I would suggest that those rear most quads be mirrored on the bottom. Otherwise there is a wide open area that an attack could come from.
athenus
1 year ago
hello everyone, quick question, if the Vindicator class is classified as a star frigate by fractal, would the immobilizer be one, i ask because in canon it’s called a cruiser but if we follow fractals classification it would be a frigate and would it follow a similar role as the dominator but for smaller fleets that wouldn’t need a star destroyer
The convention I saw used for significantly modified hulls is to put vessel’s function with the general size designation. So “carrier-destroyer” or, in this case, “interdictor-frigate”, or alternatively “destroyer-carrier” and “frigate-interdictor”.
As for the role, it’s not necessarily for the fleets that don’t need a Star Destroyer, but rather fleets that don’t need a Dominator – destroyer-interdictor intended for peer engagements where 40-400 teraton shots in salvoes totaling petatons are a matter of course. Interdictor, the frigate, would not make it because it’s both a unique capability provider that warrants special attention from the enemy force and small enough to be casually swept aside by the firepower present. So the next step up from Dominator for actual heavy metal brawls is presumably those domes you see on large capitals where they are no longer ship’s primary capability and do not represent major hull alteration/opportunity cost while benefiting from host’s protection.
Tom Freeman
1 year ago
I like the size comparison shots…it’s always so nice to see Star Destroyers getting their kids together on playdates.
Chris
1 year ago
Like that you kept the warheads in this design.
jdpeterson34
1 year ago
Well this looks amazing. I love the subtle differences between the two variants. I honestly believe the Empire would’ve been exponentially better off having 2 Vindicators (43 million credits each) and 1 Immobilizer (52 million credits) against the Rebels, instead of 1 ISD (150 million credits). Those interdiction fields would’ve been a game changer for *less* money.
Vindicators have vastly less firepower. Fractalsponge has stated that their heavy turbolasers have a slower rate of fire than those of larger ships like Star Destroyers (standard rate of fire for a large ship’s guns is 1 shot per second), and their quad medium turbolasers have a total throw rate of 1/5 of their heavy turbolasers.
Assuming the rate of fire of the heavy turbolaser is half the standard rate (so, 1 shot per 2 seconds), then that’s 20 teratons per second (80 teratons for the four).
1/5 of that is 4 teratons for each quad turbolaser (A set of four 200 gigaton quad turbolasers need to fire 5 shots per second per barrel to throw 4 teratons per second total. This predicted rate is actually consistent with observed rates of fire of medium turbolasers).
A Vindicator has 11 of them.
11 quads, 4 teratons per second per quad – 44 teratons. 44+80 = 124 teratons per second total energy delivery rate for the Vindicator.
The Imperator II (or Imperial II if you prefer that terminology) has 91 heavy turbolasers that each fire one 40 teraton shot per second (and 2 quad heavy turbolasers that might fire as much as 70 teraton shots – one poster has said this was the intended power for the trench notch quads).
So 560 teratons from the quads, 3640 teratons from the standard heavy turbolasers, 4200 teratons per second for the whole ship, not counting Medium turbolasers (which are probably used as point defence rather than as dedicated anti-ship weapons).
To exceed an Imperator-II in total throw weight per second takes 34 Vindicators-worth of firepower.
2 Vindicators and an Immobilizer is not going to be able to accomplish as much as an Imperator.
However, an Imperator might be massive overkill against most Rebel cells – and in such cases (and only in such cases) Vindicators might be more efficient.
As for the Immobilizer, I don’t know how powerful the turrets are but I’d guess them at 500 gigatons per barrel, 5 shots per second. This would give the ship 10 teraton per second main turrets compared to 20 per second for the Vindicator in my proposed version. It would also allow them to still be considered Medium Turbolasers – just unusually powerful ones.
Since it has 7 of them, it would throw 70 teratons per second to the Vindicator’s 124 – which would make it 56.45% as good firepower-wise.
Quite efficient – puts it in a similar relationship to its gunship counterpart the Vindicator as the Dominator-type Interdictor Destroyer has to the Imperator II.
With 43 of the 40 teraton guns and 8 of the 70 teraton guns the Dominator throws 2280 teratons per second to the Imperator II’s 4200 – 54.29% as good firepower-wise.
An ISD may be more powerful…but it is still just one ship. A group of smaller ships gives you the ability to come at an opposing force from multiple angles.
The thing about fights “big ship vs its equivalent in smaller ships” is that, assuming equal output (which maybe we shouldn’t; more on that later) and equal input into target (same thing) – i.e. both sides throw equal amount of energy at each other and manage to score equal fractions of that – larger ship trades its shield buffer against inflicting tangible damage in return. Smattering of small shots may not be enough to burn away the shield quickly enough, when accounting for target’s shield recharging and heat dissipation capacity (accurate enough shooting that converges on a particular shield section may overwhelm it withour requiring total shield depletion (I’ll call it overburn) but in this specific case I believe individual Vindicator might not be big enough to achieve that and it is challenging enough even without the need to plug in another ship with its separate fire control and its own spatial considerations) while big ship’s salvoes are individually lethal to a single small ship, overburn or not.
As far as tactics go, they are obviously subject to all kinds variations which I’m largely glossing over but the general gist is that the swarm of small/er ships is much more demanding in terms of span of control – commander’s ability to keep the force under his command where they want it to be and doing what they want it to do. So while you may get a textbook wolfpack action, it seems more likely to me you’ll actually get a textbook defeat in detail, one ship being easier to position so that it keeps the opposing formation off-balance, tripping over itself.
