of weapons.
-How good they are as flagships.

Here is my list on how good or bad they are from top tier to bottom tier:

S-rank: Viscount*
Pros:
-Have the strongest shields of all dreadnoughts and the second toughest amour second only to the Eclipse.
-Have some of the most versatile weapons layout that can deal with any ships it encounters, are all ball turrets which give it one of the if not the best firing arcs and it’s main batteries are the strongest among dreadnoughts which range in 1+ Petatons per shot (the same turrets use on the Inexpugnable-class Command Ship but as single ball turrets).
-Have gravity well generators.
-Have a lot of fighters up to around 100 wings second only to the Executor’s fighter capacity.
Cons:
-It is the second slowest ship only faster than the Eclipse at least around 2000g.
-doesn’t have a superlaser.

A-rank: Assertor
Pros:
-Have the weakest but most reliable superlaser it have.
-Have gravity well generators.
-Have decent speed
-Have some of the most versatile weapons layout that can deal with any ships it encounters and have the most cannons out of any dreadnoughts. Having over 4000 heavy turbolasers.
-Have very tough armour and shields.
Cons:
-Have good amount of fighters but not when compare to the Viscount and executor.
-Most of it’s turrets are normal ones so it have limited firing arcs.
-A big blind spot on it’s aft which make it vulnerable to any aft ambush from other dreadnoughts.

B-rank: Executor
Pros:
-Have a great speed second only to the Vengeance.
-Have the most amount of fighters and land vehicles
-Have some of the most weapons it have.
Cons:
-While it’s speed and fighter capacity is very impressive it come at the cost of weaker armour and shields which make it quite frail against other dreadnoughts turning it into a glass cannon.
-It only carry one type of heavy turbolaser (the octuple 40 teratons) which limits it’s options when fighting other ships and that same type are meant for fighting Star Destroyers so is quite weak against other dreadnoughts.

C-rank: Sovereign
Pros:
-It have a superlaser.
-Have gravity well generators.
Cons:
-The superlaser is not as powerful as the Eclipse nor it is reliable as the Assertor.
-Have mediocre amount of fighters and weapons.
-Quite slow.

D-rank: Eclipse
Pros:
-It have the most powerful superlaser.
-It have the toughest armour of all dreadnoughts and have the second strongest deflector shield second only to the Viscount.
-Have gravity well generators
Cons:
-It is the slowest ship of all dreadnought and ships at 1000g.
-It heavily relied on it superlaser which take too long to charge up and when destroyed it is useless at anything else but tanking a lot of hits basically turning from a mighty glacier to a stone wall.
-It weapons and fighter are very few.
-It have the least amount of engines only having 6 of them.

E-rank: Vengeance*
Pros:
-It is the fastest of all dreadnoughts.
-It’s thin size along with it’s speed make it tricky to hit.
Cons:
-It is the weakest and frailest of all dreadnoughts which basically make it a fragile speeder.
-No gravity well generators.
-Have the least amount of fighters and weapons.
-Weak enough to be threaten by a single star battlecruiser.
-No superlaser.

H-rank: Fulminatrix (First order Pizzanought)
Pros:
-Non.
Cons:
-Too many to count.

*It is mostly guesses

So what do you think of my list choices? do you agreed or disagreed with some,most,if not all of it? And what things did I got right and/or wrong?

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Yeah some of the pros and cons I made are just guesses since as you said we know very little about these dreadnoughts (especially the Sovereign as we only see the silhouette of it) the only one that we know about the most is the Assertor but that only because you made it and give it the most knowledgeable weapons and fighters complement.

Here the complements on the Assertor’s weapons and fighters for anyone who want to know:
Weapons: https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3222519#p3222519
Fighters: https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3325268#p3325268

As for placing the Viscount at the very top of my list well because I chose Commander Veers’s (The username not the Character) Idea of the Viscount having a bigger reactor than the Assertor which therefor making it more powerful as well as having tougher armour and shields.

Here what I’m talking: https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=4062964#p4062964

But as you said Fractalsponge it is a speculation but it is my favorite speculation on the Viscount.

I did made the Viscount’s main batteries being the same as the Inexpugnable’s main batteries as well as making it a single ball turret version which the model of it is not made yet.
I also made up the 100 fighter wings although it is a bit justified since the New Republic tend to use fighter quite heavily. But I’m not about the 100 wings being a underestimate or a overestimate.

Also I didn’t made this list purposely to brag (Well Expect for mocking the Fulminatrix) I just made this as a though experiment.

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

I did made up* the Viscount’s main batteries being the same as the Inexpugnable’s main batteries.

Niels
5 years ago

I never understood why ships like these didn’t carry hundreds of thousands of starfighters. This thing is 15 km long, which is INSANELY big. It is literally a billion times more massive than an x-wing. If this ship were to dedicate as much of its volume to starfighters as the Venator does, it would be able to carry a MILLION fighters.

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  Niels

Fractal said the Assertor can carry at least 24 fighter wings which equal to 1728 fighters and that fighter complement was a afterthought by Fractal since the Assertor was primary a fleet combatant ship.
While the Executor can carry hundreds of wings (Alongside hundreds of land vehicles) due to it’s huge hanger bay and was a carrier-warship hybrid or more specifically a Battlecarrier.

Niels
5 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

Yeah, I really think 1728 should be reconsidered. I believe the Venator could carry around 420 starfighters. Which means the Assertor has about 4 times the hangar space. I know the Venator was more built for the carrier role, but seriously. 4 times the hangar space. The assertor is 2000 times larger than the Venator. I don’t think at least a 200 times larger hangar would be unreasonable, which would put the carrying capacity at 84.000 fighters.

Niels
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

If we assume that the Venator dedicates exactly 50% of its volume to hangars, and that the Assertor is in fact 2000 times more massive (I calculate this assuming the two ships have about the same shape), the Assertor having a hangar 200 times larger (84000 fighters) would mean it dedicated exactly 5% of it’s volume to hangar space.

But let’s say the Assertor is only 1000 larger, which is on the safe side of approximation, and it only dedicates 1% volume to hangar space (comfortably within your <5%), that's still a 20 times larger hangar than the Venator and therefore about 8400 fighters.

Besides that, I don't see a reason to neglect the fighter capacity THAT much, considering how much fighters and bombers have been shown to contribute to space battles.

Niels
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

This was also a problem in the back of my mind. You drew the ship and know all the dimensions, but the hangar openings look to me like they are about 500 x 100 meters each in size. I don’t really know how you would do this calculation, but it still seems to me that over a period of let’s say 10 minutes, you should be able to launch a LOT of fighters through those two 50.000 m^2 openings. TIE’s are rather small in profile and have been shown to fly in close formation. The trick would have to be to be to use some kind of system or mechanism to transport fighters from deeper within the ship to the surface and keep the flow going.
But this sort of thing has to my knowledge not been shown in star wars works, so it’s probably just wishful thinking.

Crulak
Crulak
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Unless you use tractor beam assistance. If so, recovery and launching would be closer to identical.

Assuming the technology allows for push and pull, I honestly don’t know why the technology wouldn’t be used in both situations. Safer on both approach and landing, could allow for recovery of damaged craft, and would allow the combat air control to manage the deployment, spread, and speed of exiting craft.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Niels

The closest we get in-universe is the mass TIE launch from the Scarif shield gate in Rogue One.

It’s also noteworthy that fighters aren’t going to automatically be kept in a ready to launch state. Fighters may be prepped with fuel and a combat loadout and the like, but must still be warmed up and made flight-ready. In the real world, this can take as much as 1-2 hours. Tech advancements in the SWU will likely reduce this time, but even then, it would still take several minutes to bring fighters up from the deep storage bays, do pre-flight checks and warm up the engines.

This might also be a plausible explanation as to why the Starfighter Complements listed in the WEG books are so low; the numbers listed are not the total available complement, but rather, what is available for immediate launch, and not down for maintenance or parked somewhere off of the main launch bays.

Chris Bradshaw
Chris Bradshaw
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

There’s an interesting concept to rationalize the published numbers. I think there might be somewhat of a parallel with the IJN (super?) carrier Shinano, with an organic air group of less than 60 combat aircraft, but with 120 replacement aircraft for other carriers stored away in her hangars.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Chris Bradshaw

Per the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook (WEG, page 72), “a starfighter requires about an hour’s heavy maintenance for each 10 minutes of combat flight time,” and “downtime for TIE craft between battles is roughly four times as long as it is for Alliance ships, and TIEs have a reputation for severe loss of effectiveness if flown into battle without being properly maintained.” There are no numbers given for non-combat flight, such as routine patrols and such, however.

If the assumption is that, for example, an ISD has 72 TIEs (3 fighter squadrons and 1 squadron each of Interceptors, Bombers and Recon) constantly available for launch, then it would likely need something in the area of 4-6 times that number in total, all constantly being cycled through Alert, Maintenance and Flight Prep cycles.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

I don’t think we can make the claim that the average ISD is carrying around a total air wing of 400+ fighters on a regular basis, given hmmmm… literally every other depiction of an ISD ever portrayed.

F-14s took 60 maintenance man hours for every flight hour, but that didn’t mean that Jane’s looked at an 80s Nimitz and wrote down “three fighters” in the air wing data box.

There’s also a big distinction between man-hours and total hours. If your maintenance cycle is 24 man-hours per flight hour, but you’ve got 24 ground crew/droids for every fighter, you can service it in an hour, provided that they don’t get in each other’s way.

Finally, the whole damn point of the TIE series is low-maintenance, zero-moving-parts standardized engines, as part of a doctrinal shift from the higher-performance V-Wings and ARCs of Clone Wars fame.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Comparing Jane’s to WEG is very much apples & oranges. The goal of one is to provide factual information about weapons of war, the goal of the other is to provide generalized stats suitable for gaming purposes.

And the point I’m getting at is that, regardless of how maintenance hours are parcelled out, not every fighter will be sitting on the deck with its engines warmed up ready to launch. The only way that would be the case is in the run-up to a big battle, where there was a push to make sure every fighter possible was ready to go.

And so, from a gaming perspective at least, the bigger concern will be not how many total fighters are carried by a destroyer, but how many it can get into space in time to take part in a come-as-you-are battle against an enemy that prefers hit-and-run tactics.

As to TIE’s having low maintenance, zero-moving parts engines, this does not automatically preclude high maintenance times. Such an engine could, for instance, have a relatively low service life, and need to be completely swapped out and replaced on a regular basis. I’m not saying this IS the case; there is certainly enough contradictions in the EU that one more would not be surprising.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

Just as an example, FM-100-2-1 (the US Army Manual on the Tactics and Doctrine of the Red Army) includes a section on Air Support. On page 164 of the pdf version, it lists the specifics of three different categories of readiness for aircraft:

1 – Aircraft are fully serviced and armed, and can be in the air in 3-5 minutes. Combat crews are briefed on their mission and are in the aircraft ready to start engines. Ground personnel are assisting the combat crews. Condition can be maintained for 1-2 hours.

2 – Aircraft are fully serviced and armed, and can be in the air in 15 minutes. Combat crews are briefed and in the vicinity of aircraft ready to take off within a specified short period of time after receiving a mission order. Condition can be maintained for 2-4 hours.

3 – Aircraft are refueled and serviced. Cannon are loaded. External systems (bombs, rockets, bombs, fuel tanks, etc.) are not loaded. Combat crews are known, but briefing on air and ground situation is given before takeoff. Aircraft can be in the air in 1-2 hours, and this condition can be maintained for 2-4 days.

