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Sci-Fi Tactics and Strategic Doctrinal Concepts (Patreon)

Published:
2022-05-13 17:31:07
Edited:
2022-05-14 22:03:54
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Heyo folks. You all might have noticed this thread isn’t titled as a normal question thread although it does have the questions tag.

This is for several reasons. One, it is just about SW. And second, this is going to be about far broader points than most of my questions tend to be. And finally, it is about tactics, strategy and hardware, which I know are required tastes.

So here we go:

1. I intend for the GDL in MOTF to be based around the general tactical doctrine of capital ships defend, starfighters kill. Harry and co. are in orbit over a planet known for its starfighter designs. This is not a coincidence. What are your thoughts on this?

2. It is shown numerous times in canon that the Jedi can jump out of hyperspace far, far more accurately than any astromech droid or computer. Hell, in one comic a Jedi piloted ship jumped through a planet’s gravity well from one side to another. And Thrawn and Ackbar in canon both used the idea of controlling where your people would come out of hyperspace as a tactical move. I cannot, however, find any evidence that the Jedi or Sith used this skill on a strategic level – by which I mean as a normal part of their combat doctrine. I think that it is time to correct this. Thoughts?

3. Tied into the above, how quickly can a ship jump back into hyperspace after coming out? And I mean a blind jump rather than a set one. Is there a known limit on the technology to, I suppose, spool up to speed would be a way to describe it?

4. Another major point of the strategic battle plan of the GDL will be to target cargo vessels and the rest of the logistics makeup of the Confederacy. This is a very… grey area in terms of morality. I think it is a viable wartime tactic, but it will get a lot of civilians killed, and I am wondering if the majority of the Jedi would have a problem with this, or would they, as Harry and Aayla have, be able to see that it is the lesser of two evils.  Conversely, is the idea of wiping out a system’s defenders, then demanding the locals evacuate the orbitals and so forth before destroying them too nice?

5. I looked up kinetic weapons in warfare in the SW universe and found that they were no longer used once planetary shields were developed. But I don’t see the correlation. Am I missing something?

6. If you were picking out targets for the Tyrant’s Bane and its sister ships, and their secret was out, which Confederacy planet would you target? I am thinking Skako, the planet the head of the Techno Union comes from. It’s a good mix of a logistical hub – the planet is a huge producer of war material, and politically important. Neimoidia has… sentimental value but isn’t as important to the Confederacy's war efforts.

Edit 5/14/2022: 

Given the reaction to my first question above, I have made my own comment below.  To add to that here is a basic Order of Battle for the GDL.  Note that this isn't a finished product. They are still building up.

From biggest to smallest:

SuperDreadnaughts - the Tyrant's series - the Bane and its sister ships.  Truly unstoppable ships when fully completed, they can dominate whole star systems on their own. At present they are the only ones in this class.  That can change as the war goes on, secrets come out and the enemy tries to build ships that can match them in some fashion if not in every area.  

Star dreadnaughts - few in number, mainly from Corellia or Core World Sectors.  An older design but one that is proving its toughness.  Any further ships in this size will not be built due to the amount of time and expense.  Used predominantly at this point as flagships and, well, targets for the enemy by the GDL.

Battleships - the replacement for the star dreadnaughts. Smaller, but with a single job, that of killing other capital ships.  There are plans for them and many are being built already in Dac, but they have yet to enter the war. 

Battlecruisers - mainly the Mon Cal cruisers. Good all-around ships whose toughness is their best aspect. 

Heavy cruisers - again mainly the Mon Cal cruisers (that's what happens when you think of ships as art) along with lots of other local varients, Corellian models, and Rendili-made cruisers. 

Light cruisers - Corellian designs predominantly the Gozanti class.  And once more, lots of local variants and even in-system type craft.

The cruisers are THE mainstay of the GDL fleets at this point.  A large number of their variants are just better than anything the enemy has in one aspect or another.  Enough Mon Cal battlecruisers can fight a Lucrehulk, say a five to one advantage.  They can't kill their enemy quickly, but they can survive a very long time and keep on hitting. 

Destroyer - a ship type that is as muddled as any across the Republic, the GDL has a few specific variants whose worth has been proven.  The newest missile ship design is of this class - get into range, get out, kill any/lots of Vultures who get close.  

Frigates - this is the ship class that the Archer-class was originally.  Built to fight at long range and escape, but the war has proven they are too fragile to really court any kind of long-term engagement.  They can gut enemy capital ships but were every much a hammer in an eggshell type of ship. They will become the subs of the GDL.

Gunboats - the Dornian Braha'tok-class gunship class is the best of its size by a significant margin.  Here is a design that has really shown in the war so far.  Built to fight starfighters and hit above its weight class if forced to, the gunboats are the GDL response to the Vulture swarms of the Confederacy.

Starfighters: the Arrowhead, the Falcon, and of course local varieties and the vulture variant.  The Vultures will start to be spread out soon, mainly to defend systems against cutting out expeditions or to defend against their fellows.  Bombers will be added shortly, along with the ARC 170 starfighter.  With the lighter, cheaper starfighters and the gunboats to blunt the enemy's starfighter swarms, the ARC 170 can be let loose to close and transmit data back to the destroyers so they can fire their proton torpedoes well beyond their own sensor range. 

The GDL has no dedicated troop transport or indeed a large-scale ground-based army. They have what amounts to marine units, but local planets form their own ground-based defense forces.

The GDL fleets are something of a hodgepodge, growing and shrinking as they detach units to missions.  Generally, each defensive fleet consists of 600 plus ships of various types under a Fleet Admiral. The GDL has a lot of smaller ships, not very many in the battleship or above range.  But it has been proven time and again that a larger number of smaller ships can beat their weight class in larger varieties.  

Comments

SliferMK2

1: Yes and no, capital ship combat is broken down by role. Usually one or more dedicated damage dealer ship with your carrier in the back. Other smaller corvettes and cruisers will be screening for fighters to keep them away from the most important ships in any given fleet. 2: I can only think of instances of Battle Meditation being used to bring combat sorites out of hyperspace more effectively such as Lord Khan during the first battle to Rusann. 3: With no calculations, it depends on your ship size and hyperdrive rating. like the millennium falcon can enter, drop and re-enter hyperspace in a few seconds. Bigger ship means longer for the the hyperdrive to accereate. 4: Interdiction at specific blockage points and ion canons to disable cargo might be a bit of a middle ground, but some will likely be shot down resisting 5: Logistically I think weight of munitions might be a contributing issue, its far easier to carry around a power pack than it is heavy ammo for slug throwers. 6: Mygeto, take out the money and the war effort stalls.