So my money’s on ISD rather that it equivalent in Vindicators by output. That said, there’s much more stuff to that whole Navy business, so there’s plenty of situations where it’s well advised to build many smaller ships. After all how good or bad ISDs and Vindicators against each other is rather irrelevant to the question of “How do we beat the Rebellion?”.
That’s all of course subscribing to a particular set of assumptions, so if you don’t – nevermind.
Last edited 1 year ago by I'm a Jedi and I'm here to do the Jedi's work
That’s all very true, however I would posit that the 2 Vindicators, 1 Immobilizer formation is superior to a single ISD for dealing with most rebel fleets due to the composition of most rebel fleets.
For the majority of the war, the vast majority of rebel fleets consisted of a small number of small, fast warships which could easily be entirely destroyed by a single hit from an ISD’s main armament, but which are too fast and maneuverable to be reliably hit by said weapons. This makes the ISD’s overwhelming main gun firepower far less relevant than in a peer tonnage engagement. The Vindicator’s main guns can also easily one shot a CR90 (or similar rebel corvette) while tracking and elevating faster that an ISD’s main guns, giving them a better hit chance in similar circumstances. Their secondary armament should also be able to one hit mission kill a rebel corvette, and move even faster.
Additionally, the interdiction capabilities of the Immobilizer (and the fact that the rebel fleet is highly unlikely to have the firepower necessary to disable the interdictor) means that the rebels cannot make a close pass of the imperials, then jump away while the fleet is turning to reengage. The rebels will have to reach the edge of the interdicted space in order to be able to jump away, this will make their paths predictable, further increasing hit probability.
I may not have explained myself clearly, but I’m working from the premise that in the majority of engagements pre Endor, the rebel fleet will lack peer warships, and will attempt to escape, rather than destroy, the imperials.
It is relatively easy to avoid fire from a single ISD long enough to escape into hyperspace, at least compared with a 3 ship battlegroup centred on an interdictor.
I agree completely. Of course, in an ideal fleet, one would want both ISDs and immobilizers and vindicators, as, when the rare cases of the rebels having a truly capable warship, such as an MC80, it would be desirable to have and Imperator on hand.
Desire to avoid overinvestment in any one engagement is a perfectly valid tactical and operational concern (at least most of the time – rebels might catch you unawares and play the “big ship and small ships” game of my previous post on you, just substituting appropriately sized MC vessel for the ISD. While it may not be often, Rebels do occasionaly engage in battles of their own volition and it is usually coinsides with them chosing the time and place, having appraised the opposition and sizing thier force accordingly). And the fact that Vindicator exists indicates someone somewhere in the Imperial High Command shares your line of reasoning. Supposing what you do it makes sense to propose what you do.
However, strategically Imperial Starfleet’s job does not end with stamping out rebel cells and it is perhaps a distant second to the primary objective – maintaining deterrence against Empire’s constituent states (and notionally foreign powers).Discouraging attack on Imperial holdings but crucially discouraging Imperial holdings from going rebel.Empire is born from a conflict with such adversary and it’s going to be deeply rooted in the Imperial upper crust’s thought on the Navy’s mission (with enthusiastic approval from within the Navy itself, products as they are of the same confclict). And ISD, being built to conclusively win just such a war, is a much clearer statement: “We’re ready to tango, are you?”. It is a more credible and therefore flexible force application tool, because much smaller number of things is dangerous to it (not to say it’s invulnerable but definitely in the upper echelon of the food chain). It is a response to a wider range of circumstances. This is rather well attested in both Legends and even Canon (lackluster as it is in most concerns) in Operation Domino and post-Yavin open declarations kerfuffle, where in both instances state actors attempted to declare for the Alliance openly and been smashed flat.
In any case, Im not sure the rebel fleet is actually all that light or even disproportionately lighter than the Imperial one. (We certainly don’t see much evidence of it at Endor. While larger ships are obviously easier to spot, it doesn’t seem like the Imperials are being swarmed by CR to Nebulon-sized vessels in their dozens. They are certainly there, but account of at most a low double-digit percentage energy generation wise. Now this fluctuates depending on one’s take on the nature of the rebel force present at Endor, ranging from «every single Rebel or so» to the more concervative «carefully husbanded strategic asset under central Alliance-HQ control» but not that much. Alliance Navy is much smaller, granted, but also keenly aware that a force incapable of taking on a light-ish frigate (our Vindicator) is of limited use, even if (and that is an if) it is easier to come by. I imagine Alliance strikes less often rather than striking lighter. There’s a question individual Alliance-adjacent rebel groups unwilling to share planning of their organic fleet assets will tend to be like those you posit but, but then they are indivual Alliance-adjacent rebel groups unwilling to share planning of their organic fleet assests.
Now as for shooting, I’m inclined to disagree. Both HIMS Devastator and HIMS Executor seem to manage hitting Tantive-IV and Millenium Falcon just fine, especially in the latter case. Not with their main guns, presumably, but main battery-worthy targets won’t be as maneuverable either. And at longer ranges this concern largely dissipates. Earth for example is like a 1,5-2 degrees wide when looked at from the Moon, for example. How much training speed does one really need?