This doesn’t even address aircraft back in the hangars missing major components due to regular overhauls or extensive repairs, or craft already in flight on regular patrols. Advanced tech in the SWU may reduce the ready times somewhat, but it’s unlikely they can be completely eliminated.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

There’s no dispute that an ISD won’t have its entire air (space?) wing ready at any given moment. Maybe half a squadron would be ready at any given moment, which is conveniently the number of fighters that sortied against the Falcon in Solo. What it seemed like was that you were suggesting that a stock Imperator had a Venator’s worth of fighters, and that just didn’t seem right.

I suppose it fits into your Soviet-Imperial mindset that fighter engines should have low service lives, and there must be some trade-off for the high energy densities Sienar was able to achieve. Perhaps that’s it.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I wouldn’t be surprised if it could actually carry both. A modern aircraft carrier (Nimitz or Ford-Class) is only about as long as a Nebulon-B, yet can carry more craft (that are in roughly the same size range) than the official complement of an ISD.

And an ISD certainly could get all / most of its TIEs out in a mass sortie if conditions were right. The biggest factor, IMO, is the timing. At Hoth, for instance, the fleet would’ve known precisely how long it would be before they dropped out of hyperspace, which would give them a window to prep as many fighters as possible without pushing them past their ready window.

Endor, on the other hand, would be harder to pull off, as while the Empire knew the Rebel Fleet would come, they couldn’t know exactly when it would arrive, and would likely have to keep their fighters on round-the-clock readiness rotations, albeit at a higher state of readiness for those on “stand-down” than might be found on a routine patrol.

Daib
Daib
5 years ago
Reply to  Niels

That’s like saying the USS Iowa should carry 100 aircraft instead of its two floatplanes based on volume scaling with a Casablanca class escort carrier. Sure, it would be possible, but what you’re describing isn’t an Iowa, but an Essex. Separate ship roles exist for a reason.

Jonathan LaGier
Jonathan LaGier
4 years ago
Reply to  Niels

Imagine all of those being tie defenders or devestators.

ussiowa9
ussiowa9
4 years ago
Reply to  Niels

I think a more realistic approximate for the Assertor’s starfighter compliment would be in the region of 6000 to 7000 excluding other larger craft like transports etc.

AdmiralBoi
5 years ago

So what’s the size of this monster?

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  AdmiralBoi

15km in length.

Ryadra777
5 years ago

So Fractal what I like the most about the Assertor is how very versatile it is with it’s equipment like it have three types of heavy turbolasers one for anti-capital (Duel 720 Teratons), one for anti-wolf pack (Quad 240 Teratons) and one for swift targets like destroyers (Oct 32/40 Teratons), a weaker but more reliable superlaser mainly used for capital ships and space stations instead of cracking planets and moons, a good amount of ion cannons (Quad 240 Teratons), thousands of medium and light turbolasers, gravity wells, tactical missile silos and 24-28 fighter wings.

It is a perfect capital ship but there is one thing I was wondering why didn’t you give it strategic missiles silos like the Bellator?

Bob
Bob
5 years ago

Ok, here’s a question. How many of these Dreadnoughts and Super Dreadnoughts are there out there? We know that there were at least 20,000 ISD I/II, and I think I remember reading there were somewhere near 10 Executor class in the EU – the Executor, Lubyanka(?), two of the class unnamed alleged to be supposedly fitting out with a cloaking device, etc. Given the enormous crew, nevermind the cost of building one, how many Assertor class? Obviously the lead – Assertor, and Wrath, but how many more could the Empire afford to build and crew? I think it’s obvious there were likely a dozen or more Secutors, and given the scale of the Allegiance class, probably a dozen or so of those, but how many Compellors, Impellors, Bellators and this brute could there be? Any of you insightful, Imperial Navy “nerds” with a bent towards the logistics of this have any ideas?

Mike8404
Mike8404
5 years ago
Reply to  Bob

I’m not the best when it comes to logistics, but I’ll give it a shot. First we have to look at the size of the Empire at is peak. According to Wookiepedia “The Galactic Empire’s territory at its peak consisted of some one and a half million member and conquered worlds, as well as sixty-nine million colonies, protectorates and puppet states spread throughout the entire galaxy, stretching from the borders of the Deep Core to at least Wild Space”. However a forum post I read included this information “There is a map of the Star Wars galaxy which claims “50 million inhabited systems”. Assuming that most of these systems are simply ‘colonies’, the Wookiepedia claim of 69 million colonies could be borne out quite easily. The map also reckons that there are approximately 10^17 inhabitants (or about 2×10^10 per system by my rough reckoning – by comparison, Earth is currently populated by just short of 7×10^9 or about 1/50 of the average Star Wars system). I’m not sure of the canonicity of this map, though, and it isn’t clear if this is the population of known space, or the Empire alone”. That gives the Empire trillions of human souls to conscript if need be. Now we know the Empire also recruited from the Outer Rim too so that adds even more.

Now a regular Imperial I Star Destroyer is crewed by 46,785 personnel which includes the 9,700 Stormtroopers attached to each one. An SSD is crewed by 280,734 crew. Taking into account the human population of the Empire and the amount of personnel they needed to crew 20,000-25,000 SD’s and the vast amount of money and resources the Empire had from taxes and member worlds asking with its incredible industry..they could conceivably build a thousands of SD’s and still not have to conscript to fill the crew requirements. Hopefully that helps answer your questions

AssertorClassDreadnought
AssertorClassDreadnought
3 years ago
Reply to  Bob

Ok, go to YouTube, search up Eckhartsladder How many ssd’s are there? and you will likely get the video. I think he says there are around 48 Imperial dreadnoughts, including the Mandator III’s, the Executors, the Assertors, The Bellators, the Vengeances, the Sovereigns and the Eclipses.

Ryadra777
5 years ago

So Fractal this might sound crazy and/or redundant but I wonder would it be possible to make a Fleet Carrier variant of the Assertor?
Also by away I have decided I’m confident enough to come out of my anonymous status and this will be my new username from now on and I’m that same anonymous being who have ask many questions to you.

PhoenixKnight
PhoenixKnight
5 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

I believe that would be the Titan class

Some dude
Some dude
3 months ago
Reply to  PhoenixKnight

I know I’m super late to the party, But the best information I could find on the Titan class states that it is about 5.7 Kilometers long, 1/5th of the Assertors massive 15 Kilometers.
Comments on the Fandom page state that it supposedly holds 1.5 thousand Fighters, Which is 200 short of the Assertors standard load.
A dedicated Supercarrier variant of the Assertor, By my best guess could likely hold 8,000+ fighters, Probably more if it starts seriously cutting back on Turbolasers and the Supposed gravity well generators.

Fleet Admiral SMG3
5 years ago

-Weapon emplacements makes sense
-deadly to starfighters
-Invincible in a ship-to-ship combat
-Secondary command bridge
-Gravity wall generators
-Light Superlaser to decimate capital ships
-Protected huge hangar bays
-Main bridge well protected

I think even Thrawn would agree with me on the fact that this is almost a perfect capital ship. Great job!! I can’t even imagine how long you worked on this. This literally became my favorite Star Wars ship!

Spud
Spud
5 years ago

Actually, Thrawn might disapprove of how big and expensive it is (It would be a shame if it were destroyed by some rebel scum…)

Fifo
Fifo
5 years ago
Reply to  Spud

See, that’s the point of it. It can absolutely destroy the rebel scum. Their main power is in their fighters, and this counters fighters perfectly. Any capital ships the new republic would throw at them would be destroyed, and tbh if you just threw this into an enemy fleet without an escort fleet to just try and 1v~10-30 then you don’t deserve to command it. With realistic opposition, there is no way for it to be beaten, and knowing Thrawn he’d have a use for it. Think of it as a force multiplier. Huge enemy fleet, move in similar sized fleet, and add the assertor. It would change the entire course of the battle, smashing out whatever the largest ship in the enemy fleet was with the small superlaser, and then contributing to both smashing out enemy capital ships and devastating fighters.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  Fifo

Thrawn’s main objection towards dreadnoughts and bigger ships such as the Assertor or Executor is that they’re a waste of both manpower and resources because they can only be in few places at once even if you have more than 3 of them. 50+ ISDs are more flexible to use and have a better cost-efficiency rating with a philosophy geared towards being able to respond to multiple threats at once. Thrawn was not all about firepower and intimidation, his main concern was efficiency and flexibility.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Fifo

The solution to this is simple: wherever it is, be somewhere else. The Alliance wasn’t looking for a stand-up fight against superior firepower; they went for space-going guerilla warfare, hitting the Empire where it was weak and avoiding it where it was strong. The most powerful ship in existence does no good if you don’t know where to aim it.

Daib
Daib
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

By the time the original Thrawn trilogy was set, the New Republic had already claimed a significant proportion of the galaxy, and committed itself to defending those static population centers. Thrawn absolutely was able to find a set-piece fight if he wanted it against the NR. His problem was that he didn’t have enough tonnage to win those set-piece battles, not an inability to track down elusive insurgents.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Daib

Depending on how much of the EU you believe, he likely didn’t have the resources because the really big ships had either mostly been destroyed, or hidden away (either by the Emperor in the Deep Core or bit players like the Yevetha).

Jean-Luc Martel
Jean-Luc Martel
5 years ago

If thrawn designed a dreadnought, this is what it would look like! BEAUTIFUL!

2-SX-E
4 years ago

He might prefer something less large and more practical like a Bellator.

chimeric oncogene
chimeric oncogene
3 years ago

Probably would have gone with ISD spam. You can build a thousand ISDs for one Assertor, and an Assertor (while good for planetary shield busting and whatnot) can only be in one place at once.

Chris Jonston
Chris Jonston
5 years ago

My God, the design is truly well thought out especially with staggered gun batteries on the thirty (30) or so degrees sloped hull and the offset batteries along the spinal arch where all guns could come to bear during a broadside and even bow on engagements. This design is terrifyingly powerful in arcs of fire alone. Great designing and graphic representation!!
Cheers,
CJ

Anonymous
5 years ago

So Fractal if I may ask do you think the term Battleship and Dreadnought is outdated in sci-fi or not?

Anonymous
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Ahh ok then so I guess I can call the Bellator a Dreadcruiser (Which is a Cruiser with a power of a Dreadnought in case someone doesn’t get it), the Legator a Command Carrier and the Executor a Dreadcarrier then.

Also what the hell is a Bazoomba?

Chris Bradshaw
Chris Bradshaw
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

One of the root causes of this “Is an ISD a destroyer or a true capital ship?” debates is probably the sheer size discrepancy between Leia’s CR90 Corvette and the Devastator that will forever be imprinted on the American psyche.

IRL Corvettes like the Flower class of WW2 vintage or the modern German Braunschweigs aren’t really that much smaller than their contemporary destroyer counterparts, and mount very similar weaponry in somewhat lesser numbers. In combat capability, some corvettes mount just as many anti-ship missile tubes and CIWS systems as modern destroyers, putting them on par in a straight up fight. To someone who doesn’t really care about warships, they’re virtually indistinguishable at a glance.

In Star Wars, Imperators out-mass corvettes by a greater margin than IRL battleships or supercarriers out-mass patrol boats, which can easily lead to the assumption that Star Destroyers represent the high end of the naval scale rather than just a couple of steps up… until the Executor shows up.