William O'Driscoll

On number 5, the argument I've seen before is that the benefits of a reduced logistics chain and no need for a separate ammo storage are the main reasons for energy over kinetic. Something about ships using the same gas for fuel and ammo for turbolasers? I imagine that kinetics could have been better used for long range planetary bombardment, as there's too real outermost range against a stationary target. With the shields, you probably need to get in close anyway to batter it down or go around it, so there's no point for the added complication of kinetics.

Stars90

1. It certainly is a Tactical Doctrine that has some validity, but I don't know how well it'd work particularly against the CIS. They have swarms of excellent starfighters to defend their ships. The Tri-Droids especially were devastating in combat due to their maneuverability, armament, and the ridiculously fast reaction time of it's Droid Brain. I don't know if it's enough to have the fighters be the principal offensive punch. 2. Definitely valid- I think Thrawn was really a pioneer in using Hyperspace tactics, it was simply considered unfeasible by most before him. And the Jedi/ Sith probably had problems using it because they were used to being in Single Starfighters that could only do so much damage by themselves 3. Not that I know of. Blind jumps are very dangerous, but we know from the Rebellion that hit and fade tactics using Hyperspace capable starfighters was a thing. Just don't know how long it took 4. Targeting shipping is definitely a legitimate wartime tactic, though in the CIS I would imagine a lot of it might be handled by Droids too. Given that the army is almost completely Droid in nature targeting things like Foodstuffs and Medical Supplies would be questionable, especially for the Jedi. As far as demanding the evacuation of the Orbitals, that would be fine so long as they were willing to follow through if they were refused 5. Kinetic Weaponry could be used to bombard Planets back to the Stone Age from a safe distance. But with Planetary shields they couldn't really get through. But that was only one of the reasons it was passed over, it was also down to things like the composition of Starship shielding and maneuverability if I recall correctly 6. Mygeeto is a good choice though the level of defenses it has was so ridiculous that the Republic and CIS were pretty much constantly fighting for it for around 3 years, so even the Tyrant's Bane might be challenged without substantial backup. Another possibility would be some of the major shipyard worlds like Foerost or Droid Manufacturing worlds

Michael

1: While we definitely see this in the source material (and the real world) it is complicated by the presence of shielding and the types of fighter craft and anti-starfighter armaments available to both sides. Simply put, while an ARC-170 or BTL-B might have the firepower to knock out smaller to mid-sized ships (like the Munificent-class Frigates that make up the majority of the CIS battle lines) and (the Y-wing in particular) heavily damage larger ships, they will struggle to penetrate the screen around the heaviest ships between the massive speed (and usually numbers) advantage the Vulture and Tri-Droids have and the ungodly amount of point-defense guns. Not saying it can’t be done, just that with the level of fighter technology available during the Clone Wars it would probably be more effective to use a more “combined arms” approach with fighters knocking out escorts and smaller capital ships, while also softening up the biggest battleships for their own capital ships to finish (or vice versa depending on the fleet compositions, positions, and commanders in charge)