To conclude, Vindicator is something you use to avoid wasting ISD’s time and effort, and it is immensely valuable! You want many such ships! But when shooting starts an ISD is strictly better at every facet of warmaking capability. The only thing it lacks the answer for is Interdictor, but I figure it is a call for more Interdictors rather than less ISDs. As you’ve noted the rebels are likely to bolter the moment you enter the system because they gain nothing and risk everything by staying in place. But ISD gives you a wider margin before rebs decide that the fastest way around you is through you and attempt to engage the interception force. At any rate it’s not a binary choice so between these three I imagine one would want to build something of 2/3rds of their force by power generation in ISDs with the rest in Vindicator derivatives which gives you something like 10-11 hulls per Imperator. (Maybe 4/5ths in Imperators)
Unhelpful as it is, I’d like to add here that because Empire searches for its enemies thoroughly it tends to find some and, critically, below the state actor level or at that level who are careful to conceal their involvement. It is a problem neither ISD nor Vindicator can fix.
You explained my thoughts perfectly. Who cares if 1 ISD would shred 2 Vindicator’s and 1 Immobilizer if the 1 ISD can’t win the Galactic Civil War.
The Rebels put most of their eggs in the snubfighter basket. That allowed them to hit a strategic target and get out of Dodge before the ISD could figure out what’s going on. Just look at how long it to the Imps to react to the Rebels’ presence in Rogue One. You can stop the Rebels by justing dropping a gravity well and overpowering them. Ironically, the Devastator functioned like an Immobilizer’s gravity well, and that’s what allowed the Imps to score a tactical (not strategic) victory.
Also, I forgot to mention 1 ISD takes 37,000! crew to fully function. The Vindicator? 2,551. The Immobilizer? 2,807. That’s another reason the ISD couldn’t win the Galactic Civil War. It was just too manpower intensive. Once the chain of command goes down the crapper after Endor, and once the logistics chain is shot in the face, it’s pretty hard to maintain even 1 ISD, let alone 25,000 of them. Vindicators would be significantly easier though. I stand by my original point: the Empire would’ve been better off mass producing Immobilizers and Vindicators, not ISDs, during the Galactic Civil War.
But could what befell the ISDs at Scariff not befall Vindicators?Would they fare any better if so?
Because I would posit the main failing on the Imperial side was failure to bring about their overwhelming advantage in weight of fire, but that requires firepower advantage to fail to bring about. Is there any with Vindicator standing in and would they be more survivable?
Actually what is the threat against which Vindicator is more survivable? Is there one? Because the keystone of Rebel tactics is flexible concentration of their forces, at their time and place of choice. Which means that, yes, you’ve covered many more places (which you would do instead of concentrating them because why else would you disperse the firepower, as per my previous posts) with the fleet of Vindicators but each and every one of those takes a smaller force to take down. Meaning of course that a rebel theater fleet of a given size can conduct many more operations at a greater rate of success and the Imperial space no more secure at the end of it. Which is where the value Empire places on deterrence comes into light. The ship which hadn’t to fire its guns because none dares to attack it has performed its job admirably and in the perfect Imperial world that is what going to happen every time. “But the Rebels do attack Imperial installations!”, you would say. Yes but the states which those planets belong to generally do not, because they know they’ll be pounced upon and overwhelmed by the fleet of ISDs, and that means many more resources not fighting the Empire, which is a tremendous win in Imperial point of view. Not much overwhelming to do with a Vindicator.
Yes, Rebels focus on hit-and-run attacks by hyper-capable fighters as their main (by number of occasions it happened) tactic but they also clearly value capital ship force. How do I know? Because they’ve actually attempted (and soundly lost) peer warfare engagements while they had the fleet with which to do so. And they also reverted to such a fleet of capitals defended by short ranged fighters the moment they had the capability (or at least tried, NR fleet rearmament proceeding in fits and starts essentially for the whole time up to its death). That is to say, how would Vindicator fare against a Munificent? Recusant perhaps? Or, force forbid, Providence? Even rather pedestrian (and popular among the constituent states galaxy across) Dreadnought?
Why am I listing Separatist kit all of a sudden? Because Rebels begin with substantial number of those and it’s an assumption baked in your argument I want to address. That only ever threats the Empire and consequently any given Imperial ship needs to check are smaller than it, operated by a rebel outfit of some sort. You assume security from peer threats but it that security is there because the ISDs already done the heavy lifting (actively via thrashing the Rebels or passively via deterrence). But what if not? As I said, we know that the Rebels possess such a force. They are backed by actual interstellar states, Core! interstellar states with all the capacity for direct participation and political pulling power that implies. Actually we know they acquired and lost it and acquired it again.
Now as for manning requirements, we’re talking about a polity of trillions. We’re also told that Imperial military expansion surged after the declaration of the Rebellion but more dramatically still after the Battle of Yavin. They do seem to have the capacity to meet those demands.
Imperial successor states are fragile because lacking the legitimacy of Palpatine’s rule, they are stuck with populations indifferent to that state’s fate. And that population is going to resist attempts to mobilise their resources more intensely. So you either tax light and limit yourself in terms of forces you sustain or you reach deeper in your mobilisation efforts but then stuck with substantial internal occupation requirements. Which means that should your force projection capability be damaged for any reason – that’s it, you no longer have the big scary bat to keep your subjects in check. That’s before we’re going into all kinds of ideological splits within the Imperial State proper and Imperial successors generally (and much more coherent, when it counts, response from the anti-Imperial factions).
Sorry for rather jungled up post, but while I could identify my gripes with your take making it flow coherently is more of a challenge. Cheers!