The term Dreadnought is sexy and more fun to write than Battleship, but when used, it creates the impression that there was recently a massive leap in naval construction capability, and that any capital ship that isn’t a dreadnought is hopelessly obsolete in the battle line. Just my two cents.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Chris Bradshaw

I’d still dub ‘dreadnought’ rather more fitting for vessels at least half Executor’s volume & larger (barring some extreme specialization) as opposed to, well, the WEG blister-stub. Plus, obsolete seems quite relative-sure, the battlewagons are a nightmare on paper, but they also represent the expenditure of multiple core worlds & can’t economically drop the hammer everywhere at once-which would be where cruisers, Impstar-scale craft & the rest come in. That noted, very good point WRT the ludicrous scaling gap ‘tween SW & RL.

chris pearson
chris pearson
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

The Essential Guide to Warfare mentioned another dreadnought present at Kuat when it fell – the Aurora. Could be an Assertor, I guess. Or maybe mean’t to be a Bellator?

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
4 years ago
Reply to  chris pearson

From my utterly fickle, subjective standpoint, ‘Aurora’ seems like a patently upper-end battlewagon moniker…which leaves me unable to pick between yet another Executor, one of the later-model Mandators, or the later-Legends’ Imp Remnant’s Megador class (which was apparently Disneybooted out of what passes for current continuity).

MidnightPhoenix
MidnightPhoenix
5 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

someone’s watching YouTube space dock

Anonymous
5 years ago

Indeed I did and speaking of Spacedock (His real name is Daniel) he one of those people who thinks the term battleship and dreadnought is outdated and doesn’t feel futuristic in sci-fi, he also thinks the term battlecruiser should be the ship-of-the-line and also thinks star destroyers are battleships and not destroyers.

Spud
Spud
5 years ago

That would be me…

Jean-Luc Martel
Jean-Luc Martel
5 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

in real life a battleship is an actual ship type, wherass a dreadnought is the name of a specific ship that was the first modern style of battleship. the HMS Dreadnought. after that ship came out every other ship was a post or pre-dreadnought design. Dreadnought literally means FEAR NOTHING.

Bob
Bob
5 years ago

Actually the term Dreadnought has a specific naval meaning – the meaning being that all of the guns of the main battery are of the same caliber. Prior to Dreadnought, battleships (iron hulled steam propulsion with an armored belt) had mixed caliber main batteries. All battleships post HMS Dreadnought were, by definition Dreadnoughts, at least for the major powers. Dreadnought was obsolete within three years of launching, gun calibers increased, wing turrets went away in new designs, placing the main battery along the centerline of the ship, armor belt thickness increased, and that trend didn’t stop until they stopped being built.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Bob

Of course, all of this presumes that the SWU must adhere to the same ship classification system as the real world.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago

So someone on a dreadnought should dread-not? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

(Kill me)

rodtod
rodtod
5 years ago

Really enjoy the lore from Essential Guide to Warfare. You can learn about why the Empire had numerous dreadnought designs in the works.

Anonymous
5 years ago

So Fractal I was thinking a Star Dreadnought that is a hybrid of both the Assertor (Mass size, weapons and superlaser) and the Executor (Huge hanger bay and speed) and would be at least 20 KM in length. Do you think it is a plausible idea?

MidnightPhoenix
MidnightPhoenix
5 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

check SWTC for some inspiration

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

The Assertor is faster than the Executor.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

The Assertor just looks faster. There’s a lot of the Bellator in it.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

Eh, most of the resemblance seems to involve dorsal superstructure & hangar layout-Assertor sports a *much* thicker cross-section. A slight acceleration tradeoff doesn’t seem too jarring considering this beast’s other capabilities.

Hector Barbossa
Hector Barbossa
5 years ago

That ship is amazing, how many weapons and utilities it have?

arbel arad
arbel arad
5 years ago

how did you create this model?

Noah checkman
Noah checkman
5 years ago

Does it have gravity well generators? Because I noticed some semi-spheres in the hull that look like them.

Noah checkman
Noah checkman
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

wow
I like this ship even more now.

Spud
Spud
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Eclipse (star dreadnought), I don’t care about you anymore.

PhantomFury
PhantomFury
5 years ago

Blue sublights stands out a lot! I think it’s because I kind of associate them with particularly rapid vessels like ISD and the Falcon?

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  PhantomFury

Most big ships besides Executor (which seems to have roughly Impstar-tier acceleration based on ESB & ROTJ) do seem to run blue, though other Falcon-scale tubs (Slave 1) and alphabet fighters (including A-wings) display a lot of yellow/red/pink. As one thread a while back was musing, thruster lightshows might not be reliable Roy G. Biv indicators.

PhantomFury
PhantomFury
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Ah yeah, I know they aren’t based on temperature of the thust, but sometime I kind of feel wierd to see massive things with a bright sublight like that,

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

So what about Yellow? Would it be like for patrolling or something?

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago

Partial as I am to the battlecruiser-and-smaller end of our host’s capital stable, this is nonetheless a staggering piece of work (and a marked aesthetic improvement on its Legends siege-wedge predecessors).

Revan
Revan
5 years ago

Could you do the annihilator please? I think it would look amazing done by you. Love the assertor btw.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Revan

If you’re referring to the ship here ( https://jbjhjm.deviantart.com/art/Finished-Star-Wars-Project-201432300 ) or in this vid ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur5zdnjak_E )…I’m pretty sure that was based on a model created by someone who peeked at Fractal’s early work in the first place, though not to the point of direct ripoff: ( http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=124353&start=1625 ) Talk about six degrees of napkin-navy design.

Vaes Beumaryn
Vaes Beumaryn
5 years ago

Absolutely stellar work; blows me away. I would love you to make a model of the Venator-class

Hecatomb
Hecatomb
5 years ago

At last, my favorite imperial warship has been converted to 4K! Out of curiosity, how much work does it take to do these upgrades?

Grand Admiral
Grand Admiral
5 years ago

Thank you, Fractalsponge! I am a massive fan of the Assertor. If I could pick to own any ship or station in the Star Wars Timeline, I would certainly choose the Assertor over even the Eclipse, Executor, or even one of the DS Battlestations. Once again, thanks for creating a 4K Assertor Class!

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  Grand Admiral

I’m much more in line with Grand Admiral Thrawn in that I don’t like these oversized super ships too much and would rather rely on a more versatile force. If I could pick a single ship in the Star Wars universe it would probably be a Venator or if it has to be a “big” ship either a plain normal Imperial II-class SD, an Allegiance or at maximum a Legator.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

Personally, I Would take either a lucrehulk or a bellator, the first because it has enough hangar space to hold everything you would ever need, and the other because it’s faster than most battleships, While having plenty of firepower on its own. If size doesn’t matter, then I would probably chose an acclamator (fast, excellent hyperdrive, plenty of cargo hold, decent firepower an defense, capable of planetary landing…).

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

TBH, I’d be more aesthetically partial to an NR-refurbished Executor (ala Guardian or Lusankya) with mostly filled-in hangar cavity & a Malevolence-style ion pulse cannon (hell, Ex’s big enough to stick those on the bow *and* fantail), but Fractal’s Bellator & Praetor also fit my bill re: aesthetics, relative efficency & (slightly) more budget-consciousness. Home One & later Mon Cal heavies also get my nod, though some of those later Legends designs could really use more/beefier thruster layouts.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I’m more of a Secutor fan myself. Speed, firepower, and carrier operations on a flying wing styled hull. What’s not to love?

Chris Bradshaw
Chris Bradshaw
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Hopefully carrying a whole swarm of V-Wings, which I still think are better than any TIE before the Avenger.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Secutor’s a little blunt-nosed for my aesthetic taste, but not a bad pick so long as you stick to destroyer-or-lighter prey. Or have a cruiser squad with small-craft needs to cover. As lower-tonnage capitals go, I’m nursing a real soft spot for Procursator’s ‘pocket Impstar with bigger teeth’ schtick.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

The Procursator’s Rodney-esque heavy forward centerline battery is certainly appealing, but the lack of fighters and relatively low density of point defense would give me conniptions if I had to skipper one.

The Last Jedi was sort of an SMS Ostriesland moment in proving pretty conclusively that fighters can just fly through capital shielding. Battle-line proponents beware.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I suppose the Raddus bridge & hangar hits could be somewhat handwaved as (a) direct & indirect Acts of Force(R) and (b) involving a ship focusing no small chink of its juice into aft (ray?) shields…even if its largest pursuer should’ve been able to literally melt that Mon Cal’s ass off about a half-minute into the chase or (much) less. Still notable how neither component hit even seemed to nudge that ship a bit off track. Incidentally, gotta share your sodium re: TLJ’s space-combat bits & extreme TL attenuation (even in vacuum) being pushed as the new normal.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Like it or not TLJ is still Star Wars, so I guess we need to come up with increasingly convoluted explanations to keep capitals relevant.

Off the top of my head, perhaps the reason only a handful of fighters were launched after the Raddus instead of a full attack group of thousands was that only those TIEs could be fitted with captured/salvaged Resistance IFF transceivers from the opening battle ( which has plenty of its own problems regarding fighter/capital interactions ) that would allow them to pass through Resistance shields automatically. Typically you might expect ship technicians to generate new transceiver frequencies after each engagement to avoid this, but in the chaos of the evacuation and the shock of being surprised by a hyperspace-tracking capable fleet, perhaps someone forgot to do their job or jumped ship.

It could also do with the line about fleet support range. I don’t think that it’s inconceivable that at point-blank range capital ships can use their tractor beams to briefly rip open tiny holes in shielding, but that idea has even less support in existing literature.

Road Warrior
Road Warrior
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I totally agree boss. Remember, Pablo Hidalgo dissing Dr. Saxton because Saxton, who like yourself, reasons things out.

I would go so far as to lump Pablo Hidalgo in with the infamous Rian Johnson.. are whatever the hell his name is.

I still wish you, Saxton, and ECR where in charge of things..

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Road Warrior

Eh, this corner of Warsie-dom never quite hit ‘tail wagging dog’ level (and ECR, despite the rip-snorting destroyer-duel writing, was/is strictly a fanon creator). I can somewhat sympathize with Hidalgo’s balancing game ‘tween technical stuff & casual/newcomer accessibility…but lately it seems to me the core issue’s a lack of verisimilitude in the ST akin to no small amount of wonkier Legends content.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I recall no small handful of SD.net threads bouncing that Dune-style ‘slow stuff (like the TLJ bombs?) penetrates (particle deflectors?)’ chestnut as applicable to strike birds vs. warship shields, though you’d think pulling off the whole velocity-matching trick on most component-strike-enabling vectors would still leave small craft wide open for PD. Mighty convenient so many onscreen capitals just stationkeep when there’s no freighterful of heroes to chase (and even that’s 50-50).

Also tempted to propose split-second fire-window exploitation, but *that* strikes me as patently Jedi-grade character fiat…then again, I suppose there’s the off chance Leia spent most of this sequence Battle Meditating(R) in Poe’s direction. As for just neutering the siege pizza…thicker turret armor & lack of missiles after the Starkiller raid? Still seems like those barrels would at least be heavy laser-vulnerable, given Red Squad’s (admittedly much lighter) turret-plinking back in ANH.

Anyhow, I could readily roll with a design as undercooked as the Mandator IV sacrificing thrust & shield juice for theater bubble-busting capability, but you’d still think the damn thing could mount more quad lasers than, oh, 1.2 Lancer frigates. And on the other end, why wouldn’t the Doomerang be packing a couple of those phallocannons? Gotta second (well, third) your sinking suspicions, Fractal.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Given how Captain Canady seemed to be holding the Idiot Ball for much of his time on screen, I wouldn’t put it past him to not think of checking that someone had raised Fulminatrix’s shields until Poe was already under them.
As for the attack run on Raddus:
The hangar strike could have been small shield holes caused by the heavy fire, as Fractal said. I can’t remember whether the fleet was already fleeing by that point, but if they were, Admiral Ackbar had already ordered all power to rear shields. That could mean that the main shields simply weren’t covering the hangar tunnel at the time.
Looking at the torpedoes Ren’s TIE Silencer were packing, I suspect they were specifically developed to penetrate NR shields, allowing them to get through the hangar entrance shields like they weren’t even there. The MC-85 is almost 30 years old by this point, and (spoilers?) a lot of the NR worlds which defected to the First Order in Bloodline will have had access to NR warship tech for the FO to work on beating.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

I seem to recall Canady playing the Only Sane Captain Hung Out to Dry(C) role, what with the grumbling about Hux’s lack of initiative, belated TIE-screen deployment, his subordinates not quite realizing what Poe was defanging ’em for, etc. Given all that, pretty sure most of Fulminatrix’s juice was being taken up by the base assault & pending fire on the Resistance flagship…though seriously: if that thing wasn’t kludged together by some Neo-Sith Aesthetics Committee, you’d think more secondary guns & a saner weapon/shield/thrust budget would’ve been viable.