Kalen D

1. Different capital ships have different roles. You can have carriers (the Tyrant's Bane is/was designed by the Trade Federation as a kind of combo carrier/battleship early on before they deployed full on carriers like the Providence class) that can carry a lot of cheaper non-hyperdrive capable fighters and landing forces. Then you have heavy combat ships (i.e. battleships, battlecruisers, heavy cruisers, standard cruisers and destroyers) that are generally for destroying other capital ships, space stations, defensive stations and emplacements as well as orbital bombardments. Next you have assault ships which are more heavily shielded and armored to land troops on a station or planet but generally lack in any weapons on the ship itself. There are also specialty ships like interdictors and the superweapon ships that are built for specific purposes. Then you have smaller and faster frigates and corvettes that are meant to help take down larger numbers of starfighters and protect the larger ships from things like concussion missiles and proton torpedoes by shooting them down. They can also swarm fire and coordinate to take down larger ships by battering down their shields. Gun boats were much smaller than corvette class typically piloted by two individuals and were almost purely anti-fighter carrying larger numbers of missiles/torpedoes and more powerful weapons than a starfighter. Relying purely on starfighters vs the CIS would be incredibly stupid due to the overwhelming numbers of vulture droid fighters the CIS can send out and instantly overwhelm starfighter squadrons. Each starfighter pilot lost would be a far greater cost and time investment to replace than a newly manufactured and programmed vulture. Also the CIS Lucrehulks were particularly deadly against fighters and small capital ships like frigates/corvettes. (Able to destroy frigates with as little as 4 hits.) Eight or more Venator class Star Destroyers (despite the name they were cruiser-class ships) were needed to take down a single Lucrehulk in the Clone Wars. Armaments of the "Lucrehulk Class Battleship" according to Wookiepedia: Pre Clone Wars they only had 42 Quad Turbolaser batteries. Their refit for the Clone Wars: The ring section had164 point-defense quad laser batteries and 472 laser cannons that are absolute hell on starfighters as well as 48 turbolasers that were primarily for dealing with enemy capital ships. The central core had another 21 point-defense quad laser batteries, 48 assault laser cannons, and 3 turbolasers. Taking starfighter squadrons against that is suicidal. Keep in mind the Naboo attack was with the old pre-Clone War 42 quad turbolaser loadout, not the Clone War refit and so the Lucrehulk's weapons were far less effective against the Jedi and Naboo starfighters. The Clone Wars refit addressed that weakness against starfighters in a rather overkill manner really. 2. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Precision_hyperspace_jump "A precision hyperspace jump, also known as a micro-jump, was a tactical jump into hyperspace over a very short distance, often within a single star system. ... The micro-jump was invented by Jedi Masters Saesee Tiin and Plo Koon, who were the first people to implement it, in the Battle of Gwori during the Clone Wars. Saesee Tiin had discovered the tactic before the Battle of Gwori. ... It took considerable piloting skill." Theoretically you could probably do a few ships at once if they were all slaved to the Jedi or Sith ship and in a very tight formation but it would be increasingly difficult the more ships and larger they are. It sounds like you would more likely need a Jedi or Sith on every single ship you want to do the precision jump with and they'd have to be good pilots. Battle Meditation had nothing to do with Jedi controlled hyperspace jumps. It simply boosted the morale and capabilities of your side and weakened the morale and capabilities of the other side's people by instilling doubt and sapping their will to fight. 3. https://hyperspace.fandom.com/wiki/Hyperdrive_(Star_Wars) ... To prevent overheating, some hyperdrives made use of overheat fail safes, like a hyperspace shunt or transpacitor, or alluvial dampers to regulate the flow of ion particles used to provide superluminal thrust. ... This implies they do need a cooldown of some sort at some interval. 4. Targeting cargo and logistics is a must in any campaign. Seizing them if possible would be ideal but destruction works as well. Logistics and supply for military vessels are typically handled by militaries themselves so there is not much need to worry about civilian deaths being an issue for the Jedi. As for standard commercial trade, they can be captured or destroyed easily enough using ion weapons to disable and then taking the ship with marines or Jedi and taking the people into custody if they surrender or kill them if they do not. Jedi would give them an option for surrender before killing but otherwise any refusal to surrender is sufficient for Jedi to fight them and if necessary kill them. 5. Kinetic weapons have a recoil which means the ship firing the weapon needs to be able to absorb/dissipate the same amount of energy firing the projectile per basic physics - equal and opposite reaction - though not as bad considering you can spread that energy out over a wider surface vs the point of the projectile. In a zero g environment it will move the entire ship depending on the amount of energy and if opposing thrusters are strong enough to counter that movement quickly enough. It is known and tested science that a person firing a gun in space is pushed the opposite direction and will keep going that direction until slowed/stopped by an outside force. It is also known that the bullet will also continue on forever with its same energy until it hits something or is slowed/stopped by some other outside force. So until they hit something they are effectively deadly forever in space. Also, kinetic weapons can ricochet back at the firer if straight on against a flat surface, the firer is close enough and the energy behind the projectile was insufficient to penetrate. They are also more easily deflected (ricochet) off of angles and rounded surfaces causing most of the kinetic energy to slide along the surface and be dissipated across a larger surface area rather than actually penetrate. The closer to parallel to the surface of shields/armor they strike the less energy actually impacts the ship or shield with the rest of the kinetic energy carrying the ricocheted projectile off and away to possibly hit others unless it has something you can intentionally bounce/ricochet it into. Most importantly layered defenses like shields + armor (particularly layered armor with space between the layers like RL tanks) can stop kinetic projectiles from penetrating due to each layer deforming/shattering/shredding the projectile as it tries to penetrate while dissipating the kinetic energy. i.e The U.S. M1 Abrams tanks can shoot their main guns at each other and unless they hit in the same spot repeatedly or certain thin armor areas, the shots will bounce off or dissipate into their armor layers. Russian T-72, T-80, and T-90 tank guns cannot penetrate the M1 Abrams armor. They have to use anti-tank missiles with dual or triple shaped-charges stacked and detonated in sequence. Kinetic weapons also require that you carry around ammunition that is a potential danger to a ship if it takes a hit where the ammunition is stored and they have explosive charges/warheads since layered shaped explosive charges are necessary to penetrate layered defenses. In addition to the possible additional danger of storing them, they take a lot more space than energy based weapons and thus have far less fired shots capability because you would typically run out of that kind of ammo more quickly. Think of how it is on a starfighter. You could generally only carry a few concussion/proton missiles/torpedoes but could keep blasting away with your blasters/lasers for FAR longer. 6. I think one of the most important targets would be Genosis where Baktoid Combat Automata constructed most of the droid army for the separatists. see https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Separatist_Droid_Army "According to Dooku, in 22 BBY, the Separatist Droid Army outnumbered the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic one hundred to one." You want to target the economic activity that supports the war machine. i.e Shipyards, mining facilities, manufacturing centers (i.e. for droids, ship components and spare parts) and fuel and storage depots. If their banking systems are highly centralized and completely separate from the GDL & Republic's, attacking them as well would be a good strategy.