All fair points, but I would say what befell the ISDs at Scariff is another flaw of the ISD: the “all my eggs in one basket” flaw. We saw Y-wings disable one ISD with ion torpedoes, and then a Hammerhead corvette shove the disabled ISD into the other ISD, destroying both. If the firepower and crews are divvied out across many Vindicators, then that kind of massive instantaneous loss is less likely.
Concerning the issue of a lack of firepower firepower to bear at Scariff, I still think ISDs are necessary. After all, the Rebels had an MC75 at Scariff, let alone MC80s. Vindicators would have trouble against those, obviously. My issue is the Empire’s strategy of spamming ISDs seemingly at the expense of other, more cost-effective and tactically useful ships, like Vindicators and Immobilizers.
Like I said, the only thing at Scariff the ISDs did that was amazing strategically was block the hyperspace lane when the Devastator arrived, which ironically is exactly what the Immobilizer can do for a fraction of the cost.
Also, in answer to your question about the Vindicator’s survivability, it is more survivable against fighters since it actually has point-defense turrets. Not to mention it’s ok to lose a couple ships that only have 2,500 crew and only cost 43 million credits.
My final proposal is that the Empire should’ve at least built 2 Vindicators and 1 Immobilizer for every 1 ISD. We usually see ISDs operating in pairs (Battle of Scariff, pursuit over Tatooine). Just replace 1 of those ISDs with 2 Vindicators and 1 Immobilizer, and I propose the Empire wins the Galactic Civil War. Even if they still lost, it would be exponentially easier to maintain Vindicators and Immobilizers then all those ISDs, meaning the Imperial Remnant would have had a better chance of winning the Galactic Civil War too.
We see ISDs fire teeny-tiny weak bolts on occasion – like the ones fired at the Falcon – all such a bolt does when it hits is take down a shield – implication, those bolts come from point defence turrets.
And Fractal’s Imperator redux and Imperator II redux both have them.
I agree that our core evidence base (the movies) would suggest expansive use of the ISD but I’d like to also caution against taking it at face value, because every single engagement we see during the OT(and R1) is a set of extraordinary circumstances with dramatic strategic implications which skews the kit Empire brings to the table and so, I would argue, is not actually representative of the proportion of any ship type in the Starfleet as a whole. (But it would also suggest that ISD are actually rather run of the mill ships it’s not a big deal to throw willy-nilly 😜). So nothing actually stops you from saying the Empire did build them in such proportions. If you look at my previous post I actually posit a somewhat higher proportion of Vindicator derivatives.
When I say the Vindicator is less survivable than the ISD I mean that you need to throw much MUCH less fire at it before it dies. Assuming the same readiness levels at Scariff (so our Vindicators are not somehow in a fighting formation turned towards Rebels approach vector and on alert with fighter complement) Rebel fleet present is enough to down one directly without resorting to disable-push gimmick. And then the next one and the next one as they come in because by concentrating their fire they present an unfavourable engagement, which is something they can still do if there’s multiple Vindicators.
And I really want to stress the crew point. When we’re shown battle ready crews they clearly behave differently so one cannot score this against the ship.
I also don’t put much stock in ISD being clumsy, so to speak. We see Millenium Falcon’s having significant trouble losing its pursuers and that’s with a pilot we’re repeatedly told/shown to be cut above the average. Sure they cannot catch the Reb but this is also significant because in most circumstances they won’t be catching someone but shooting instead.
And lastly, even if one buys the AAA-less gun fit on an ISD (I don’t), it is still a bigger ship with a bigger shield than a Vindicator. (Because while in real life one has to overcome the tensile strength of ship hull’s material with energy pre stored in a chemical reaction, in SW it’s a contest of attackers onboard power generation (with some pre-storing possible via ordinance or capacitors) against targets shield which is also determined via power generation (and heat shunting) and so size matters substantially more in terms of vulnerability.
In terms of maintenance post-Endor, we see a fleet of warlords operating from very limited resource bases in the Deep Core, but they not only manage to maintain their fleets, they start very limited production! Against it we have Booster Terrick saying it’s hard to maintain an ISD, but he runs a smuggling operation so this is an exceptionally limited resource base. So much so, I actually think it speaks fondly of ISD maintainability.
But those are the same warlords that squandered the greatest military force in galactic history so I also don’t dock it against the ISD.
Last edited 1 year ago by I’m a Jedi and I’m here to do the Jedi’s work
Keep in mind those Vindicator and Immobilizer prices are black market values, which can be as much as 4x “standard sale price” or more, whereas the ISD is “not available for sale” on the black market with the aforementioned 150 million credits implied to be at standard sale price.
“Standard sale price” for a Vindicator is 10.4 million credits. Extrapolating from the 4.1346 etc. multiplier for black market, produces a standard price of 12.63479 million credits for the Immobilizer.
You could get 1 Immobilizer and 13 Vindicators for less than 150 million credits.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Interesting look. I see it’s got Carrack-type quad batteries instead of the quad batteries used on all later Imperial ships – and it’s got a similar style stern to the Interdictor on the cover of Essential Guide To Vehicles And Vessels.
The Star Wars Rebels Interdictor-classStar Destroyer has a similar stern – perhaps they wanted to invoke the older image and steer clear of the more divergent style of later depictions of the Immobilizer.