Ren’s hangar strike did indeed happen mid-pursuit, so diverted shields + Force fiat would suffice to enable that; not sure any particular technobabble’s needed WRT the missiles, though I’m sure FO strategists appreciated any blueprints those defectors handed over.

Spud
Spud
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

I feel bad for Captain Canady. He was put on a Mandator IV(Worst ship of the line).

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Ugggghhhh… I’ve stopped calling it a Mandator IV. And I just might stop calling it a dreadnought. God, I hate TLJ and the idiots Rian Johnson hired to design his spaceships…

The one good design from TLJ is probably the TIE Silencer, but the movie didn’t use it to its full potential. And that’s another reason to hate TLJ. All of the new ship designs we saw in TLJ were either absolute garbage, or they were actually smart, but Rian and his idiots were too stupid to use them to their full potential. The TIE Silencer flies in and blows up Poe’s fighter and the Raddus’s bridge before retreating and never appearing again.

The problem is that I think a lot of people, including me, thought that TLJ would have been a great movie at first; after all, TFA was good (go on, kill me for saying it). And because we expected an awesome sequel to TFA, we wanted to see the new spaceships that the trailers had shown us because we expected them to be on a similar level to the ships from TFA. And we were disappointed. Majorly.

The ships from TFA were actually really good, so it’s a real sucker that the ships from TLJ were so bad. The Resurgent-class was a worthy replacement for the Imperial-class, in my opinion. The same could be said for the First Order’s TIE fighters and the Resistance X-wings. But then TLJ’s “dreadnought” was more of a “dread-not”, the Resistance throw the Y-wing (you will be missed) and the B-wing in the garbage for some garbage bombers that are slower than your pet rock, suddenly fuel is an issue, which it has never been previously in Star Wars, Snoke’s Doomerang can’t destroy a Mon Cal rustbucket, and the Resistance scrapped their T-47s in exchange for a bunch of hovering trash cans.

I don’t consider the issues with the Resistance as something to rip out a Wookiee’s arm over. They just took the whole underdogs thing a little too far. But the First Order…aaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhh… The whole point of having a villain or villains is to provide some conflict that the heroes have to solve to reach their goals. The bad guys are supposed to be menacing and dangerous, and in sci-fi, a bad guy’s spaceship is supposed to send a message to the audience saying, “I’m big, I’m bad, and I’m a threat”. TFA’s Resurgent-class star destroyers were able to send that message as effectively as the Executor and the Death Star did, and we were all told that these were guys to fear. But then, in TLJ, the bad guy’s new big ships and guns were made out of wax and paper and broke in a single hit, and the message changes from one of fear to one of ridicule. The dread-not isn’t worthy of the name Rian and his idiots gave it. The Mandator starship line was a proud and successful one. Mandators I-III and the Bellator were powerful ships that were something to look at in awe and wonder and fear for the people who use them. The “Mandator IV” isn’t a member of this line of ships. It’s a disgrace to its name and the history behind it.

Sorry if that turned into a rant and ramble. I just hate the dread-not.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Thanks

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

I may differ slightly WRT the Resurgent, but at least it comes off as much *less* of a boondoggle than the siege pizza with almost no defensive teeth & Hypermobilemurderbase(C) with (as you pointed out) insufficient punch to kill one Mon Cal over the course of *how much* straight-line pursuit time? Overall, nicely nuanced ramble.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Thanks.

I’m also really mad at TLJ because of how there’s no references to the Aftermath novel trilogy, which is canon (also, mild spoiler warning (and I suggest you do read it at some point. It’s good!)). I was really hoping to see the canon version of the Eclipse (it’s apparently an Executor-class), and find out what happened to Grand Admiral Rae Sloane (Sloane and Hux’s dad found the Eclipse at the end of the last book in the trilogy (again, I suggest reading the books)). But as I said in my huge ramble, TLJ disappointed me. Majorly.

Sloane did not show up, and neither did the Eclipse, unless you want to believe that the First Order built the Supremacy around the Eclipse, which I’m sure you don’t. And now both the engineer side of me and the loremaster side of me absolutely hate the movie, because we’re not just given garbage vehicles, but also a gaping plot hole that would require an entire re-do of TLJ to fill.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

The idea with the IFF model was that a small shield panel would automatically flash off as a friendly craft made its approach rather than full permeability, although the idea of limited burnthrough under heavy bombardment needs fewer assumptions. A limited number of available salvaged IFF transponders was also how I justified the tiny number of TIEs making the attack, but Hux’s reluctance to let his subordinate fighter commanders to get the glory of the kill could also explain it.

Perhaps diverting 100% of reactor power to weapons was the only way the Mandator IV could achieve the rate of fire necessary to kill the Raddus before it escaped after wiping out the surface base , but it seems questionable that Cannady would make that risk/reward tradeoff given that the First Order had access to hyperspace tracking. I guess you could make the assumption that a paranoid wannabe totalitarian like Snoke might not even tell his subordinates that his flagship was equipped with tracking for political reasons, but then you’re just stacking assumptions onto assumptions.

The reason he targeted the surface base first is also questionable, but my headcanon being that the FO had a reason to believe that there was a credible surface-to-space battery at the base.

Regarding not just shooting at the guns, the main battery of the Mandator IV might have just been protected by a fairly thick armor belt. Missiles also should be effective, but can be easily fooled with a sophisticated jamming suite that doesn’t quite work on a human pilot.

I too was disappointed in Rian, but they gave him too long of a leash and hopefully learned from that. Rogue One blew me away, and Solo marginally exceeded expectations, so it will take more than one poorly written sequel to kill my hopes for the next one.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Am i the only one in this comment section to have been seriously disappointed by Rogue One ? I remind you that it presented a single squadron of (five) Y-wings, one of the oldest fighter available to the alliance, as being able to fully disable an ISD (including shield, weapons, propulsion and more than likely communications) in a single run. By that token, capital ships aren’t really much more than useless. And I’m not even talking about this ridiculously impractical “ramming corvette” trick the rebels pulled out of their backside at the last minute…

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Maybe the Scarif destroyers weren’t even running their primary reactor at full power. Garrison duty on a supposedly secure world might only rate a secondary reactor running full time, and with 80 percent of the crew on shore leave below, they might not even have the personnel to bring the main reactor up to full output in a useful time frame while going through a regulation safety checklist.

Given the apparent holes in the officer cadres aboard, maybe there were sufficient gaps in the command structure to prevent bypassing of those safety protocols, and the rest is history.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

The point still stand. Shield gap or not, five Y-wing can apparently completely immobilize an ISD in a matter of second, to the point of it not being able to either counter a corvette acceleration/maneuver out of the way, attack it or alert anyone of the enemy obvious tactic (plus, if there was a shield gap, it was a pretty large one considering the spread of torpedo impacts on the dorsal hull)
As for the devastator, it was a fresh warship surprise-smashing an already battered and fleeing rebel fleet, which had already started jumping away. its performance isn’t really surprising.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

Didn’t those Y-Wings carry heavy Ion bombs which do a ton of EMP-damage? I remember in the Season 3 finale of Rebels Jan Dodonna’s Y-Wings also flew an attack run on one of the ISDs from Thrawn’s 7th Fleet and while they managed a local shield overload and some superficial damage to the hull the Destroyer remained completely operational directing its TIEs to wreck the Y-Wings in return. Granted, the two ISDs at Scarif, the Persecutor and Intimidator, were said to be manned with second rate crew and possibly understaffed as well while the ISDs of Thrawn’s fleet are manned by elite crewmen and -women, but I doubt that it was ONLY crew quality that was the deciding factor. Does the MC75 Mon Cal Cruiser have Ion Cannons? Maybe it is just like at Endor with the Executor in the vein that Rebel Capitals unite fire to weaken a Star Destroyers shields and then the Y-/B-Wings move in for the kill.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

Sure, ion bombs are a thing, but if a single squadron of obsolete Y-Wings can disable an Imperator in one pass, then why is anyone building Star Destroyers?

My point was not about crew quality, but that the Scarif ISDs simply didn’t have more than a skeleton crew. They weren’t maneuvering, they weren’t launching fighters of their own, and maybe 15 percent of their dorsal weapons seemed active. Most tellingly, instead of exploding catastrophically like that hit destroyer at Endor, they just sheared off metal when they slammed into each other. All of this seems to point to a ship that isn’t running its main reactor, and shouldn’t be taken as evidence for extreme capital ship vulnerability to fighters.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

That’s why I also brought up the counter example from Rebels Season 3. There the Rebel Y-Wings tried the same thing as in Rogue One at Scarif yet caused only miniscule damage to the targeted ISD by itself and didn’t get to attempt a second attack run because the TIE screen partly destroyed and partly chased them off.
When Thrawn brought his ISDs to Atollon they were undoubtedly in full battle readiness with energy diverted to both shields and weapons, so that would be an indicator to your theory on the ISDs at Scarif not even capable of getting fully battle ready in time.
You get a sort of same problem in The Clone Wars when Anakin, Ahsoka and Plo Koon go against the Malevolence, a huge ship bigger than any Star Destroyer with a single Y-Wing Squadron too and while they can’t completely destroy it they can disable its main weapon and damage its hyperdrive in a chain reaction in one pass too. Then Obi-Wan shows up with three Venators which proceed to unleash salvo after salvo on the Malevolence yet seem to do less damage than a few pesky fighters. I dunno if that’s “rule of cool” in media specifically but in the end it does make capital ships look like a waste of resources or at least looking inferior to fighters. If you have to have get a capital ship heavily damaged by fighters there should at least a whole wing of 72 vessels involved to make it at least a little believable.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

the Y-wing squadron that manage to cripple the malevolence arguably only managed it because they targeted its super weapon at a critical moment. Note that the ion cannons exploded precisely when grievous gave the order to fire while the torpedos themselves made very limited damage overall. That’s more of a superweapon quirk, like the death star exhaust-port, than some universal flaw that could be generalized to include star destroyers.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Seems to me that popping wing-scale carriers before they finish scrambling (& keeping one hand on the lightspeed lever if the bombers jumped in) plus maintaining a healthy turn of speed would help WRT defusing R1-scale strikes (and good luck getting those TLJ B-29 knockoffs to catch anything not frozen by plot). If I’m dealing with a Lucrehulk-ballpark swarm plus their parent ship solo, it was time to leave yesterday.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Going by the novel Cobalt Squadron, the Starfortress actually has a decent turn of speed; iirc Cobalt Hammer made it from a system’s asteroid belt to one of its habitable planets in under an hour, it also took them only about 2-3 minutes to get through the atmosphere to their drop zone on later runs to that world. Unfortunately, I can’t check exact details right now as I’m about half an hour away from my copy of Cobalt Squadron and Wookieepedia hasn’t been updated with anything from the book.
The main problem with the TLJ bombing run (wrt speed) was tactics; the crews were specifically told to go in slow. Presumably this was so they didn’t miss the sweet spot when they dropped their ordnance, but they could at least have approached faster.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

Except Y-wings could replicate that precision without slowing down. The same applies to B-wings and TIE bombers. And the Hyena bombers from the Clone Wars. We’ve never seen slow-moving bombers in Star Wars. All the bombers in Star Wars have been moving at a rather high speed during bombing runs. So clearly, speed has no effect on precision.