Novus

1) Well...my first, second, and third thoughts are all about how stupid that is. The Starfighter tactical doctrine worked for the Rebellion because the Empire was a Capital Ship Doctrine-based opponent. With Starfighters only acting in a screening role for the Empire's capital ships. That's NOT the case with the Confederation as you've written them. Or, for that matter, how they fought in canon. They used their vultures as primary attack forces again and again, while still have so many of them they can use them as a screen as well. Since the Confederation's Capital ships are, like the Rebellion's would be in the Imperial Era, mostly converted merchant ships, this makes complete sense. It also means trying to fight them in Starfighter warfare is a massively losing proposition. They don't care how many droid fighters they lose, they can lose dozens of them for every one fighter on the GDL's side and still come out ahead because of the time and significant resource investment it takes to train a single starfighter pilot. Unless the GDL is going to start employing drone/droid fighters, trying to fight the Confederacy on its own strongest ground is incredibly stupid. They'd be near infinitely better off developing something like the Lancer-class frigate, specifically designed to kill mass numbers of starfighters. Then using qualitatively better Capital Ships to finish things. The Munificent-class aren't very good ships. And the Lucrehulk-class aren't much better. More to the point, the Clone Wars Era Lucrehulks were only lightly armed for their size in Capital Ship weapons (48 Turbolasers, only enough for a ship half that size in the Imperial Era, and those would have been Heavy Turbolaser BATTERIES on a Star Destroyer, instead of just Turbolasers). Whereas they had 162 Quad Lasers for Point Defense AND another 472 laser cannons, also mostly useful for Point Defense. Attacking them with starfighters is basically suicide, while attacking them with Capital Ships is relatively safe. They just don't have the punch to slug it out with other Capital Ships without using their Vultures to even the odds. You've been treating the Lucrehulks like they are battleships. But they aren't. They're oversized, heavily shielded carriers. Weak as Capital Ships once the screen is stripped away, but utter death on Starfighters. Which is why the Republic didn't use Starfighters heavily in their own order of battle. Since clone troopers weren't really pilots, they couldn't crew enough starfighters to make a differece. So they used their own starfighters purely as screening elements. 2) You're absolutely right. This was a mistake that came, I think, from the fact that Jedi aren't actually trained for strategic combat roles. (Or at least that would be the in-universe reason. The actual reason is probably that film directors are even worse combat strategists -_-). Someone like Garm is going to VERY quickly realize how big of an asset being able to finely control hyper-jumps like Jedi can is, particularly with the Jedi's ability to gestalt so they can handle a small fleet that way without getting separated. However, I think you can actually push this even farther precisely because of that gestalt ability. Normally, converging thrust approaches to pincer enemies are chancey, risky business. Get the timing wrong and one of your pincers can be defeated in detail before the other even arrives. But with a Jedi gestalt actively maintaining control of a fleet in real-time, with the ability to microjump added in to a lack of communication lag, and that gamble becomes one with loaded dice. 3) I'm not 100% certain. I think there's a limit more for the fact that it takes several seconds to jump in the first place. It's never seen to be truly instant. There's always a slight lag (presumably as the projector uses hypermatter to literally punch a hole into hyperspace for the ship). Add in the need to recalculate each jump and there's a limit for NORMAL operations. With a Jedi? Probably only a few seconds to punch a new hole on a new heading. Might not be great for the drive, though, as I doubt anyone ever thought to design them to handle the levels of stress involded. 4) *Shrug* Commerce warfare isn't new and isn't particularly morally grey. More to the point, I think you're drastically overestimating the number of civilian deaths there would be. Actual civilian vessels will almost certainly surrender rather than fight if you remove their ability to run. And the vast majority of the logistics pipeline for a military is...military. Civilian ships are only really used to transport non-military good that wouldn't have a heavy escort, if any escort at all. As for the Orbitals. No, I don't think so. In fact, allowing the evacuation of non-military orbitals specifically is probably good for both allied morale (few people, even hardcore soldiers, want to slaughter civilians). And if the GDL does so but the confederacy doesn't do the same, public perception will favor the GDL. Do it enough times and there's no hiding it, simply because the survivors would spread word of it. Given how much PR will likely be part of the war because of Palpatine's machinations, and NOT offering the option would probably bite them in the ass on the public opinion front. Palpy would make sure of that. 5) Slugthrowers were still in use for ground-based combat. But ship weapons were, I think, a casualty of the size issue. There WERE some hypervelocity projectile weapons used by the Empire, but they were all ground-to-space emplacements. I think they simply couldn't miniaturize them enough to be effective as shipboard weapons. Given that one of the primary reasons to HAVE a shield on a ship (outside warfare) is to protect from micro-debris in space, and it stands to reason that shields are particularly adept at resisting kinetic force. Obviously, the presence of missiles and proton torpedos implies a limit to that. But I suspect the equation (if there's a reason for it at all), would be that it's not space-efficient. That any kinetic weapon (such as a railgun) would need be large enough aboard ship that it could be replaced with multiple energy weapons instead. Which would, in turn, provide more striking power than the equivalent space used by the projectile weapon. 6) Honestly? Target any shipyard you can find would be the first thought. As powerful as the Bane is, every effort to overcome it is going to be made and eventually something would work. For your initial strikes, hitting targets that will cripple long-term ship building is high on the list. But, assuming they can't FIND those shipyards, places like Skako would be good targets for exactly the reasons you stated. Alternatively, hitting Confederate homeworlds that AREN'T part of the various corporations might be effective in a different manner. Specifically, in making those systems not under the Sith's direct control a lot less willing to contribute to the war...or even take part in it. Having trillions of credits in orbital industry wiped out, while your opponents politely wait and let you remove all your civilians from any non-military installation, would probably be extremely disheartening to the non-sith focused parts of the confederacy. Bonus points for broadcasting the holos of the confeds atrocities over every civilian channel in the system while doing it. Making the Confederate Senate start screaming to know just what the fuck the military thinks it's doing would be...inconvenient for the sith. They don't hold anything like total control of the separatist movement. Only the military high command, really.

Kalen D

That doctrine also only worked for the rebellion because they had hyperdrive equipped starfighters that could do quick hyperspace in, attack and hyperspace out (hit and run) attacks. They didn't have to wait to undock starfighters from a capital ship prior to every engagement and redock before retreating/leaving like the empire did with their tie fighters. Imperial Star Destroyers also did not have point defenses to deal with starfighters and had to rely entirely on their Tie Fighter complements which of course took time to deploy and retrieve such that they couldn't easily pursue rebel forces. It was a glaring weakness of ISDs.

SoralTheSol

I very much recommend rethinking that. Look at our actual navy and I do not mean give it a Gorge Lucas look. I mean actually look at the different ship designs and why they are made that way and what roles they have. In the nave we have Aircraft Carriers, these would be considered out capitol ships as they represent a great deal of force deployment. But they are sitting targets. Around the Carriers are Cruisers, Frigates, Destroyers, Supply Boats, and Subs. Each of them have their own roles that are very important. Cruisers are Missile boates, they have a lot of boom for your buck. Destroyers and Friggates fill similar roles of being anti ship, anti air and Anti Sub. Sub is your stealth vessel. It sneaks around and hit really hard where they least expect it. Supply Boats are just that, they hold all the supplies for the group such as food, fuel, and a few important spare parts. Now you are in space and can change up these rules as needed but it is something to keep in mind. Lucas and those who came after do not understand navel combat. They do not understand Space combat, they barely understand that a fight is about two guys trying to kill each other and thus should be aiming their fancy light sword at the body of their enemy and not at their fancy light sword. A bit of realism and a lot of practicality will go a long way.

vimesenthusiast

Okay, so it's kind of clear to me that I needed to be more specific about what I meant in the first topic. Heh. I meant that overall, the doctrine for the first year - maybe. I wish there was some kind of general base speed for how quick, say, a regular core world could build a destroyer. That way I could just scale it up for places like Corellia, Serenno and Rendili. But I digress. Anyway, the idea will be to use capital ships and large segments of their starfighters to defend on the galactic scale, while starfighters - yes, the upcoming Y-wing and ARC fighter - and the frigates are assigned pinprick Type attacks on the enemy. FOR more information, I will add a bit to the original post about the basic organization the GDL will be going for.

vimesenthusiast

2. Sere Khan? – the Sith Lord whose ghost Harry dealt with? Huh. I didn’t know that. I knew that Sidious could use it tremendously well – Thrawn remarked on it during the first Thrawn book meeting with C’baoth I believe. And I have Harry and Aayla learning Battle Meditation from Yoda But that isn’t really what I was asking. 3. If the MF can do it, I would assume starffighters could do the same thing. What I really want to do is, like Thrawn and Ackbar, weaponize coming in and out of hyperspace. 4. No. Not on a galactic scale – too expensive in terms of people, too easily broken. 6. The Banking Clan’s been broken, so not as big a deal here.

vimesenthusiast

1. Tri-droids were the original TIE interceptors, true, but thye weren’t around until late in the war. The Vulture’s issues though – the longer range of proton torpedoes, and the lack of sprint-type speed were definatly solved in that version. 2. YEP. First Thrawn, then Ackbar followed it up. Before that the Imperial interdictors were only used in a defensive role – to stop starfighters/Alliance ships from getting away when they warped in. 3. Yeah, that’s what I am thinking of. I was thinking of maybe Jedi jumping in with a wing of starfighters all slaved to his system, firing off their proton torpedoes and then jumping out. It is still a possibility. 4. Again, that is pretty much what I am going for. The CIS main fleet bases are just as hidden as the GDL’s. So the way to hurt them is to choke them of resources. Lots and lots of cloaked frigates let loose on an unsuspecting Confederacy. But medical supplies, foodstuffs and such are awfully hard to spot before you attack if you don’t want to warn the enemy. 5. Size of the weapon and the weight such weapons could imply is interesting point. 6. Mygeeto – a prime example of a world that could be cut off with a sufficient antishipping campaign. Foerost I didn’t know about, thanks!