More main engines than the Interdictor though, and a lot smaller (the Interdictor-class Star Destroyer, like a regular Imperator-class, can fit a CR-90 corvette into its hangar, and does so in the Stealth Strike episode.
Awesome
I would suggest that those rear most quads be mirrored on the bottom. Otherwise there is a wide open area that an attack could come from.
hello everyone, quick question, if the Vindicator class is classified as a star frigate by fractal, would the immobilizer be one, i ask because in canon it’s called a cruiser but if we follow fractals classification it would be a frigate and would it follow a similar role as the dominator but for smaller fleets that wouldn’t need a star destroyer
The convention I saw used for significantly modified hulls is to put vessel’s function with the general size designation. So “carrier-destroyer” or, in this case, “interdictor-frigate”, or alternatively “destroyer-carrier” and “frigate-interdictor”.
As for the role, it’s not necessarily for the fleets that don’t need a Star Destroyer, but rather fleets that don’t need a Dominator – destroyer-interdictor intended for peer engagements where 40-400 teraton shots in salvoes totaling petatons are a matter of course. Interdictor, the frigate, would not make it because it’s both a unique capability provider that warrants special attention from the enemy force and small enough to be casually swept aside by the firepower present. So the next step up from Dominator for actual heavy metal brawls is presumably those domes you see on large capitals where they are no longer ship’s primary capability and do not represent major hull alteration/opportunity cost while benefiting from host’s protection.
I like the size comparison shots…it’s always so nice to see Star Destroyers getting their kids together on playdates.
Like that you kept the warheads in this design.
Well this looks amazing. I love the subtle differences between the two variants. I honestly believe the Empire would’ve been exponentially better off having 2 Vindicators (43 million credits each) and 1 Immobilizer (52 million credits) against the Rebels, instead of 1 ISD (150 million credits). Those interdiction fields would’ve been a game changer for *less* money.
Vindicators have vastly less firepower. Fractalsponge has stated that their heavy turbolasers have a slower rate of fire than those of larger ships like Star Destroyers (standard rate of fire for a large ship’s guns is 1 shot per second), and their quad medium turbolasers have a total throw rate of 1/5 of their heavy turbolasers.
Assuming the rate of fire of the heavy turbolaser is half the standard rate (so, 1 shot per 2 seconds), then that’s 20 teratons per second (80 teratons for the four).
1/5 of that is 4 teratons for each quad turbolaser (A set of four 200 gigaton quad turbolasers need to fire 5 shots per second per barrel to throw 4 teratons per second total. This predicted rate is actually consistent with observed rates of fire of medium turbolasers).
A Vindicator has 11 of them.
11 quads, 4 teratons per second per quad – 44 teratons. 44+80 = 124 teratons per second total energy delivery rate for the Vindicator.
The Imperator II (or Imperial II if you prefer that terminology) has 91 heavy turbolasers that each fire one 40 teraton shot per second (and 2 quad heavy turbolasers that might fire as much as 70 teraton shots – one poster has said this was the intended power for the trench notch quads).
So 560 teratons from the quads, 3640 teratons from the standard heavy turbolasers, 4200 teratons per second for the whole ship, not counting Medium turbolasers (which are probably used as point defence rather than as dedicated anti-ship weapons).
To exceed an Imperator-II in total throw weight per second takes 34 Vindicators-worth of firepower.
2 Vindicators and an Immobilizer is not going to be able to accomplish as much as an Imperator.
However, an Imperator might be massive overkill against most Rebel cells – and in such cases (and only in such cases) Vindicators might be more efficient.
As for the Immobilizer, I don’t know how powerful the turrets are but I’d guess them at 500 gigatons per barrel, 5 shots per second. This would give the ship 10 teraton per second main turrets compared to 20 per second for the Vindicator in my proposed version. It would also allow them to still be considered Medium Turbolasers – just unusually powerful ones.
Since it has 7 of them, it would throw 70 teratons per second to the Vindicator’s 124 – which would make it 56.45% as good firepower-wise.
Quite efficient – puts it in a similar relationship to its gunship counterpart the Vindicator as the Dominator-type Interdictor Destroyer has to the Imperator II.
With 43 of the 40 teraton guns and 8 of the 70 teraton guns the Dominator throws 2280 teratons per second to the Imperator II’s 4200 – 54.29% as good firepower-wise.
An ISD may be more powerful…but it is still just one ship. A group of smaller ships gives you the ability to come at an opposing force from multiple angles.
The thing about fights “big ship vs its equivalent in smaller ships” is that, assuming equal output (which maybe we shouldn’t; more on that later) and equal input into target (same thing) – i.e. both sides throw equal amount of energy at each other and manage to score equal fractions of that – larger ship trades its shield buffer against inflicting tangible damage in return. Smattering of small shots may not be enough to burn away the shield quickly enough, when accounting for target’s shield recharging and heat dissipation capacity (accurate enough shooting that converges on a particular shield section may overwhelm it withour requiring total shield depletion (I’ll call it overburn) but in this specific case I believe individual Vindicator might not be big enough to achieve that and it is challenging enough even without the need to plug in another ship with its separate fire control and its own spatial considerations) while big ship’s salvoes are individually lethal to a single small ship, overburn or not.
As far as tactics go, they are obviously subject to all kinds variations which I’m largely glossing over but the general gist is that the swarm of small/er ships is much more demanding in terms of span of control – commander’s ability to keep the force under his command where they want it to be and doing what they want it to do. So while you may get a textbook wolfpack action, it seems more likely to me you’ll actually get a textbook defeat in detail, one ship being easier to position so that it keeps the opposing formation off-balance, tripping over itself.
