I am absolutely in love with these models! The guns do seem a bit clustered, and the engine block looks different from the original description, but otherwise this is gorgeous! And yes, please do an Assault Frigate Mark I next, maybe with the double structure. Keep up the amazing work, Mr. Sponge!
Jason Skeans
3 years ago
redistribute some the guns, to give it better firing arc, and give it a better engine to increase speed maybe lighten it up a little would make it absolutely amazing
Stratus
4 years ago
@Fractalsponge. Can you do the “Rebel Assault Frigate” some time? Its pretty much a Dreadnought and a Nebulon B baby. But it is Soooooo cool and your models seem to grasp that “Star Wars” feel so well that I think it would be a killer design for you to try out.
Thanks for the awesome models!
EtherealGod
4 years ago
This is absolutely stunning! Huge fan of your artwork, by the way. I’m also a huge fan of the Dreadnought. One ship I also really love, and would like to see your take on, is the Carrack-class light cruiser. If you ever feel like doing it, that would be super cool. If not, maybe I can commission it one day when I’m not so broke. That is, if you take commissions.
Jonathan Allen
5 years ago
First off AMAZING work. I’ve never cared much for the Dreadnaught until I saw this. It’s stunning. On a semi-related I’d really love to see you take a stab at the Rebel Assault Frigate. Some of the visual variations I’ve seen keep a lot of the Dreadnaught. In particular the ones that keep a lot of the bow and stern(engines), adding a vertical “fin” more toward the center of the vessel. I wonder if you’d be able to reuse a lot this work to put into that…..
So Fractal this ship is canon now but it is instead renamed into the Imperial Support Vessel.
And this is what it look like:/revision/latest?cb=20180316044632
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
If my Legends-EU knowledge isn’t too rusted this thing is supposed to be a sort of flying bunker. Excruciatingly slow and cumbersome, but very heavy armor and decent weaponry. Excellent tanking qualities all around. Should be a good ship to defend space stations or convoys of slow freighters against pirate frigates and similar threats. Thanks to its massive armor I can see it holding its own for a while against some bigger ships, but it is certainly outmatched against Victory or Venator tonnage medium destroyers.
Mike
5 years ago
are these things 3D Printable
Jacob T. Hallmark
5 years ago
Honestly I am in love this this ship as well as your work in general. I think you a great job of bringing these fictional ships to the real world. Also one reason I’m in love with ship is because it looks like it could be a real world ship. One question pertaining the ship. ho in universe designed the ship?
So I found a great class name that would replacement the Dreadnaught class which is the Gravis Class which is a Latin word for heavy what do you guys think?
Oh Fractal when you get back on making the heavy frigate I got a another good name that would fit great for it which is Magna a Latin word for Large and the heavy frigate you are making is the largest star frigate in term of volume even more than the CIS star frigate if I’m right.
So what do you think?
Are you talking about renaming a class entire class or adding a class? I personally think it’s a good name for a signal ship. It sounds like a name the moncalieri would use to name a ship.
Sephiroth0812
5 years ago
Aaand as of the Star Wars Rebels Series Finale, the Dreadnaught-class has found its way into the new Disney Canon, although labeled as an “Imperial Support ship” so far.
Grand Admiral Thrawn had four of these among his fleet/blockade of Lothal for the final episodes.
AzureOwl
5 years ago
I just remembered something I’ve been meaning to ask.
I count 14 missile tubes under the bow of the ship, but how many missiles does the ship carry total? How many 14 missile salvos could it fire?
Anonymous
5 years ago
So Fractal you said you going to make a different ship that will be dagger shaped which will replace the Dreadnaught if you weren’t commissioned and if you did will that ship be similar to the Vindicator or is it completely different?
Anonymous
5 years ago
Where on God’s green earth is the bridge on this thing?
My closest guess would be that teeny-tiny strip of viewports(?) dead-center on its prow. Still an easier find than the command modules on OT-era Mon Cal ships.
Thing is, normally such components are covered by shields, and I get the impression once those are compromised/knocked out armor only buys you so much time against capital-grade energy weapons. If the Raddus wasn’t ludicrously outgunned & thus forced to shunt every spare watt of defensive juice aft, Kylo & friends might’ve had a much tougher time landing bridge & hangar hits. Plus, both ROTJ & TLJ examples had secondary helm stations; Raddus kept steaming along uninterrupted, whilst Executor just didn’t get time to correct that (in)conveniently random thrust input before hitting DS2.
I think the bridge is internal, this is what the Wookieepedia page says.
“Main bridgeEdit
Unlike many contemporary warship designs, the Dreadnaught-class did not have an easily visible bridge section, opting to shelter the command decks and crew stations inside the main armored superstructure. These areas were located on the dorsal side of the bow.”