Also, this whole thing about precision is a load of bullshit, for that scene at least. Those bombs are proton warheads, and they do a lot of damage in a big blast radius. That’s kind of the point of a bomb or a missile; it’s supposed to have a big explosion that destroys things. And the dread-not was weak as hell. So even if going in at speed did affect precision, you wouldn’t need a very precise shot. It’s a giant target for crying out loud. If Poe had equipped proton torpedoes on his X-wing, he probably could have taken out the entire dread-not himself.

So both sides are complete imbeciles.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

I can’t deny that both sides failed monumentally in their tactics for that battle.
That said, the Resistance dropped a lot of bombs directly onto the only known weak point in the siegepizza – the solar ionization reactor. Can we be sure that fewer bombs would have done the trick? Proton torpedoes may have had as little effect on Fulminatrix’s reactor as they did on Starkiller Base’s thermal oscillator.
The Resistance may have reasonably believed that they needed every bomb from at least one bomber to hit the target in order to destroy it; with how long it took Cobalt Hammer to drop her payload, it’s possible that if she were at a higher speed during the drop her bombs would simply be too spread out to all hit the reactor. If I was the Resistance, I wouldn’t want to take the risk of not getting enough ordnance on target because I was rushing, or because I just didn’t send sufficiently powerful weapons.
In addition to all that: As far as we know, the Resistance’s other bombing forces were limited in number to a single BTL-S3 Y-Wing, which they lost on a mission several weeks before the Battle of D’Qar. One must always do the best one can with what one has. If only they actually had.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

To directly address your point about other bombers moving fast during bombing runs: Every time we’ve seen fast bombing runs in the movies or TCW they’ve been carpet bombing the target, not attempting a surgical strike. They’ve also dropped one bomb at a time, not 1,024; there is no spread on a single bomb. Surgical strikes have, in previous movies and TV series, almost always been torpedo strikes; as I mentioned above, torpedoes may not have been anything like powerful enough to get the job done in this case. The one case where bombers conducted a surgical strike with bombs was during the capture of the Quasar Fire-Class Cruiser-Carrier which would become Phoenix Nest (Rebels Season 2, “Homecoming”), these bombers weren’t actually moving much (if any) faster than the Starfortresses in TLJ, they were just closer to a smaller target, so it looked like they were.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

Tbh I was more surprised that Poe could just blast apart the turrets of the Fulminatrix with the puny little Lasercannons of his X-Wing. Does a “Mandator IV” Pizza slice not have any shields? Like is it the TIE Fighter of Capital ships or what? Disney has no idea to portray consistency or logic with the rest of the SW Universe it seems.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

I’m puzzled by that too. Even if he somehow managed to get under the shields before Canady had them activated, those huge turrets should have had enough armour on them to withstand a few shots from a T-70’s cannons.

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Don’t forget about the class name of the Supremacy you hate Fractal.
For those who don’t know it is the Mega class.

Chris Bradshaw
Chris Bradshaw
5 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

The other rebel vessels weren’t half bad, if few in number. The Vakbeor frigate, Free Virgillia Corvette, and Nebulon C were pretty decent looking, even if they didn’t really end up doing anything.

It never did make sense that Holdo was a corvette captain before she took command though. Odd chain of command they’ve got there.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Chris Bradshaw

The Ninka dates back to the galactic civil war. So Holdo probably earned her rank against the Empire.

Also, fuck logic. The Ninka was carrying nukes, so it should have been able to destroy the dread-not itself.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

That is its very own branch of stupidity. Normally a ship class is named after the first vessel laid down in its class, meaning the first Venator-class should have been named “Venator”, the first Tector “Tector” and so on. Logically this would mean Snoke’s boomerang would be the Supremacy-class but then again it is said only one ship exists anyways. There is no “class” at all if it is a unique ship. There didn’t exist a Dreadnought-class in the British Royal Navy because HMS Dreadnought was a single ship, same goes for the HMS Hood hence why there was not a Hood-class Battlecruiser.

Daib
Daib
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

You do realize the HMS Hood was a member of the Admiral class. Different nations can have different naming systems for ships.

LazerZ
LazerZ
5 years ago
Reply to  Ryadra777

As far as I am concerned it is named the Supremacy-class Star Fortress.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

We sure it really qualifies as a precision-intensive strike when the target’s an indentation that massive (and immobile)? Even with ludicrous ECM interference one could probably eyeball in a saturation volley. Plus, if a Mandator-4’s shields are porous/nonexistent enough while charging the phallocannons(?) to allow for Poe’s shenanigans, I doubt the thing’s armor is particularly ion-weapon-proofed bar some wacky materials discoveries between R1 & TLJ. As for Starkiller’s oscillator, that thing may have been packing local shielding connected to the power grid for an entire weaponized world (hence Poe & friends being screwed without Chewie’s sabotage)-color me very surprised if Fulminatrix’s (unshielded?) reactor protection measured up to that.

Granted, there’s the obvious lack of Resistance resources besides the painfully vulnerable floating-magazine bombers & Raddus (which might as well be shooting if they’re gonna wait for the strikers before jumping out), but I remain leery as hell of this ‘cruise up on capital craft like you’re re-enacting the Ploesti factory raids’ approach. Especially as its success in TLJ hinged on a solid fistful of contrivances.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

Except T-70 X-wings can carry a larger load than the T-65, and can carry different kinds of ordinance as well as proton torpedoes. In fact, an even better strategy would be to pack Poe’s fighter with ion torpedoes, disable the dread-not with them, then finish the job with either the rest of the X-wings or the cannons of the Raddus. Or they could have sent the Ninka in and drop one of its nukes on the damn thing. There’s gotta be a million ways the battle and the movie could have gone better.

Also, ever heard of tracking torpedoes?

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

A larger load indeed, 8 torpedoes (source: TFA ICS) to the T-65b’s 6 (source: SotG SE). Your argument so far has only strengthened my point that a single T-70 doesn’t pack anything like enough firepower to get the job done.
Regarding ion torpedoes: Gold squadron launched at least 14 ion torpedoes at the Intimidator to disable it; I seriously doubt that 8 would have any effect on a (7.7×4.1×0.77)km siege pizza.
At the time of the battle of D’Qar, the Resistance only had about 8-12 T-70s available. Even if all of them were equipped with their maximum theoretical payload, they wouldn’t come close to matching the firepower held in one StarFortress’ bomb bay.
If any element of the main fleet engaged the Fulminatrix, even Hux (moronic as he was in that battle) would have engaged with his Resurgents and slaughtered the Resistance forces.
What relevance do tracking torpedoes have to this discussion? There’s no indication that the Resistance even had access to any, and they’re capital ship scale weapons anyway, so refer to the above point about Hux getting off his arse and doing something.
There are probably many ways the Resistance could have conducted a far better battle with what they had, but sending insufficient firepower to do the job, and getting the only warships they had available (with their entire command staff and most of their personnel on board) involved in a battle they can’t win, aren’t among them.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

Then just go back to Y-wings. They could probably carry the equivalent of at least half of a StarFortress. And Y-wings are cheap and easy to build. How else would the Rebellion have ended up with so many? If the Resistance could afford T-70s and RZ-2s, there’s no doubt they could afford a couple Y-wings. Also, while 14 ion torpedoes were launched at the Intimidator in Rogue One, 6 of them were enough to knock out more than half the star destroyer, and only 4 Y-wings participated in the bombing run, so they didn’t need that many Y-wings or ion torpedoes for the dread-not, since it’s obviously weaker than the ISD. It only took one StarFortress to blow up the entire dread-not, and there’s so much wrong with the StarFortress that I’m pretty damn sure a single Y-wing could achieve the same result. Keep in mind that even when the Alliance got the B-wing, they were still flying Y-wings right beside them. They’re old, but they still kick ass, even though the X-wing hogs the spotlight.

The Y-wing is clearly better than the StarFortress. Why are you having trouble accepting that?

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

1/2
“Then just go back to Y-wings. They could probably carry the equivalent of at least half of a StarFortress.”
A Y-Wing cannot carry 524 (TLJ ISC StarFortress payload/2) high yield proton bombs or their equivalent. It’s barely the same size as 524 high yield proton bombs. Legends states that the BTL-A4 model can carry a maximum of 20 proton bombs (Star Wars: Rogue Squadron). Given that the BTL-S3 is essentially the same ship with a two seat cockpit module on the front, it’s logical to think that the same limit applies to the -S3. Even if the -S3 can carry a greater payload, it won’t be anywhere near 524 bombs as the ship is nowhere near large enough. We also don’t know how quickly a Y-Wing can drop all of its bombs; if there’s a delay of more than about 1-2 milliseconds between drops, the Y-wings would have to make multiple runs to get all of their ordnance on target, increasing the probability that some of them are shot down and the remaining ordnance insufficient to finish the job.
It would take 53 Y-Wings to match the payload of 1 StarFortress. That’s 53 pilots (106 aircrew if you’re using the -S3 (or -B) model which, with its turret that can actually be used as such, has a much better chance of survival); the Resistance only had aircrew for 8 StarFortresses (Star Wars: Cobalt Squadron). At 5 crew per vessel (TLJ ISC, Cobalt Squadron), that’s 40 crew members – only around 12-16 of whom were actually combat pilots (based on extrapolation from Cobalt Squadron) – enough to field up to 16 Y-Wings, or fewer than 1/3 of the ships needed to carry 1 StarFortress worth of bombs. Given what I stated earlier about likely believing they needed at least 1048 bombs on target for success (“The Resistance may have reasonably believed that they needed every bomb from at least one bomber to hit the target in order to destroy it”), there’s no way the Resistance would take this option, even if they had the ships for it.

“Y-wings are cheap and easy to build. How else would the Rebellion have ended up with so many?”
From what I can tell, canon states that the Alliance’s Y-Wings were either stolen from the Empire in various missions, most of which don’t make it on screen (or into the pages of a book), or from various planetary defence forces. They had a lot of them because there were a lot around to steal after the Empire retired them all.

“If the Resistance could afford T-70s and RZ-2s, there’s no doubt they could afford a couple Y-wings.”
It’s entirely possible that the Resistance could afford a few Y-Wings. What is in doubt is whether a) there were any Y-Wings still around to buy, b) whether any Y-Wings the Resistance had were i) in flight ready condition (they have often been stated to be extremely high maintenance for Star Wars ships, routinely needing more time in the workshop than in the air), or ii) even anywhere near D’Qar, and c) whether a fieldable number of Y-Wings could get the job done (see above).

“while 14 ion torpedoes were launched at the Intimidator in Rogue One, 6 of them were enough to knock out more than half the star destroyer”
Were they? How do you figure that?