So my money’s on ISD rather that it equivalent in Vindicators by output. That said, there’s much more stuff to that whole Navy business, so there’s plenty of situations where it’s well advised to build many smaller ships. After all how good or bad ISDs and Vindicators against each other is rather irrelevant to the question of “How do we beat the Rebellion?”.
That’s all of course subscribing to a particular set of assumptions, so if you don’t – nevermind.
the Jedi’s work is masterfully worded
That’s all very true, however I would posit that the 2 Vindicators, 1 Immobilizer formation is superior to a single ISD for dealing with most rebel fleets due to the composition of most rebel fleets.
For the majority of the war, the vast majority of rebel fleets consisted of a small number of small, fast warships which could easily be entirely destroyed by a single hit from an ISD’s main armament, but which are too fast and maneuverable to be reliably hit by said weapons. This makes the ISD’s overwhelming main gun firepower far less relevant than in a peer tonnage engagement. The Vindicator’s main guns can also easily one shot a CR90 (or similar rebel corvette) while tracking and elevating faster that an ISD’s main guns, giving them a better hit chance in similar circumstances. Their secondary armament should also be able to one hit mission kill a rebel corvette, and move even faster.
Additionally, the interdiction capabilities of the Immobilizer (and the fact that the rebel fleet is highly unlikely to have the firepower necessary to disable the interdictor) means that the rebels cannot make a close pass of the imperials, then jump away while the fleet is turning to reengage. The rebels will have to reach the edge of the interdicted space in order to be able to jump away, this will make their paths predictable, further increasing hit probability.
I may not have explained myself clearly, but I’m working from the premise that in the majority of engagements pre Endor, the rebel fleet will lack peer warships, and will attempt to escape, rather than destroy, the imperials.
It is relatively easy to avoid fire from a single ISD long enough to escape into hyperspace, at least compared with a 3 ship battlegroup centred on an interdictor.
Does that make sense?
I agree completely. Of course, in an ideal fleet, one would want both ISDs and immobilizers and vindicators, as, when the rare cases of the rebels having a truly capable warship, such as an MC80, it would be desirable to have and Imperator on hand.
Desire to avoid overinvestment in any one engagement is a perfectly valid tactical and operational concern (at least most of the time – rebels might catch you unawares and play the “big ship and small ships” game of my previous post on you, just substituting appropriately sized MC vessel for the ISD. While it may not be often, Rebels do occasionaly engage in battles of their own volition and it is usually coinsides with them chosing the time and place, having appraised the opposition and sizing thier force accordingly). And the fact that Vindicator exists indicates someone somewhere in the Imperial High Command shares your line of reasoning. Supposing what you do it makes sense to propose what you do.
However, strategically Imperial Starfleet’s job does not end with stamping out rebel cells and it is perhaps a distant second to the primary objective – maintaining deterrence against Empire’s constituent states (and notionally foreign powers). Discouraging attack on Imperial holdings but crucially discouraging Imperial holdings from going rebel. Empire is born from a conflict with such adversary and it’s going to be deeply rooted in the Imperial upper crust’s thought on the Navy’s mission (with enthusiastic approval from within the Navy itself, products as they are of the same confclict). And ISD, being built to conclusively win just such a war, is a much clearer statement: “We’re ready to tango, are you?”. It is a more credible and therefore flexible force application tool, because much smaller number of things is dangerous to it (not to say it’s invulnerable but definitely in the upper echelon of the food chain). It is a response to a wider range of circumstances. This is rather well attested in both Legends and even Canon (lackluster as it is in most concerns) in Operation Domino and post-Yavin open declarations kerfuffle, where in both instances state actors attempted to declare for the Alliance openly and been smashed flat.
In any case, Im not sure the rebel fleet is actually all that light or even disproportionately lighter than the Imperial one. (We certainly don’t see much evidence of it at Endor. While larger ships are obviously easier to spot, it doesn’t seem like the Imperials are being swarmed by CR to Nebulon-sized vessels in their dozens. They are certainly there, but account of at most a low double-digit percentage energy generation wise. Now this fluctuates depending on one’s take on the nature of the rebel force present at Endor, ranging from «every single Rebel or so» to the more concervative «carefully husbanded strategic asset under central Alliance-HQ control» but not that much. Alliance Navy is much smaller, granted, but also keenly aware that a force incapable of taking on a light-ish frigate (our Vindicator) is of limited use, even if (and that is an if) it is easier to come by. I imagine Alliance strikes less often rather than striking lighter. There’s a question individual Alliance-adjacent rebel groups unwilling to share planning of their organic fleet assets will tend to be like those you posit but, but then they are indivual Alliance-adjacent rebel groups unwilling to share planning of their organic fleet assests.
Now as for shooting, I’m inclined to disagree. Both HIMS Devastator and HIMS Executor seem to manage hitting Tantive-IV and Millenium Falcon just fine, especially in the latter case. Not with their main guns, presumably, but main battery-worthy targets won’t be as maneuverable either. And at longer ranges this concern largely dissipates. Earth for example is like a 1,5-2 degrees wide when looked at from the Moon, for example. How much training speed does one really need?