Frizzo
5 years ago
It bugs the hell out of me that they named a frigate class “dreadnought.” What’s next, a battleship-class skiff?
It’s spelled Dreadnaught with an “a” instead of an “o” and in this case denotes a specific ship class, not a ship type.
“Dreadnought” as a term is also not synonymous with “Battleship” as a whole but only describes a certain type of Battleship in real world earth terms due to the original HMS Dreadnought built by the Royal Navy and subsequent designs modeled after it.
If the lead ship of a new Corvette-class would be named “Destroyer” then there would be a Destroyer-class Corvette but it would have nothing to do with the actual ship type of the same name.
It as originally indicated that they were the prime battleship of the line in the Old Republic at the time they were created, but that by the time of the Empire they were much weaker than the newer and more impressive Star Destroyers.
Funny thing is, at least one Legends comic series set back during Old Republic days introduced ships like the Inexpugnable-class battlewagon and Mandalorian Kandosii, both of which outgun/outbulk a Dread by no small degree. I’m inclined to chalk the name up to marketing.
Remember too that the idea of the term “Dreadnought” meaning heavily armed battleship originates with the HMS Dreadnought so I think its reasonable to assume that in Star Wars “Dreadnaught” may refer to the name of a ship.
From the Wookieepedia page on the Invincible-class Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser:
“Soon after their development [circa 3017 BBY], changes in weapons technology rendered large capital ships like the Invincible-class extremely vulnerable to small, fast attack ships. For many centuries the balance of military power would rest with smaller warships only a few hundred meters in length.”
So, at the time of the ships you just mentioned, large capital ships were still in fashion, but from roughly 3000 BBY to the Clone Wars, warfare was dominated by frigates and cruisers. The Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser apparently came in around 119 BBY, so it falls within that period.
That article is wrong: it’s combining descriptions of two different ships into a single one. The two ships in question are the Invincible-Class Dreadnought (a 2,000+ meter ship that appears only once, and briefly, in the Brian Daley novel Han Solo at Star’s End) and the Dreadnaught-Class Heavy Cruiser (600 meters long, of WEG fame).
The ship pictured here is the latter: the heavy cruiser; the ship pictured in the Wiki article is the former: the dreadnought
Remember, just because a Wiki says something doesn’t make it true.
The wiki has separate articles for each of those ships (the Invincible-class and the Dreadnaught-class). The Invincible-class was designed around 3017 BBY, and large capital ships went out of fashion shortly thereafter. The Dreadnaught-class (the 600m one pictured here) was produced around 119 BBY, before large capital ships came back into fashion. I’m only mentioning the Invincible-class because it was seemingly the last battlecruiser produced until KDY made the Mandator-class around 42 BBY. My point is, between around 3000 BBY (the time of the Invincible) and 42 BBY (the time of the Mandator), there weren’t really any new ships much larger than the Dreadnaught-class (119 BBY), so for the Dreadnaught-class’ time, it was a rather large warship.
That’s not the point. The article you are referencing is fundamentally flawed, as no “Invincible-Class Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser” ever existed in the EU, but rather two separate ships, one an Invincible-Class DreadnOught, and the other a DreadnAught-Class Heavy Cruiser (emphasis mine)
If you are looking to make a point, you need to refer to the Wiki pages on either of those ships, not this blatantly inaccurate deletion candidate.
It’s also important to note that Wookieepedia is not an authoritative source; it’s more of a dumping ground for all available information on a given subject in the EU. And because of the nature of the EU, a lot of that information is going to be contradictory or obsolete.
I believe that the single forward facing tube under the bridge might be a tube. I am fairly certain that the tubes angled at a 45 degree angle on the bottom of the fore section of the hull could be torpedo tubes as well.
Love this 4k update, the detail increase def adds a “weight” to the image. Makes it easier to imagine its reactor is just that much bigger to account for its 50% more Heavy TLs.
Arvenski
6 years ago
I’d been looking forward to seeing this one in 4K. I would’ve loved to have seen one or two of these beauties in the Rebel fleet in Rogue One.
Anonymous
6 years ago
awesome! Did you change a model a little bit? It seems that hangar is enlarged. How many fighters/shuttles does it contain now?
looks different at the hanger for me as well. The old one looked to have the bottom hull behind the hanger come down on the same plane as the hull under the hanger…this one looks like the hanger is set up so ships can just fly straight out instead or having to exit the hanger and drop.
IT HAS A HANGAR?????
Is this available for download?
I am absolutely in love with these models! The guns do seem a bit clustered, and the engine block looks different from the original description, but otherwise this is gorgeous! And yes, please do an Assault Frigate Mark I next, maybe with the double structure. Keep up the amazing work, Mr. Sponge!
redistribute some the guns, to give it better firing arc, and give it a better engine to increase speed maybe lighten it up a little would make it absolutely amazing
@Fractalsponge. Can you do the “Rebel Assault Frigate” some time? Its pretty much a Dreadnought and a Nebulon B baby. But it is Soooooo cool and your models seem to grasp that “Star Wars” feel so well that I think it would be a killer design for you to try out.