“only 4 Y-wings participated in the bombing run, so they didn’t need that many Y-wings or ion torpedoes for the dread-not, since it’s obviously weaker than the ISD.”
How is it obvious that the Siege Pizza is weaker than an ISD? Is it because of the awful armour on the surface cannons? That gives no indication of the vessel’s overall resistance to ion weaponry, nor does the fact that we all hate the stupid design of the damn thing. You are going to have to support your assertions with proper (evidence supported where evidence exists) arguments if you want them to be accepted; “obviously” is not a strong argument.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

2/2
“It only took one StarFortress to blow up the entire dread-not, and there’s so much wrong with the StarFortress that I’m pretty damn sure a single Y-wing could achieve the same result.”
Flawed or not, that one StarFortress was dropping 1048 high yield proton bombs (TLJ ICS) directly onto the Siege Pizza’s only known critical weak point (TLJ ICS), as determined by Poe Dameron’s study of the ship’s blueprints (Battlefront II, Cobalt Squadron). However much better than the StarFortress the Y-Wing may be at its own job, it only carries around 1 50th of the StarFortress’ firepower (10 torpedoes (X-Wing Alliance) included).

“The Y-wing is clearly better than the StarFortress. Why are you having trouble accepting that?”
I am not trying to pretend that the StarFortress is a better tactical heavy bomber than the Y-Wing is a tactical light bomber. I am stating, with supporting arguments and (where available) evidence, that the StarFortress was the only thing the Resistance had available which could possibly get the job done without risking the destruction of the entire fleet (or critical elements of said fleet) by Hux’s Resurgents.

You seem to be trying to argue – based mostly on your apparent dislike for particular designs, not any actual evidence (in fact, against the easily available evidence) – that a single light bomber, or a small group of light bombers, could easily do what a vessel with 50 times their payload did.

To be clear, so that our future interactions are not marred by memories of this discussion, I have no problem with you personally and I will always avoid ad hominem attacks (that statement itself is not meant as a passive aggressive ad hominem attack and the mention of “apparent dislike” above is an attack on your argument, not you, and thus more of a proper argumentum ad hominem (Merriam-Webster online dictionary – ad hominem)).
I agree with you that evidence so far suggests that the BTL Y-Wing series was superior (in its intended role) to the MG-100 StarFortress SF-17 (in the role for which it was used at D’Qar). I agree that the Mandator-IV Siege Dreadnought (I feel dirty acknowledging that it’s even called that) is a poor design with insufficient point defences, an over-vulnerable critical weak point, and a crappy layout. I agree that one of Ninka’s enormous bombs should be easily enough to kill the crappily designed Siege Pizza, even if there’s no way Hux wouldn’t shoot her to debris very quickly if she tried it.
I also think that you have argued well in other discussions on other topics, but failing to cite any sources of evidence to support your points, when evidence has been easily available to disprove them, means that you have not argued well in this discussion on this topic.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

I don’t understand why you are defending the slug bombers and the dread-not.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

Seems pretty obvious to me. Not that I’m a fan of either design, but the economy of force provided by one bomber with half-a-dozen crew dropping the equivalent bombload of 4 full squadrons of Y-Wings is hard to deny.

And while I am certainly no fan of TLJ, the battle was what it was. You’re presuming that Y-Wings would be available in the strength necessary to pull off the strike you’re talking about, yet I don’t recall seeing any Y-Wings in that film, even if just in the background. What if there WERE no Y-Wings available to perform the strike, so they had to make do with what they had (the bombers)? Sometimes, soldiers have to go into battle with the weapons available to them, not the weapons they wish they had.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

Alright, fine. But there are still huge issues with the Battle of D’qar

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

There were huge issues with that whole film.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

If the use of the starfortress was down to the resistance lack of resources, it would seem kinda counterproductive to stack 8 of them to the brim with precious explosives (remember when the alliance could only afford two PT per fighter/bomber), nearly 90% of which will never make it to the target. I mean, maybe they just had 8000 Proton bombs just lying around but I find that somewhat unlikely.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

You stack them like that for the same reason the Allies sent hundreds of bombers at a time on their raids in Germany: to maximize the chances that as many as possible will get through. The premise behind carpet-bombing is pretty straightforward; throw enough pudu at a wall and some of it will stick.

I have no idea why the resistance just happened to have a bunch of heavy bombers with free fall bombs just sitting around. But it’s what they brought to the fight.

And there are much sillier things in TLJ than this…

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I’m not defending it; I’m just opposing the “they should’ve used X” argument, because the assumption that “X” would automatically be available for a come-as-you-are battle is fallacious.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

As I recall (from TLJ ICS and Cobalt Squadron) the reason they have the StarFortresses is somewhat similar to why the Alliance had so many Y-Wings:
After the war they were built for was over, most of them were retired from galactic military service, so there were a lot around. The main difference being that Starfortresses make decent medium freighters/mining vehicles (their cover story in Cobalt Squadron was dropping charges for a mining company on an ice world), so there were a lot in the civilian market for the Resistance to buy.
As far as the bombs go, I don’t know, but it’s probably easier to smuggle bombs to a secret resistance group than top-of-the-line fighter bombers.
*Edit* Although, IIRC the very first ordnance the Resistance acquired was a large shipment of proton bombs they’d ‘diverted’ from a defunct First Order backed militia (Bloodline).

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

Economy of force is well & good when your super-loaded platforms have a decent chance of making it within reasonable ordnance-delivery range (and, hopefully, back to do it again sometime). Which would not have been the case if Canady’s siege pizza wasn’t apparently stone still in space, point-defense-denuded even *prior* to Poe’s runs, and seemingly all but unshielded c/o the shield-popper turret’s power demands(?). And even with all that & a fighter escort in their favor, a late-arriving TIE screen came within a heartbeat of neutralizing the whole strike. Plus, Poe was freaking out over *one PD turret* possibly butchering the lot of ’em. Resource scarcity & desperation I can understand, but in less fraught circumstances (which I still have to eyeroll at TLJ’s writers for lobotomizing the NR to engineer) I’d keep those things on minelaying duty, look into smarter mass-spammable ordnance and/or give their thruster-juice-to-load ratio a *serious* overhaul.

And given the Resurgent-screen mentions upthread: after watching Finalizer nail a fleeing TIE with PD missiles in TLJ, what exactly was stopping said ships from laying into the bombers & their escort (at least ’till their TIEs engaged)? Were they *all* parked close enough for Fulminatrix to bork up their line of fire?

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I suspect that everyone on those Resurgents was too busy desperately clinging onto the plot mandated Idiot Ball to do their frakkin’ jobs.
Hux I can understand, he’s already established to be a cunning political schemer with next to no tactical command ability, but the rest of them…

AssertorClassDreadnought
AssertorClassDreadnought
3 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

That’s The Last Jedi’s mistake. In Legends, three ISD’s came out of hyperspace right over a dreadnought. All three ISD’s were destroyed by the SSD’s shield.

Spud
Spud
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

the brige

AssertorClassDreadnought
AssertorClassDreadnought
3 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Secutor carries 144 fighters. Venator carries three times that. And is probably only one third the cot. Three Venators gives you 9 X carrying capacity for the same cost.

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago

What are the rounded-square ‘hatches’ dotted along the dorsal super structure (fore and aft) and the ventral ‘pylons’?

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Shaun

The ‘pylons’ look like a bit of flank hangar protection/extrusion. No clue whatsoever on those hatches.

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago
Reply to  Shaun

Just noticed the same asset is used on both the Consolidator bridge pylons…

So… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ship stores/docking access, maybe?

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Hopefully the Imperial Navy isn’t suffering as badly from passive electronic scanning system degradation as the American fleet with their AEGIS recently.

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Ah! Cool.

xXx
xXx
5 years ago

Has anyone know if there is any game/mod (e.g. Empire at War) that use Assertor (even if it’s not this particular model)?

shilka
shilka
5 years ago
Reply to  xXx

The Assertor will be added to the 2.3 version of the Imperial Civil War mod

Sadboi
Sadboi
5 years ago
Reply to  xXx

I tried asking for it to be included as an alternative to the Executor for some mods on moddb for Sins of a solar empire and people just openly mock me for asking something similar to the executor =(

cScott
cScott
5 years ago

I wonder how much this cost the Imperial taxpayers to construct.
And how was the Rebellion/New Republic ever suppose to counter 1 of these; other than have heroes with plot armor, just avoiding it or hoping that Arvel Crynyd has a twin brother or something

JFKrol2
JFKrol2
5 years ago
Reply to  cScott

Rebels/NR had only 2 ways to counter SSDs – have own SSD and shitton of fighters or “gank” with Nebula SDs / MC cruisers, also with excesive amounts of fighters

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  JFKrol2

Some of the late-Legends New Jedi Order-era books also mentioned Mon Cal dreadnought designs like the Viscount class (which actually made it into a fleet-combat miniature game). That said, there’s always messing with such monsters’ supply chains, especially given the amount of splintering-Imp-warlord-faction chaos for a consolidating NR to exploit. Funny thing is, Assertor was *barely* introduced c/o the Essential Guide to Warfare before Disney picked up Lucasfilm & opted for the ‘clean slate just enough to enable our material’ approach.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

There’s also the Mediator-class Battlecruiser (Mon Cal-ship) and the Strident-class Star Defender (Corellian) which are in roughly the same “league” as the Viscount or the Assertor.

All those are New Republic-only though so the Rebel Alliance has practically nothing except massive fighter strikes and sabotage to use against such behemoths.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

Could’ve sworn Mediator & Strident were battlecruiser-scale designs closer to the Bellator & Praetor’s ballpark. Either way, no wonder the budding NR had to pick its sector-reclamation commitments carefully during Legends’ Imp Civil War clusterkriff.

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

And GR-75’s. Lots and lots of GR-75’s hypering into everything. With a year’s production run, you could easily put a GR-75 through every Imperial star destroyer, super weapon, shipyard, platform, throne room, and with enough leftover to evacuate Hoth a couple times.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Shaun

So THAT’S why you need interdictors. Well, interdictors and/or a kriffton of concessions to Gallofree’s labor union.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Most sources describe GR-75 fireships making their suicide runs at distinctly sublight speeds, even on Imperial formations without interdictor support. While the Raddus’ sacrifice was certainly visually stunning, hyperspace ramming as a common tactic has not really been part of legends.

A while ago on these boards I made a post about justifying Holdo’s remarkable success as a force-assisted move enabled by Leia. Typically, I would expect an attempt at a hyperspace ram to revert to realspace before contact, or else no one would bother to deploy any capital ships in the face of billions of cheap, unmanned hyperspace capable strategic missiles.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

TBH, pretty sure the initial ‘kamikazes everywhere’ post was in jest (my response sure was). I recall & more/less agree with the ‘golden Force-assisted BB’ theory, which certainly has precedent up the ying-yang. Plus, of course, there’s Devastator’s R1 arrival right in the Rebel fleet’s path, which seems like it would’ve tripped Vader’s threat sense with airhorns if relatively minuscule hyper-rammers were THAT lethal.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Just trying to squash bad EU brainbugs before they re-infest the whole place.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Understandable inasmuch as Youtube & some of the old SpaceBattles(R)-style sites are hopelessly mindtick-laden (and some days I despair about SD.net).

CT2222
CT2222
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

What do you mean by this,sir? As in,Spacebattles Forum?