To conclude, Vindicator is something you use to avoid wasting ISD’s time and effort, and it is immensely valuable! You want many such ships! But when shooting starts an ISD is strictly better at every facet of warmaking capability. The only thing it lacks the answer for is Interdictor, but I figure it is a call for more Interdictors rather than less ISDs. As you’ve noted the rebels are likely to bolter the moment you enter the system because they gain nothing and risk everything by staying in place. But ISD gives you a wider margin before rebs decide that the fastest way around you is through you and attempt to engage the interception force. At any rate it’s not a binary choice so between these three I imagine one would want to build something of 2/3rds of their force by power generation in ISDs with the rest in Vindicator derivatives which gives you something like 10-11 hulls per Imperator. (Maybe 4/5ths in Imperators)
Unhelpful as it is, I’d like to add here that because Empire searches for its enemies thoroughly it tends to find some and, critically, below the state actor level or at that level who are careful to conceal their involvement. It is a problem neither ISD nor Vindicator can fix.
You explained my thoughts perfectly. Who cares if 1 ISD would shred 2 Vindicator’s and 1 Immobilizer if the 1 ISD can’t win the Galactic Civil War.
The Rebels put most of their eggs in the snubfighter basket. That allowed them to hit a strategic target and get out of Dodge before the ISD could figure out what’s going on. Just look at how long it to the Imps to react to the Rebels’ presence in Rogue One. You can stop the Rebels by justing dropping a gravity well and overpowering them. Ironically, the Devastator functioned like an Immobilizer’s gravity well, and that’s what allowed the Imps to score a tactical (not strategic) victory.
Also, I forgot to mention 1 ISD takes 37,000! crew to fully function. The Vindicator? 2,551. The Immobilizer? 2,807. That’s another reason the ISD couldn’t win the Galactic Civil War. It was just too manpower intensive. Once the chain of command goes down the crapper after Endor, and once the logistics chain is shot in the face, it’s pretty hard to maintain even 1 ISD, let alone 25,000 of them. Vindicators would be significantly easier though. I stand by my original point: the Empire would’ve been better off mass producing Immobilizers and Vindicators, not ISDs, during the Galactic Civil War.
But could what befell the ISDs at Scariff not befall Vindicators?Would they fare any better if so?
Because I would posit the main failing on the Imperial side was failure to bring about their overwhelming advantage in weight of fire, but that requires firepower advantage to fail to bring about. Is there any with Vindicator standing in and would they be more survivable?
Actually what is the threat against which Vindicator is more survivable? Is there one? Because the keystone of Rebel tactics is flexible concentration of their forces, at their time and place of choice. Which means that, yes, you’ve covered many more places (which you would do instead of concentrating them because why else would you disperse the firepower, as per my previous posts) with the fleet of Vindicators but each and every one of those takes a smaller force to take down. Meaning of course that a rebel theater fleet of a given size can conduct many more operations at a greater rate of success and the Imperial space no more secure at the end of it. Which is where the value Empire places on deterrence comes into light. The ship which hadn’t to fire its guns because none dares to attack it has performed its job admirably and in the perfect Imperial world that is what going to happen every time. “But the Rebels do attack Imperial installations!”, you would say. Yes but the states which those planets belong to generally do not, because they know they’ll be pounced upon and overwhelmed by the fleet of ISDs, and that means many more resources not fighting the Empire, which is a tremendous win in Imperial point of view. Not much overwhelming to do with a Vindicator.
Yes, Rebels focus on hit-and-run attacks by hyper-capable fighters as their main (by number of occasions it happened) tactic but they also clearly value capital ship force. How do I know? Because they’ve actually attempted (and soundly lost) peer warfare engagements while they had the fleet with which to do so. And they also reverted to such a fleet of capitals defended by short ranged fighters the moment they had the capability (or at least tried, NR fleet rearmament proceeding in fits and starts essentially for the whole time up to its death). That is to say, how would Vindicator fare against a Munificent? Recusant perhaps? Or, force forbid, Providence? Even rather pedestrian (and popular among the constituent states galaxy across) Dreadnought?
Why am I listing Separatist kit all of a sudden? Because Rebels begin with substantial number of those and it’s an assumption baked in your argument I want to address. That only ever threats the Empire and consequently any given Imperial ship needs to check are smaller than it, operated by a rebel outfit of some sort. You assume security from peer threats but it that security is there because the ISDs already done the heavy lifting (actively via thrashing the Rebels or passively via deterrence). But what if not? As I said, we know that the Rebels possess such a force. They are backed by actual interstellar states, Core! interstellar states with all the capacity for direct participation and political pulling power that implies. Actually we know they acquired and lost it and acquired it again.
Now as for manning requirements, we’re talking about a polity of trillions. We’re also told that Imperial military expansion surged after the declaration of the Rebellion but more dramatically still after the Battle of Yavin. They do seem to have the capacity to meet those demands.
Imperial successor states are fragile because lacking the legitimacy of Palpatine’s rule, they are stuck with populations indifferent to that state’s fate. And that population is going to resist attempts to mobilise their resources more intensely. So you either tax light and limit yourself in terms of forces you sustain or you reach deeper in your mobilisation efforts but then stuck with substantial internal occupation requirements. Which means that should your force projection capability be damaged for any reason – that’s it, you no longer have the big scary bat to keep your subjects in check. That’s before we’re going into all kinds of ideological splits within the Imperial State proper and Imperial successors generally (and much more coherent, when it counts, response from the anti-Imperial factions).
Sorry for rather jungled up post, but while I could identify my gripes with your take making it flow coherently is more of a challenge. Cheers!