Thanks for the awesome models!
This is absolutely stunning! Huge fan of your artwork, by the way. I’m also a huge fan of the Dreadnought. One ship I also really love, and would like to see your take on, is the Carrack-class light cruiser. If you ever feel like doing it, that would be super cool. If not, maybe I can commission it one day when I’m not so broke. That is, if you take commissions.
First off AMAZING work. I’ve never cared much for the Dreadnaught until I saw this. It’s stunning. On a semi-related I’d really love to see you take a stab at the Rebel Assault Frigate. Some of the visual variations I’ve seen keep a lot of the Dreadnaught. In particular the ones that keep a lot of the bow and stern(engines), adding a vertical “fin” more toward the center of the vessel. I wonder if you’d be able to reuse a lot this work to put into that…..
You’re talking about the Rebels alliance version of the Dreadnought class star frigate
So Fractal this ship is canon now but it is instead renamed into the Imperial Support Vessel.
/revision/latest?cb=20180316044632
And this is what it look like:
If my Legends-EU knowledge isn’t too rusted this thing is supposed to be a sort of flying bunker. Excruciatingly slow and cumbersome, but very heavy armor and decent weaponry. Excellent tanking qualities all around. Should be a good ship to defend space stations or convoys of slow freighters against pirate frigates and similar threats. Thanks to its massive armor I can see it holding its own for a while against some bigger ships, but it is certainly outmatched against Victory or Venator tonnage medium destroyers.
are these things 3D Printable
Honestly I am in love this this ship as well as your work in general. I think you a great job of bringing these fictional ships to the real world. Also one reason I’m in love with ship is because it looks like it could be a real world ship. One question pertaining the ship. ho in universe designed the ship?
I’m sorry I lied I have another question pertaining the ship. Is the hanger at the bottom and facing the rear?
Rendili Stardrive. No individuals are credited with it that I know of.
So I found a great class name that would replacement the Dreadnaught class which is the Gravis Class which is a Latin word for heavy what do you guys think?
I like it.
Oh Fractal when you get back on making the heavy frigate I got a another good name that would fit great for it which is Magna a Latin word for Large and the heavy frigate you are making is the largest star frigate in term of volume even more than the CIS star frigate if I’m right.
So what do you think?
Are you talking about renaming a class entire class or adding a class? I personally think it’s a good name for a signal ship. It sounds like a name the moncalieri would use to name a ship.
Aaand as of the Star Wars Rebels Series Finale, the Dreadnaught-class has found its way into the new Disney Canon, although labeled as an “Imperial Support ship” so far.
Grand Admiral Thrawn had four of these among his fleet/blockade of Lothal for the final episodes.
I just remembered something I’ve been meaning to ask.
I count 14 missile tubes under the bow of the ship, but how many missiles does the ship carry total? How many 14 missile salvos could it fire?
So Fractal you said you going to make a different ship that will be dagger shaped which will replace the Dreadnaught if you weren’t commissioned and if you did will that ship be similar to the Vindicator or is it completely different?
Where on God’s green earth is the bridge on this thing?
My closest guess would be that teeny-tiny strip of viewports(?) dead-center on its prow. Still an easier find than the command modules on OT-era Mon Cal ships.
It being windowless and situated internally where a starfighter can’t kamikaze it or a decent shot can take it out would make too much sense.
I think The Last Jedi or even Return of the Jedi shows why you don’t want to put your bridge where it is easy to get to.
Thing is, normally such components are covered by shields, and I get the impression once those are compromised/knocked out armor only buys you so much time against capital-grade energy weapons. If the Raddus wasn’t ludicrously outgunned & thus forced to shunt every spare watt of defensive juice aft, Kylo & friends might’ve had a much tougher time landing bridge & hangar hits. Plus, both ROTJ & TLJ examples had secondary helm stations; Raddus kept steaming along uninterrupted, whilst Executor just didn’t get time to correct that (in)conveniently random thrust input before hitting DS2.
I think the bridge is internal, this is what the Wookieepedia page says.
“Main bridgeEdit
Unlike many contemporary warship designs, the Dreadnaught-class did not have an easily visible bridge section, opting to shelter the command decks and crew stations inside the main armored superstructure. These areas were located on the dorsal side of the bow.”
It bugs the hell out of me that they named a frigate class “dreadnought.” What’s next, a battleship-class skiff?
It was probably to intimidate their enemies
It’s spelled Dreadnaught with an “a” instead of an “o” and in this case denotes a specific ship class, not a ship type.