vimesenthusiast

1. The Providence class is a perfect example of too many cooks spoiling the soup. Comparing them side by side to a Lucrehulk, they weren’t as large, nor as durable. They did have 102 proton torpedo tubes, and heavy ion cannons, plus a better shape and overall defensive fire. But they really should be labeled battleships rather than star dreadnaughts. The Subjugator class would be closer to a super dreadnaught as I describe above in the addition I added today. (and yet they are called heavy cruisers on the wiki. UGH) Corvettes equate to gunboats in my mind, or maybe smaller frigates. I don’t see them being of much use – their jobs can be done better by more specialized ships, larger or smaller. They are good for rear echelon stuff – protecting convoys, antipiracy and so forth. But they don’t specialize and are too small to survive in a battle line. As for the rest of what you said here, yeah, I’ll raise my hand to not being clear enough in my questioning for number one. 2. (and 3) I was thinking of a small group of ships jumping in to precise points. Or of starfighters jumping in and out quick and dirty. Or both. The Jedi would do the initial calculation the astromech droids or computers would prep the return jump. Launch proton torpedoes, jump out. Or jump behind the enemy, taking them in the rear when the CIS has thrown their Vultures forward in it’s normal swarm pattern – I’ve shown a few times the CIS has yet to realize they need to have a CAP (combat air patrol) out onec they launch the first swarm. They keep reserves back, but aboard their ships. For now that is a weakness. No idea where Battle Mediation came up – a Force gestalt could be necessary do use precision jumps, but not the full Battle meditation. 4..Seizing them won’t be possible – the GDL doesn’t have the personnel. Jedi could maybe take commercial ships, but that is somewhat doubtful. The target, obviously would be military resources, but that is a very broad heading – destroy enough ships carrying metals to and fro and you choke out the enemy’s ability to make droids, and that is just the largest, most obvious need. Gas for blasters is another, and a far scarcer resource. 6. Geonisiis is only one planet as important as it is. It will be a target, but their main shipyards, droid factories and so forth are hidden. Banking is no longer centralized. Resources and public morale are two places the GDL could target now if they attack homeworlds. Hitting Skako, a Core World ecumenopolis which produces just as much for the war and is the home of the Techno Union’s leader, makes more sense.

vimesenthusiast

1. AH, but in terms of shipping-based warfare, the Confederacy is more capital ship doctrine than starfighter based. Indeed, it’s more so – Vultures can’t hyper so need to be moved on the ship. Consider: a convoy comes out of hyperspace to change their angle. A frigate wolfpack is there, they attack from cloak. Several ships are destroyed, one rolls fighters, finds nothing until the frigates are well away, dumping heat. Vultures go after them, starfighters attack, jumping out of hyperspace behind them and destroying the remaining ships. The Vultures turn, the frigate jump, the starfighters jump. Lots of Vultures left at the jump point with nothing to do. Heh. Thanks for saying that I’ve written the CIS combat as per canon. I have also shown the GDL method of blunting the zerg, er, that is vulture swarm tactic – gunboats and better use of sprint-type speed on their own starfighters coupled with longer range. HOWEVER. Don’t compare the Lucrehulks to regular converted merchants ships. That was the case over Naboo. It was not the case in the Clone Wars. The Lucrehulks then might have had the basic design and much of the cubbage, but defensively they were very different. “Batteries of long guns and heavy guns complemented the additional quad turbolaser batteries added to the Lucrehulk superstructure when the war erupted. Each ship was also now so powerful due to the increased amount of power devoted to offensive and defensive systems that a whole flotilla of Republic Star Destroyers was needed just to bring down a Lucrehulk's shields. The Clone Wars refitted models were true battleships and were among the most powerful ships in the Confederate Navy.” Honestly, I take the numbers of the various weapons on the wiki with a grain of salt. I agree they wouldn’t use spinal mounted turbolasers like the munificent class, or the proton torpedoes of the Providence class (which the GDL might nick, it was designed by Quarren, and they are happy with the GDL at this point for various reasons). But I do not think they are used as carriers. Carriers are, generally speaking, supposed to stay well the hell away from the front lines. But they are not. They are instead the mainstay of the Confederacy fleet. Eventually other ship types came along, but at the moment they are really the dreadnaughts I use them as. 2. THANK you. Yes, that is what I was thinking about. Harry is at this point getting a lot of on-the -job training in thinking strategically. So the first time he thinks about using a Jedi-calculated mini-jump he will be seeing the idea. Especially considering the gravitic generator on the Bane. And Harry is already very good at Force Gestalt. 3. What about using a Jedi to jump in, then a droid to do the quick retreat jump? I do agree that it would be hard on the jump drives. That could be designed away though. And that kind of redesign would have multiple uses. 4. Hmm… okay, you have a point on the number of civilian deaths I might be thinking about. I am however thinking of the kind of full on sub-based warfare that nearly crippled the UK in WW2. There’s no way to do something that way without killing a lot of people, unless we are assuming that the whole logistical apparatus of the CIS is robotized. Which is very doubtful. And Even the CIS doesn’t have enough ships to guard all it’s shipments, particularly deep into their sectors. Glad you agree here. That is essentially what I am going for. Have you read the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell? The good guys eventually (under the order of one actual good guy who leads them back to the way of honor) do a lot of orbital infrastructure destruction, and they start to win the moral battle because they ask people to leave. I was concerned however that since both the Republic and the CIS have already destroyed such structures with impunity, it would seem too weak a move to request they be abandoned first. As for the PR side of things -Sidious doesn’t control it nearly as much as in canon thanks to Padme and Harry’s moves in the senate. But you’re right he could make a lot of hay from something like that – but then the Republic would also not be looking so clean either. I wrote about incidents of Republic forces shooting up wrecks and both sides targeting escape pods. 5. I know they are used in ground based combat. Mortars arcing fire, they are a must. Slugthrowers can also be used to good effect against Jedi – see the latest Horse chapter. The space efficiency thing seems to be a good general rule to explain why they fell out of favor rather than just shields. After all, woopies shields. Launch more slugs. Just like blasters. Didn’t make sense to me. 6. Their shipyards are predominately behind massive defenses or hidden in the back of beyond. It will be a while before those are found, so yeah, Skako. I do like the image you paint about what would happen if lots of smaller, less important systems lost their orbitals though. As for the civilian control of the CIS… ah… that would be telling.