All fair points, but I would say what befell the ISDs at Scariff is another flaw of the ISD: the “all my eggs in one basket” flaw. We saw Y-wings disable one ISD with ion torpedoes, and then a Hammerhead corvette shove the disabled ISD into the other ISD, destroying both. If the firepower and crews are divvied out across many Vindicators, then that kind of massive instantaneous loss is less likely.
Concerning the issue of a lack of firepower firepower to bear at Scariff, I still think ISDs are necessary. After all, the Rebels had an MC75 at Scariff, let alone MC80s. Vindicators would have trouble against those, obviously. My issue is the Empire’s strategy of spamming ISDs seemingly at the expense of other, more cost-effective and tactically useful ships, like Vindicators and Immobilizers.
Like I said, the only thing at Scariff the ISDs did that was amazing strategically was block the hyperspace lane when the Devastator arrived, which ironically is exactly what the Immobilizer can do for a fraction of the cost.
Also, in answer to your question about the Vindicator’s survivability, it is more survivable against fighters since it actually has point-defense turrets. Not to mention it’s ok to lose a couple ships that only have 2,500 crew and only cost 43 million credits.
My final proposal is that the Empire should’ve at least built 2 Vindicators and 1 Immobilizer for every 1 ISD. We usually see ISDs operating in pairs (Battle of Scariff, pursuit over Tatooine). Just replace 1 of those ISDs with 2 Vindicators and 1 Immobilizer, and I propose the Empire wins the Galactic Civil War. Even if they still lost, it would be exponentially easier to maintain Vindicators and Immobilizers then all those ISDs, meaning the Imperial Remnant would have had a better chance of winning the Galactic Civil War too.
We see ISDs fire teeny-tiny weak bolts on occasion – like the ones fired at the Falcon – all such a bolt does when it hits is take down a shield – implication, those bolts come from point defence turrets.
And Fractal’s Imperator redux and Imperator II redux both have them.
I agree that our core evidence base (the movies) would suggest expansive use of the ISD but I’d like to also caution against taking it at face value, because every single engagement we see during the OT(and R1) is a set of extraordinary circumstances with dramatic strategic implications which skews the kit Empire brings to the table and so, I would argue, is not actually representative of the proportion of any ship type in the Starfleet as a whole. (But it would also suggest that ISD are actually rather run of the mill ships it’s not a big deal to throw willy-nilly 😜). So nothing actually stops you from saying the Empire did build them in such proportions. If you look at my previous post I actually posit a somewhat higher proportion of Vindicator derivatives.
When I say the Vindicator is less survivable than the ISD I mean that you need to throw much MUCH less fire at it before it dies. Assuming the same readiness levels at Scariff (so our Vindicators are not somehow in a fighting formation turned towards Rebels approach vector and on alert with fighter complement) Rebel fleet present is enough to down one directly without resorting to disable-push gimmick. And then the next one and the next one as they come in because by concentrating their fire they present an unfavourable engagement, which is something they can still do if there’s multiple Vindicators.
And I really want to stress the crew point. When we’re shown battle ready crews they clearly behave differently so one cannot score this against the ship.
I also don’t put much stock in ISD being clumsy, so to speak. We see Millenium Falcon’s having significant trouble losing its pursuers and that’s with a pilot we’re repeatedly told/shown to be cut above the average. Sure they cannot catch the Reb but this is also significant because in most circumstances they won’t be catching someone but shooting instead.
And lastly, even if one buys the AAA-less gun fit on an ISD (I don’t), it is still a bigger ship with a bigger shield than a Vindicator. (Because while in real life one has to overcome the tensile strength of ship hull’s material with energy pre stored in a chemical reaction, in SW it’s a contest of attackers onboard power generation (with some pre-storing possible via ordinance or capacitors) against targets shield which is also determined via power generation (and heat shunting) and so size matters substantially more in terms of vulnerability.
In terms of maintenance post-Endor, we see a fleet of warlords operating from very limited resource bases in the Deep Core, but they not only manage to maintain their fleets, they start very limited production! Against it we have Booster Terrick saying it’s hard to maintain an ISD, but he runs a smuggling operation so this is an exceptionally limited resource base. So much so, I actually think it speaks fondly of ISD maintainability.
But those are the same warlords that squandered the greatest military force in galactic history so I also don’t dock it against the ISD.
Keep in mind those Vindicator and Immobilizer prices are black market values, which can be as much as 4x “standard sale price” or more, whereas the ISD is “not available for sale” on the black market with the aforementioned 150 million credits implied to be at standard sale price.
“Standard sale price” for a Vindicator is 10.4 million credits. Extrapolating from the 4.1346 etc. multiplier for black market, produces a standard price of 12.63479 million credits for the Immobilizer.
You could get 1 Immobilizer and 13 Vindicators for less than 150 million credits.
Interesting look. I see it’s got Carrack-type quad batteries instead of the quad batteries used on all later Imperial ships – and it’s got a similar style stern to the Interdictor on the cover of Essential Guide To Vehicles And Vessels.
The Star Wars Rebels Interdictor-class Star Destroyer has a similar stern – perhaps they wanted to invoke the older image and steer clear of the more divergent style of later depictions of the Immobilizer.
More main engines than the Interdictor though, and a lot smaller (the Interdictor-class Star Destroyer, like a regular Imperator-class, can fit a CR-90 corvette into its hangar, and does so in the Stealth Strike episode.