“Dreadnought” as a term is also not synonymous with “Battleship” as a whole but only describes a certain type of Battleship in real world earth terms due to the original HMS Dreadnought built by the Royal Navy and subsequent designs modeled after it.
If the lead ship of a new Corvette-class would be named “Destroyer” then there would be a Destroyer-class Corvette but it would have nothing to do with the actual ship type of the same name.
It as originally indicated that they were the prime battleship of the line in the Old Republic at the time they were created, but that by the time of the Empire they were much weaker than the newer and more impressive Star Destroyers.
Funny thing is, at least one Legends comic series set back during Old Republic days introduced ships like the Inexpugnable-class battlewagon and Mandalorian Kandosii, both of which outgun/outbulk a Dread by no small degree. I’m inclined to chalk the name up to marketing.
@Frizzo
Also it is called DreadnAught not DreadnOught.
Remember too that the idea of the term “Dreadnought” meaning heavily armed battleship originates with the HMS Dreadnought so I think its reasonable to assume that in Star Wars “Dreadnaught” may refer to the name of a ship.
From the Wookieepedia page on the Invincible-class Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser:
“Soon after their development [circa 3017 BBY], changes in weapons technology rendered large capital ships like the Invincible-class extremely vulnerable to small, fast attack ships. For many centuries the balance of military power would rest with smaller warships only a few hundred meters in length.”
So, at the time of the ships you just mentioned, large capital ships were still in fashion, but from roughly 3000 BBY to the Clone Wars, warfare was dominated by frigates and cruisers. The Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser apparently came in around 119 BBY, so it falls within that period.
That article is wrong: it’s combining descriptions of two different ships into a single one. The two ships in question are the Invincible-Class Dreadnought (a 2,000+ meter ship that appears only once, and briefly, in the Brian Daley novel Han Solo at Star’s End) and the Dreadnaught-Class Heavy Cruiser (600 meters long, of WEG fame).
The ship pictured here is the latter: the heavy cruiser; the ship pictured in the Wiki article is the former: the dreadnought
Remember, just because a Wiki says something doesn’t make it true.
The wiki has separate articles for each of those ships (the Invincible-class and the Dreadnaught-class). The Invincible-class was designed around 3017 BBY, and large capital ships went out of fashion shortly thereafter. The Dreadnaught-class (the 600m one pictured here) was produced around 119 BBY, before large capital ships came back into fashion. I’m only mentioning the Invincible-class because it was seemingly the last battlecruiser produced until KDY made the Mandator-class around 42 BBY. My point is, between around 3000 BBY (the time of the Invincible) and 42 BBY (the time of the Mandator), there weren’t really any new ships much larger than the Dreadnaught-class (119 BBY), so for the Dreadnaught-class’ time, it was a rather large warship.
That’s not the point. The article you are referencing is fundamentally flawed, as no “Invincible-Class Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser” ever existed in the EU, but rather two separate ships, one an Invincible-Class DreadnOught, and the other a DreadnAught-Class Heavy Cruiser (emphasis mine)
If you are looking to make a point, you need to refer to the Wiki pages on either of those ships, not this blatantly inaccurate deletion candidate.
It’s also important to note that Wookieepedia is not an authoritative source; it’s more of a dumping ground for all available information on a given subject in the EU. And because of the nature of the EU, a lot of that information is going to be contradictory or obsolete.
Dreadnaught mean to “Fear Nothing” or “Fearless”
Are there missile tubes under the bridge?
I believe that the single forward facing tube under the bridge might be a tube. I am fairly certain that the tubes angled at a 45 degree angle on the bottom of the fore section of the hull could be torpedo tubes as well.
Pretty sure that forward-facing cylinder is a tractor-beam projector, but the ventral/bow tubes are indeed missile tubes.
The 4k renders for the Dreadnaught-class Star Frigate looked really amazing! 🙂
Maybe, someday, you could do a 4k render of the Indictor-class electronic warfare Star Corvette, as well.
This may be a dumb question. But, what is the cluster of downward facing tubes under the bow? Warhead launchers for orbital bombardments?
Yep, missiles launchers.
Love this 4k update, the detail increase def adds a “weight” to the image. Makes it easier to imagine its reactor is just that much bigger to account for its 50% more Heavy TLs.
I’d been looking forward to seeing this one in 4K. I would’ve loved to have seen one or two of these beauties in the Rebel fleet in Rogue One.
awesome! Did you change a model a little bit? It seems that hangar is enlarged. How many fighters/shuttles does it contain now?
Only a squadron of TIES and maybe a light shuttle. As for the model it look the same for me.
looks different at the hanger for me as well. The old one looked to have the bottom hull behind the hanger come down on the same plane as the hull under the hanger…this one looks like the hanger is set up so ships can just fly straight out instead or having to exit the hanger and drop.
It looks the same to me, too..
Probably just the angle…
https://fractalsponge.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/dread31.jpg
Finally!