Kalen D

Agreed on the Providence, its just that it was "classed" as a carrier. Corvettes are generally smaller than frigates, yes, but also larger than gunboats since gunboats only had a crew of two whereas corvettes might have as few as 12 to 18 - three shifts of 4 to 6 crew on duty at a time would seem like a minimum for a military vessel that is deployed full time. Gunboats are usually carried on other ships like starfighters and only deployed when there is combat. I agree that corvette usefulness is more limited to patrol duty vs pirates and protecting trade lanes. 2 and 3: Yeah, such hit and run tactics as you described would work for hyperdrive-equipped starfighters and the smaller, more maneuverable capital ships. The reason the CIS didn't keep vultures constantly out is because they are powered by power cells rather than a generator with a limited number of flight hours and amount of combat it can do before running out of power. They were built and used as an expendable, kind of like like ammunition - sure you could collect the brass to reload them but you don't save much versus buying new in bulk especially when it also takes you time/work to do it beyond the materials cost. The part I mentioned about battle meditation was more answering to a prior poster that seemed to think it was a part of battle meditation to do precision hyperjumps. 6. I was under the impression that the droid army (ground forces) were primarily manufactured on Geonosis and that was one of the main reasons that it was the first major battle of the Clone Wars because the Republic wanted to neutralize a significant portion of their droid army production capacity. *shrug*

Stars90

Under normal circumstances you're very right about Medical Supples and foodstuffs being hard to tell. But I'd think it would be easier since 99% of their army is made of Droids.

Novus

1) So breaking this one down into further points for ease of addressing it. A) The tactical example you outlined. The example is a good one for Maneuver warfare, which is the actual technical term for what the GDL is attempting to use against the CIS. Unfortunately, it's also not actually viable against the CIS. Maneuver warfare is, traditionally, the counter to Attritional Warfare. Which is great in a sense. You've chosen the known historic response, intentionally or unintentionally. Yay, you! Unfortunately, exploding warfare out into the galactic scale and introducing non-living combatants complicates this issue immensely. Addressing the latter first...the losses of assets by the CIS matter less than the loss of assets by either the republic or GDL. The CIS can replace losses faster and, more importantly, WITHOUT degradation of quality. Kill a veteran pilot, you've lost not only the pilot but their total accrued experience. Kill a droid...you've cost the CIS a single droid. The next droid will be just as good, or better, be created far faster than even a clone trooper could be trained (let alone a regular pilot), and the cost of training pilots is so high that a dozen droids could be created for each lost pilot and the CIS still come out ahead. You fundamentally can't hurt the CIS by killing vultures. You have to kill their Capital Ships. And...well...back to that later. The other point, regarding scale, is more important anyway. That point is that, at the galactic scale, ambushing fleets in route to targets does...nothing. Zero. Ziltch. Nadda. Yes, cutting SUPPLY lines is useful. But it achieves no fundamental goals for the GDL or the Republic. Ultimately, in order to actually WIN, rather than just survive, they have to be capable of taking and holding territory. Or, at the very least, of hitting stationary targets like shipyards and planetary orbitals. This is where your model kinda just...crumbles. Hard targets like shipyards and planets don't need to scramble fighters. They'll already have them actively in space as part of a standard Combat Space Patrol. That means that any worthwhile target is already going to be swarming with patroling starfighters, even before you drop out of hyperspace. Attempting to pull them out of position is almost worthless as well, since they'd just launch more to replace those pulled away. Planets, in particular, don't have the room limitations that ships do. Lucrehulks can already put out an absurd cloud of fighters. What do you think a shipyard or planet is going to have on hand? There's no matching that doctrine on its own home playing field without some sort of equalizer. You actually acknowledged this, intentionally or unintentionally, in Horse, by supplying the Jedi with their own drone ships (via the living ships that can multiply the number of fighters via drone versions). Unless you're intending to introduce something similar, Starfighter tactics are a terrible choice against the CIS fleet. B) The numbers I gave you are the OFFICAL armament of Clone Wars era Lucrehulks. As in, the ones purpose-built for the Clone Wars. They are Point Defense heavy to an almost hilarious degree, with little in the way of heavy-hitting power. They are carriers, period. They aren't battleships. They were never battleships. They never will be battleships. They fundamentally weren't designed for the 'wall of battle' and slugging matches with other capital ships. They are TERRIBLE ships for that. The converted Mon Calmari cruisers that the rebellion used, despite being significantly smaller than a Lucrehulk, carry FAR heavier anti-capital ship armaments. An MC80 (which was roughly on par with an ISD), carrier 48 HEAVY Turobolaser BATTERIES to the Lucrehulk's mere 48 regular turbolasers. And that's not even mentioning the 20 ion cannon it also carried. On the other hand, its point defense was shit, almost non-existent, just like the ISDs. And completely opposite of the Lucrehulks, which have weak anti-capital ship weapons but ludicrous amounts of point defense. Attacking them with starfighters is just plain dumb. They'll have trouble even getting through the shields of a proper capital ship without Vulture support, but they'll eat starfighters in entire squadrons for breakfast, without salt. This is, in fact, how the Republic Fleet ended up Captial Ship heavy by the end of the war. As Captial Ships were the answer to how to defeat CIS fleets. The Empire than just inherited that doctrine from the Republic Navy, and the Rebellion turned around and took advantage of the starfighter-poor imperial doctrine. Not with swarm tactics like the CIS, but with elite squadrons that could defeat the starfighter screen and attack the point-defense week ISDs. C) It took whole fleets of Republic star destroyers to take on Lucrehulks because the Venerator-Class was basically a medium cruiser, at best. And that's what the Republic started the war with. They didn't start winning until they introduced the Victory-class, which were armed on the model I highlighted above. Minimal point defense, lots of anti-capital ship ordinance. The smaller, more poorly armed Venerators needed to pile on multiple ships to overcome the shields of the massive carrier that was a Lucrehulk. That doesn't mean the Lucrehulks did a lot of damage to them while they worked on killing the things. 2) Yeah, that gravity generator is almost as much a game-changer as the Bane itself. Almost. 3) Hmmm, wouldn't that have to be the other way around? The droid would have to start from scratch on a new jump. Theoretically, enough math can replicate the micro-jump IN. Thrawn certainly managed it. Jumping back OUT quickly would need a Jedi, as there wouldn't be enough time for a droid to recalculate a jump. Doubly so since the ships would be maneuvering and thus complicating the jump calculation. As for the drive stress...the Capital ships should all have backup drives. Maybe use those for the exit jump? Then hot-swappable drives for the starfighters. Rotate the hyperdrives, service them to take care of the light damage, and rotate them back in? Might cause some logistics strain though. 4) I was actually thinking about the same sub-based warfare myself. Given the stealth frigates, it was an easy leap to make. But looking at the WWII Liberty Ship program is where things get both very interesting and a little murky. Those ships actually belonged to the US Merchant Marine. An organization that no one really thinks about and barely even exists in modern times. It's something of an anachronism in the modern world, though it DOES actually still exist. The short version is that those were actually Government-Owned and operated ships, considered (in wartime) to be military auxiliaries. So while the core crew were civilian trained (roughly another 20-30 pure military crew were added to operate communications and weapons), they weren't really civilians? Sort of? In wartime, they could even receive commissions and be shifted over to the Navy proper with minimal retraining. In the CIS, this is further made confusing, since the vast majority of their logistics is likely made up of the Trade Federation cargo carrying fleet. Who...are a founding pseudo-governmental member of the movement? That would make all vessels flagged by them either Military or Merchant Marine. Only privately held vessels could be considered truly still civilian? Either way. Two points come to mind. One, since most of the logistics are likely Trade Federations ships, they are HEAVILY automated. Probably only a handful of living crew on each vessel. Even the 'battleship' version of the Lucrehulk was crewed by as few as 150 living beings. And the vast majority of those were likely assigned to things like weapons systems, coms, and command crew. The freighter models, I doubt they had more than 50 crew total, if that. Which brings up the second point. Ships have Lifepods. Unless a ship is damaged to the point of death-star-like explosions (which isn't going to be often), a good chunk of its crew are going to get off the wreck in life pods. So, kill a Lucrehulk, average death of maybe 20 people? All of whom were effectively military auxiliaries? I don't think it would cause a huge issue for the Jedi. They might not LIKE it, but...I think practicality would win out. Particularly since they have to weigh how many deaths would be caused by the same supplies if they actually arrived and were used. I haven't read Lost Fleet. But I myself was/am thinking of the Honor Harrington series. There, in most cases, they try to minimize civilian death even when destroying infrastructure, because it's super terrible for PR not to do so. I think, so long as they destroy them, letting them evacuate first doesn't really hurt anything. At worst, the CIS thinks them weak which...doesn't really matter? At best, it makes a lot of people on the CIS side start asking who the bad guy really is here...particularly as I don't think they DID get away with impunity. Maybe so far, yes...but what's the civilian response to all of this, on both sides? What will it be if both sides CONTINUE to do things like that? The disaster what was Vietnam comes forcibly to mind. People don't LIKE seeing televised atrocities and tend to scream loudly about it.