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

A tad in jest, yes, but with TLJ, the ‘strategy’ (as with so many other elements of the story, is obviously just bad and lazy writing) is now canon. And while the idea that it’s a force-assisted move is a rational idea, it’s far too polite of you to do that work for the writers. At least in the EU it was almost completely impossible, with the intential practice relegated to a single super weapon and the rest noted as accidents.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Shaun

I still get the impression hyper-ramming success rates are uneven enough to discourage adopting the process (or other lightspeed-projectile tinkering) en masse…plus, you’d think the Empire would be pushing for zampolits and/or self-destruct hairtriggers on anything more spacious than your average TIE.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  Shaun

It may be canon, but it doesn’t change anything about its contradictory nature, even with disney’s own highest form of canon. Vader’s arrival in Rogue One was already evoked in this comment thread, but I think that there’s a much better example of the absurdity of the Holdo maneuver in the exact same movie:
When the U-wing jumped from inside the atmosphere of Jedha without sustaining any significant damage. If TLJ’s description of hyperspace jumps was accurate they should have been instantly vaporized by friction.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

Light shuttle-tier particle deflectors working just long enough? U-wings may be more delicate than the Falcon, but sweet Sithspit did Solo add to that bucket’s already ludicrous penchant for absorbing punishment. Does seem rather contrived nothing denser than a pebble wound up dropping in their path.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

The Falcon has plot armor, though.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

About Bravo Flight’s escape from Jedha: Jedha had just been blasted with one-eighth the total power of the Death Star, and the blast would have been extremely powerful even though it wasn’t the Death Star’s max yield. I think that the blast was so powerful, that it may have actually disrupted Jedha’s gravitational pull, and the massive area of the explosion and the “fallout” was an area of near-zero gravity. This would have both released the planets hold on Bravo Flight, and blasted out a section of the atmosphere, leaving the U-wing with a clear escape route.

Also, if I remember correctly, Jedha’s atmosphere is relatively thin, so Bravo Flight wouldn’t have had to fly very high to get into the moon’s orbit.

Daib
Daib
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

One eighth the power of the death star would have completely vaporized Jedha, just at a much slower rate than the Alderaan blast. What Tarkin meant by single reactor ignition was clearly a secondary, or even tertiary reactor.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

I don’t think that the Raddus would have reverted to realspace before contact. I think that hyperspace ramming is something that would actually take a certain degree of skill to do. Think about it. If you plan on ramming a ship into another, bigger one, you have to make sure that the ramming ship will actually set a course that would take it through the target ship. If your target is a Death Star, no problem, but a dreadnought like the Supremacy or something else is gonna be harder to hit from the front, back, and sides. And you’re still probably going to be stopped. I think that most navicomputers have fail-safes to prevent you from colliding with something else at lightspeed. I say most navicomputers because we have seen ships break the rules of hyperdrives, which is something that a normal navicomputer would probably stop you from doing. In Rebels, the Ghost was actually jumping to lightspeed without letting the navicomputer complete its calculations. Bravo Flight in Rogue One jumped to lightspeed from Jedha’s stratosphere, which the planet’s gravity well would have prevented. And, of course, there’s the Millennium Falcon, which has jumped to lightspeed from near a black hole, jumped to lightspeed from inside a ship’s hangar, and started its final approach to a planet at lightspeed and came out pretty much in Starkiller Base’s stratosphere. So it’s not impossible to screw the navicomputer over, but it’s usually not a good idea.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

There was one occurrence in TCW where a ship set a course into a neighboring object. In the episode Destroy Malevolence, Anakin sabotages the Malevolence’s navicomputer so when it tried to jump to hyperspace, it would set itself on a collision course with the closest moon. The plan did work, and the Malevolence collided with the moon, but it did not have the same effect as the hyperslice in TLJ.

But the hyperslice still isn’t against the rules. A very important thing to note about the destruction of the Malevolence is that the Malevolence wasn’t ramming into another starship; it was ramming into a MOON. And moons follow the same rules as planets do, in that they still generate a gravity well, which can not only prevent a jump to hyperspace, but also yank a ship out of it. Basically, the Malevolence didn’t slice the moon in half because it couldn’t jump to lightspeed in the first place. In contrast, the Supremacy, a starship, doesn’t generate a gravity well despite its immense size, and as a result, the Raddus was not yanked back to realspace before it could collide with the Doomerang.

Or was it? There’s a basic principle that could have put the brakes on the hyperslice: atoms and anything that has mass can generate it’s own miniscule gravity. Normally, this isn’t felt because gravity is usually provided by another, stronger source, but the force is still there. And in Star Wars, the gravity doesn’t just affect realspace, but hyperspace as well. Certain objects in realspace project “mass shadows” of themselves in hyperspace, and if the mass shadow is big enough, you’ll get yanked back to realspace.

But at the same time, this rule also helps the hyperslice’s case. When a planet, star, moon, or interdictor generates a gravity well, the resulting mass shadow in hyperspace is really quite focused and concentrated, and when it yanks a ship out of hyperspace, the ship remains intact because the entire thing felt the mass shadow equally. But what if the mass shadow isn’t focused and equal? In the Clone Wars episode Shadow of Malevolence, the Malevolence has to chart a course around a nebula, and the Y-wings that fly through the nebula in the same episode don’t just jump right through it. Nebulae are clouds of dust and gas, which normally is not dense enough to create a gravity well unless a star is being born, which didn’t seem to be happening in the nebula we saw in the episode. I recently realized that, while there was nothing to generate a focused gravity well inside the nebula, the mass shadows of the dust and gas clouds in the nebula were still in hyperspace, but unlike the mass shadows that gravity wells create, the uneven mass shadows of these particle clouds were all over the place. So instead of being yanked out of hyperspace like normal, a ship jumping through the nebula would have been yanked out in pieces, the uneven mass shadows of the dust and gas clouds ripping the ship apart like a doll being torn to pieces in game of tug of war.

While the matter that made up the Supremacy was densely packed, the Supremacy was built in such a way that no focused gravity well could be generated, and an uneven mass shadow was projected in hyperspace. The Raddus was in fact yanked out of hyperspace, but it was torn apart as it fell back into realspace. Without a functional hyperdrive to control the pieces’ sudden exits from hyperspace, the remains of the Raddus returned to realspace without losing the momentum they gained from the ship’s short time spent at lightspeed, and Newton’s first law still applied, resulting in the pieces of the Raddus still moving extremely close to the speed of light when they returned to realspace. At this speed, when the pieces collided with the Supremacy, they lost very little of their momentum, and continued to plow through the Doomerang’s hull and the hulls of the battlecruisers behind it.

Or I’m high and this is complete malarkey. But I’ve never had drugs in my life, so that’s unlikely.

TheIcthala
TheIcthala
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

It’s not malarkey, and it could help to explain the unexpectedly low yield of the impact.
In an episode of Because Science, Kyle Hill calculated that the energy release from Raddus impact (assuming it was at 0.9999c relative velocity) would be sufficient to convert the Doomerang and its attendant Murder Wedges into plasma, vaporise the fleeing Resistance, and sterilise Crait.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1M95njhovw
Your conjecture of Supremacy’s uneven gravity well pulling Raddus out in pieces could explain the relatively low energy impact we see.
It’s possible that, as Raddus was torn apart, most of its mass completely missed Supremacy and her fleet, reverting to real space in a linear cloud of hypervelocity debris stretching into interstellar space. The relatively tiny amount of Raddus’ mass which actually impacted Supremacy would still have the energy to cause massive destruction, although it would more realistically be a huge explosion at the point of impact.
The lightning like kind of destruction seen could be explained by the debris being in the middle of transitioning out of hyperspace and not yet reacting strongly with solid matter. This could allow it to pass through Supremacy, transferring relatively little energy to the Doomerang, while being refracted and diffracted toward the Murder Wedges.
I could be wrong about all this, but it seems to me like an explanation which doesn’t completely break SW physics.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  TheIcthala

Well, we’re probably not wrong, given that we both agree about this.

And there’s another good reason why nobody uses hyperspeed ramming: the results are really unpredictable. Even if you’re skilled enough to plot a course that takes you directly into an enemy ship, your ship isn’t going to be torn apart in a way that is predictable. While they seem to prefer traveling in the same direction as the brief jump to lightspeed, the resulting pieces could fly out in any direction once they enter realspace, and there’s always a chance that one or more of those pieces will hit either a friendly vessel or something else you didn’t want to hit.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Yeah, good luck ramming the Assertor.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

Given what we know about how useful gravity well generators are, there has to be an in-universe reason as to why every line destroyer and above doesn’t have a set.

Cost doesn’t really make sense when you take into account the absurd industrial capacity of the great powers, nor does lack of technical expertise to operate them, but perhaps the projectors only work at relatively short ranges and fall off according to the inverse-square law to the point of near uselessness at typical (non-cinematic) combat ranges of several thousand kilometers.

Another explanation might be scaling. The projectors on a Dominator are almost as large as an Immobilizer 418’s entire hull in order that it can actually hold down other destroyer scaled ships. Smaller Immobilizers might be useful at dragging down fighters, corvettes, and light frigates, but a 3.8 kilometer Home One type MC80 might just be able to brute-force right past it into hyperspace. To successfully prevent a true capital ship like a Subjugator or Executor from jumping might require a gravity well projector the size of a Praetor II, which could explain their scarcity.

Alternatively, turning on the gravity well projector might generate some kind of localized (insert exotic particle here) field with negative effects on the projecting vessel’s shielding, tensor fields, sensors, weapons, or any combination of the above. That could explain why they tend to be fielded on dedicated platforms rather than integrated with combat units, although I have no problem with Star Dreadnoughts with volume to spare having a few globes.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

I agree with most of this, but cost really was an issue for the Empire. In fact, the Empire actually punished admirals so severely that it resulted in a high suicide rate among admirals, because if they lost more than one destroyer under their command, they’d have wasted a million credits-worth of hardware, and the crew loss would have been even more condemning. KDY wasn’t building ISDs for free.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

There’s a bit of a disconnect between the tactical level, where local admirals are held accountable for their failures, and the strategic level where the Empire could assemble 70% of the 900 km diameter 2nd Death Star in months, and with total secrecy. KDY’s total ISD production line was a tiny fraction of that kind of industrial capacity.

Besides, a million credits is chump change. You probably wouldn’t be able to afford an upscale Coruscant condo for that kind of money, never mind a mile long warship.

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

You can’t even buy a house in Vancouver for that much.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Eh, credits are still credits, and they don’t grow on trees for anyone, not even the Empire. Nothing’s free.

Like I said, though, I agree with what you said about the interdiction fields having negative effects on the ship and/or crew. I would also like to add that interdictors aren’t as effective as you might think.

The thing is that you can’t predict another vessel’s path through hyperspace without having an insider on the other ship. And while there are hyperspace shipping lanes, not everyone adheres to them. So while an interdictor can pull a starship out of hyperspace, you still need to aim it. And it’s a risk that really isn’t worth the resources, since hyperspace travel isn’t predictable in the slightest and your more likely to miss the target vessel rather than capture it. The one moment in Rebels was a fluke, and it doesn’t count.

The second use for the interdictor is to prevent a starship from jumping to lightspeed. Yes, this works, but it’s still impractical, because standard tractor beams can do the same thing at lower cost.

There is a third use for it, but it’s still impractical. In the Thrawn Trilogy, an interdictor was used to pull allied vessels out of hyperspace for a very precise jump. But the interdictor is not required for precision jumps; a skilled navigator could do it on his own. And this tactic requires the interdictor to jump in ahead of the rest of the fleet, thus risking itself more than it should.

Crulak
Crulak
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

I would suspect the real reason for this is Plot shielding. It’s incredibly inconvenient to the rebels if the Empire has the ability to pull their merry band of miscreants out of hyperspace at will. Or better, preventing them from getting away.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Crulak

It was never meant to be a perfect system. Under the original description of the Interdictor, it’s basically intended to trick ships in hyperspace into dropping into realspace, and isn’t a sure thing by any stretch.

Also, more power isn’t really needed to pull larger ships out of hyperspace. Gravity well projectors effectively deceive a ship’s automated hyperdrive cut-out into thinking the ship is too near to a significant gravity well (planet-sized or larger) to safely travel in or jump into hyperspace, so the automated system won’t allow the drive to engage.