Beleriond

1) That is a good general strategy, although more combat classes is better for versatility. This also improves combat effectiveness of each ship by allowing them to specialize The traditional ship classes are: - Fighter: Interceptor, Bomber, Escort - Covette: Escort, Shuttle, Interceptor - Frigate: Escort (Armoured for defending other ships) - Destroyer: Assault ship (Low armour, powerful weapons) - Cruiser: Generalist can fulfill many roles (Battle-cruiser, Medical-Cruiser, etc) Best at surviving unescorted - Battleship: Heavy armour and weapons (Slow-moving big target) - Carrier: Light weapons, relies on other ships for defense - Dreadnaught: A ship designed for intimidation more than practicality. Heavily armed and armoured, but slow and a big target. Star Destroyers fall into this category. 2) Hyperdrive in SW is a bit weird. The fact that material objects and gravity in the real universe can have impacts (collisions, forcing ships into real-space) makes it closer to warp than a true hyper-drive. The Jedi ability seems to vary in strength with those that have a particularly strong connection to the force and precognitive abilities being better at piloting. Maybe a few specialized pilots to fly past defensive installations and sensors. The number of Jedi with the necessary skill are likely to be very rare, and needed for more important roles. Maybe a specialized training course for the former rejects? They could perform infiltration or use explosives to maximize damage. Could a particularly skilled Jedi jump inside of a planetary or even ship-based shield? 3) I have no idea. If it has anything to do with energy capacity or dispersal (IE: the parts of a hyper-drive can be overstressed by being used too much) then maybe Lily could teach them some strengthening charms which would allow the engines to tolerate more stress. 4) I don't have a problem with it, so long as they let the civilians evacuate. It's certainly better than indiscriminate bombing. Military forces and materials are fair game in war. Keep in mind that any major manufacturer and/or depot is going to be heavily guarded not only by stationed ships, but also the escorts of any coming or going transports. It is also likely that they will be near to other military assets, so they could be reinforced very quickly. An assualt could certainly get through, but it would come at a heavy price. 5) Mechanically speaking, kinetics should be able to transfer a lot more of their momentum into penetrating power. The way shields are explained in SW doesn't make a lot of sense. I did see someone else mentioning how it could be less cost-effective and more dangerous to store kinetics compared to gas, but I firmly disagree. The gas itself needs to be highly pressurized in order to store a large number of shots, probably at a near liquid consistency or more. That doesn't really make much difference in weight or volume. As for dangerous explosions, I would say that pressurized gas is generally far more dangerous if the container is ruptured than a block of metal. Maybe if the bullet was filled with explosives, but then it would probably only be equal to a canister filled with combustible gas anyway. The only advantage I can see a bolt of plasma having is diffusion. When a solid block like a bullet collides with a wall that it can't penetrate, it bounces off, but only a small portion of the bullet makes actual contact. A more fluid projectile would instead splash against the barrier making maximum contact. It wouldn't have the penetrating power, but maybe large contact areas can overload SW shields or just find gaps. If they are somehow charging the particles in the plasma with some kind of energy to disrupt shields, maybe the larger contact area is necessary for maximum impact, something like a weak ion charge. I can at least understand why they use hand-held plasma weapons onboard ships and space stations. A kinetic projectile runs the risk of penetrating the hull and causing explosive decompression. You'd kill your enemy, but probably yourself and all of your comrades as well. 6) With the Techno-Union home-world, we come to the same problem I mentioned earlier about it being heavily guarded. A major droid or ship factory would make an excellent target, but the cost will definitely be high. Maybe try a suppler rather than a manufacturer. The Confederacy's ships and droids both rely on certain materials for things like computers. Computers are made from rare metals, especially more advanced ones. If the GDL could take out a few rare-earth metal extraction points, then the factories wouldn't matter so much since they wouldn't have anything to process. It wouldn't surprise me if they were relying on oppressed colonies or war-slaves to do those jobs in isolated mining installations; seems like something they'd do. They are more likely to be overlooked for defense, so make easier targets. Plus, freeing the slaves or captured soldiers is a nice bit of PR.