My thinking on the Dominator was more that it should be smaller than an ISD, perhaps in the VSD size range, configured as a combat interdictor rather than the stand-off support capability provided by the Immobilizer. The gravity well projectors would then be roughly the same size as those on the Interdictor, just on a larger, more powerful hull.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

I agree with the first two paragraphs, and I’m neutral about the third. Something else I’d like to add is the massive spheres on interdictors really make them stand out, and in my opinion, that’s just slapping a target board on them.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Noah

They only look massive on the hull of a 600-meter Immobilizer cruiser (basically the same ship as Fractal’s Vindicator). The same gravity well projectors on, say, a Victory or Procursator hull – never mind a 1,600 meter Imperator – and they’d be minuscule by comparison. Plus, the larger ship would have a larger power budget, and the gravity well projectors wouldn’t cut nearly as much into the ship’s maneuverability and acceleration.

Sephiroth0812
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago

When I see an Assertor I always get the vibe that this class has to be the second most powerful conventional warship class in the Star Wars universe, outpaced only by the Executor class.
(I don’t count the Sovereign and Eclipse-classes as conventional warships, they’re superweapons!)

anonymous
anonymous
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

I think fractal conceived the Assertor as massively outpacing the Executor. Wasn’t it supposed to have the power output of 400 ISDs, with guns to match, compared to the Executor’s just over 100 ISDs?

If the Assertor is supposed to have 3 to 4 times the Executor’s firepower, it’ll be way out in first place, not second.

Valiran
Valiran
5 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

There’s also the fact that the Assertor is literally covered in weapons batteries whilst the Executor…isn’t. It gets hard for me to tell because the Assertor is a highly detailed model with every turret visible to the naked eye, whilst the Executor is a studio model that, from what I can tell, had weapons fire erupt from nondescript points on the hull during every battle it took part in. With that in mind and the statistics of Star Wars ships being debatable, with the exception of Fractal’s comments on his own work, who can truly say which ship is more the more powerful?

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

Anon’s pretty much correct re: our host’s original thoughts on this murderslab’s punch, give or take fifteen Impstars…though one recent-ish Fantasy Flight Games RPG book trotted out massively nerfed Assertor stats more/less in line with Seph’s initial musing. Now I’m just wondering how far you’d have to scale an Assertor down (10 km? Less?) for said nerfing to compute.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Funny Story: There’s a guy on one of the D6 gaming websites who posted a conversion of the FFG stats. When I presented him with an actual fractal quote disavowing those numbers, he responded that FFG’s printed stats took precedent over what fractal’s own images showed. I just didn’t know what to say to that.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Yeah. My favorite is people who consider Wookieepedia to be an authoritative source. My response? No, Wookieepedia is to Star Wars what Pick-N-Pull is to auto parts. Yes, it’s all in one place, but that’s about it.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

Right, assuming you delve to such technical depths in the first place there’s still the matter of reconciling ‘official’ stats with any illustrations (which can be of hilariously varying resolution/quality) or onscreen antics. Hell, I’m still not even sure the Y-wing’s quite so brickish as those late-90s fighter novels/games concluded. As for Assertor, while I’m not the biggest fan in this quadrant, why even include the thing if you’re gonna fold/spindle/mutilate its intended attributes? Not like any but a precious few power blocs would have the scratch to procure one in the first place.

Ryadra777
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Well that suck especially since the majority of these Star Wars fans think like that and we are in the minority. But at least we got this website to comment about instead of doing that on YouTube which we would more likely get told off by many of those Star Wars fans about how ‘Wrong’ we are to think that.

Anonymous
Anonymous
3 months ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Another option for the Disneyverse (sticking to fractalsponge’s turret strength figures and the exact appearance of the Assertor model, but retaining the new info that the Assertor is less powerful than the Executor) would be to ramp up the power of the Executor’s turbolasers.

According to Wookieepedia, it has 5000 turbolasers, which include 750 twin-barrelled turbolasers which are heavy and 1000 twin-barrelled turbolasers which are light – presumably the remainder are very light.

Heavy and light can be a relative thing – so if the 750 heavy turrets are Fractal’s .72 teraton ones, and the 1000 light turrets are Fractal’s .175 teraton ISD-I turrets (light relative to the .72 teraton ones but still pretty heavy), then the total alpha strike of the Executor’s main battery would be 1430 petatons – a bit more than the Assertor’s, even including the Assertor’s 200 petaton (highest figure Fractalsponge has given as its possible output) superlaser – but not vastly more.

Spud
Spud
5 years ago
Reply to  Sephiroth0812

It is still better than sovereign and eclipse tho

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Spud

The Assertor could probably reduce the Sovereign and the Eclipse to slag without using its superlaser.

Anthurak
Anthurak
5 years ago

Looking at this thing now, I feel like it has even more guns than the last time I saw it 😀
One thing I’ve been curious about for a while: Your original version of the Assertor has an Axial Superlaser, right? I was wondering what the yield on that thing is supposed to be compared to the Eclipse and Sovereign versions.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  Anthurak

The yield of this Beasts superlaser is supposed to be 70 petaton. I don’t exactly know what the eclipse yield is, but if it’s closer to the death star, it should be multiple orders-of-magnitude over that.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

Some of the 90s EU fluff text re: Eclipse’s firepower may not have accounted for the sheer scale gap between its axial zapper and even one of DS1’s emitters (those compound-beam projectors for the planet-cracker). Eclipse might be able to pull off something close to the Jedha & Scarif ‘single reactor’ blasts in R1, but that strikes me as its upper limit, and it likely needs multiple shots to crack a top-tier planetary shield. Still outguns Assertor, but the latter’s mini-SL is supposedly intended for more (relatively) rapid fire against warship/station targets.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I don’t even think the jedha explosion was equivalent to a single petaton. It was a few hundred kilometers wide at best while eclipse is regularly cited as being capable of cracking entire continents in half in a single shot (even if, considering its dimensions relative to the death star, I think it should do much more).

anonymous
anonymous
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

The cracks in Jedha in the aftermath of the shot are long enough to stretch from one side of a small continent to the other – that satisfies “a continent was cracked in half”.

And the Ashes of Jedha arc of the Marvel Star Wars comic suggests the planet suffered vastly more damage than was seen onscreen – maybe the cracks continued to propagate?

valoren
valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

Even admitting that a “continent” (or whatever its equivalent is on a planet with no sea) was arduously cracked, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s ridiculously tame compared to Alderaan’s explosion and what an eclipse should be able to do if it was based on the same technology.
I’ve seen the marvel star wars comic version of Jedha, and it’s completely absurd. If the first shot had done that much damage, Jyn and Cassian would have been instantly killed (They couldn’t be that far from ground zero, since they could see the city from gerrera’s lair). You can even see the planets core which mean that everything on top of it had to be ejected far into space. If not, it would have just fallen back.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

Eclipse still seems to be working with far less potential reactor space than DS1, especially if it’s also intended to retain some degree of conventional-warship capability (which the old Essential Guide stats re: HTLs, lasers & carried small craft imply). Plus, the thing’s also packing a double fistful of roughly Impstar-sized grav-well projectors, though their power draw might be relatively negligible. Might’ve helped if Dark Empire *or* Empire’s End had ever tossed in a panel with either member of the class firing a single shot (well, besides point-defense on Eclipse II’s part).

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

It seems like the Eclipse might try to get around those limitations by being mostly capacitor by volume, which explains why it’s so awful at being a conventional warship. Something like the Jedha shot seems well within that sort of capability.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

With no planetary shield in the way, sure. I still have to doubt the Palpatemple’s max yield hits even a fair fraction of ANH’s Alderaan Demonstration(C). Seems more fitting as a fleet-support/Rim-terrorizing siege device than full replacement for the Death Stars, though it’s still saner than the (thankfully de-booted) Sun Crusher.

Valoren
Valoren
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

An eclipse should be roughly a 10000th the volume of the first death star (assuming the 120 km diameter figure is accurate). the shot that destroyed Alderaan was 1E38 J worth of energy. From that you can easily deduce that the ship, even accounting for the size difference, should be able to destroy a full-sized planet by a pretty large margin, let alone a continent.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

I’m pretty much on board with Eclipse one-shot ruining unshielded worlds, though one wonders how often those would be deemed worth its use. Still headscratching about the limits of spared-no-expense planetary deflectors, and whether Darth Lugosi’s new ride would exceed them-thus eliminating any need for further murderstation projects.

…come to think of it, Umak Leth’s Galaxy Gun would’ve made rather more sense bolted onto a dreadnought-scale hull, and thus benefiting from said platform’s passive & active defenses. Plus, less time Palpaclone has to spend Force-watching his back lest some plucky saboteur crew try lobbing a few also-planet-cracking hypercruise missiles his way.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

At the same time you wouldn’t want ordnance that dangerous on the same ship as yourself. I would have just put it deep in the intergalactic void like those Banking Clan treasury stations, but literally anywhere besides Byss low orbit was probably a better idea.

Shaun
Shaun
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Ima slap a saddle on Mawthulu.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Shaun

Also a valid pick, though I’d need to have a solid guess WRT her metabolism & hence lifetime asteroid-slug needs. Plus, last I checked the macroveterinary board recommends at least 2.5 klicks of resting surface.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Now this has me headscratching over your average unarmed SW warhead’s volatility. One hopes they aren’t quite so shake-&-boom prone as Disneyboot crude hyperfuel.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

And you can get a similar result from a Base-Delta-Zero. Which the Assertor can perform.

The Eclipse is listed as having about two thirds of the power of one of the DS1’s emitters. If we are right to assume that the DS1’s SRI was equivalent to one of its emitters being fired on its own, then the Eclipse would have probably still been able to blow Jedha city off the face of the planet, but the blast would have spared more of the surrounding area, and maybe Saw and his rebels would have lived to tell the tale.

But the Assertor’s superlaser cannot be 70 petatons. It cannot even be a single petaton and still be less powerful than the Eclipse. One petaton is about one *quadrillion* tons of TNT. That’s 1000000000 megatons, and it’s enough to blow all life on Earth to hell and turn it into a second Venus. 70 petatons would be enough to obliterate the combined mass of every single planet in our solar system.

It’d probably be more reasonable to assume that the explosive yield of the Assertor’s superlaser would be something a bit more tame. It’d probably be closer to something like 15 megatons. This would still be powerful enough to obliterate Jedha City, but nothing else.

I think that planetary shields wouldn’t protect against the Eclipse. Two-thirds the power of an SRI is still powerful. By a lot. The most a planetary shield might do against the Eclipse would be stopping one shot, after which the shield would fail. The Assertor would probably have a more difficult time with a planetary shield, but the Assertor’s cannon probably recharges faster than even the Eclipse’s superlaser, and in the time it would have taken for the Eclipse to charge up for a second shot through the shield it just brought down, the Assertor would have already begun shooting the target city or cities. So the Assertor would still be able to break through the shield, it would just take a little longer.

The Assertor’s superlaser is still powerful enough to smash through the shields of another ship or space station and destroy the target in one shot, which the Eclipse, DS1 and 2, and the Sovereign are perfectly capable of doing. However, as stated before, the Assertor’s superlaser has a shorter recharge time than any of the other superlasers, which means that the Assertor would only have to wait a minute – or perhaps even less – for its cannon to recharge. In a space battle, time is usually one of the most important resources to a ship, and the Assertor doesn’t lose any. The Eclipse would still take five or more minutes to recharge its superlaser, and its prey would have already moved out of the way.

Noah
Noah
5 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I said the Eclipse was 2/3 the power of a single beam emitter, not the entire superlaser of the Death Star. Also, thanks for correcting me. I was a little unsure about it.

JAMESMCGR
JAMESMCGR
5 years ago

I want one

RedBird
RedBird
5 years ago

Only one word to say about this… Glorious!