Hiryo

Vim, I will send you the Starship portion.

Bryan Brown

1)With the numbers of fighter the CIS fields I am not sure how a fighter offense would get past them except as a counter punch. Let the first wave of droid fighter break on the screening capital ships than launch a counter strike. I would think that fighters and gunboats would be used by the GDL for planetary defense as they would be easier for poorer plants to maintain and crew while the offensive fleets be mainly capital ships with some carriers mixed in as support and missile destroyers being a larger part of their offense than fighters. At least until they had multiple Tyrant class ships. If every fleet includes a Tyrant class that is a game changer. 2) I always got this was a highly effective but extremely difficult tactic to pull off, hence why it was only used by Thrawn, A handful of other admirals who were almost as good as Thrawn, and Jedi Admirals using Battle Meditation. Otherwise you would need a Jedi/Sith Navigator for every ship and they have other things to do. 3)Not sure. As handwavy as Star Wars is about Tech the data might not exist or be consistent. 4)Will it take a lot of lifes? How many people does it take to crew cargo vessels, especially with droid support? I know it take surprising few in real life these days with automation and GPS navigation. Destroying space stations and orbital shipyards would kill a lot more but how often is that going to happen. As for the Jedi caring: on one hand all life is scarred, on the other there is no death. So as long they are not directly involved and it doesn't reach the point of planetary bombardment, I doubt most Jedi would do more than look regretful/uncomfortable whenever it is brought up. 5) Kinetics take up a lot of room and when fired at long range can be dodged or shot down by ships. Add to that having to be flinging asteroids sized Kinetics to break through Planetary shields and I can see them being considered obsolete. 6)Is the GDL goal to win the war for the Republic? Destroying groups inside the CIS with strongest ties to the Sith might be more useful to the GDL than winning the war. Especially if the Republic does not treat the GDL well between now and when they go on offence.

vimesenthusiast

FINALLY. 1. I don’t know if I would call star destroyers dreadnaughts. They are more a unholy mix of carrier and battleship, ones with an extreme weakness in that they don’t have enough anti-air defenses and not enough planes to mitigate it. Super Star Destroyers and bigger would be the real dreadnaughts – like the pre Imperial Mandator class or the ones in Corellia. 2. Oh, I like the idea of a training course. I even know who to use to teach it – the little blue-skinned flying alien master. Great suggestion. As to the idea of jumping so close they would be inside a planetary shield, maybe? I mean they jumped through a freaking once – Saesae Tiin did I believe in the comics dealing with the Yinchorri. It would be something they could only use on a planet where there isn’t much interior traffic though, ships coming and going in the atmosphere. Predicitng that kind of thing through the Force would just be the grain that broke the camel’s back. 4.If you are talking about letting the civies evacuate the ships, no. Just like in World War 2, this isn’t a really viable option. The space stations and other things, yeah. But if the convoy is being guarded, getting in, destroying what ships you can and get out is the only way to survive. 5.Yeah, on this one I think I’m going to give it a miss. I have found so many weird examples of shields working, then not working then being weird again in SW that going into another technical area like this is just not worth it. 6.Here we are missing the point about the Tyrant’s Bane. Right now, it can shatter any planet’s defenses like so many eggshells. So yes, once the other ships of the series are up and running, the Bane itself can start smashing specific planets. I do however like the idea of other attacks going after supply-type planets. The Confederacy cannot be strong everywhere. Moreover, you are correct in saying that computers are made of rare metals, and this makes the Confederacy actually more susceptible than the Republic or GDL. The Republic has waay more planets (none that are producing as much as most Confederacy planets but still) and the GDL’s main manufacturers are also suppliers. As for planets being oppressed, some, yes. Not as many as you might think, and remember that certain of slavery or indentured servitude are legal in the Republic. Not so much in the GDL, which is going to be coming up in the next chapter… Heh. Sic ‘em Anakin.

vimesenthusiast

1) At this point, the CIS is not really using their fighters well. Yes, they keep some back, but their starfighters can’t interdict proton torpedoes, and while the Lucrehulks keep a reserve, they are slow to launch them. And the CIS has no gunboats – or didn’t at the start of the war. They are introducing them in the latest few chapters. Up to this point, yes, the GDL has been using fighters and gunboats for planetary defense. But I wasn’t really talking about full on offenses – the idea is to fight like the subs in ww2. Hit the trade routes. A Tyrant class IS a fleet. HEH. 2) It was hard, yes, but Thrawn was not the first person to use it. Ackbar actually used such techniques, and perfected them with capital ships after he fought Thrawn. 4.hmmm, Okay, I looked up the crew of a modern cargo vessel, and it is actually smaller than I expected. Strange, and thus a good point. The grey morality of attacking cargo vessels along the trade routes becomes a little clearer. LOL on the Jedi. Yeah, they do tend to… well act like normal people at moments like that don’t they. As for space stations being destroyed… when the Bane goes on the offensive, hell yes it will be happening a lot. 6.Huh… now, that is a point. In Canon after the war, the Banking Clan, the Trade Federation and the rest of the powerful groups were folded into the government, giving it more direct power and money. Stopping that from happening would be a good idea. As would welding a few of the smaller planets or interplanetary units to the GDL. At present, the Republic is playing nice with the GDL. It kind of has to, as there has been no reason not to beyond the whole ‘it’s illegal to secede’ thing. But eventually, once it becomes clearer that the GDL can stand on its own, can fight off the CIS and has NO INTEREST in rejoining after the war, there’s gonna be issues. The Hypercom network, the various Hyperspace lanes, how muddled the borders are, and two very different government types will make for a lot of fodder for Sidious and his PR people.

vimesenthusiast

1. The CIS can replace troops faster than either the GDL or Republic, they can’t replace capital ships faster than the Republic. You were reading too much into the single example I was making. The goal of that mission was to kill the cargo ships and the capital ships. The Vultures would be dead in the water, and wouldn’t matter any longer. I have already had Garm noting the losses in pilots the GDL is dealing with. That is why the Vultures design will start to be used by the GDL until they can come up with something better. I believe I mentioned this in the meeting with Garm and the rest of the admiralty. Further, we will have to disagree on this point – while hard targets would have a more immediate effect, if the CIS loses too many cargo ships, their overall military efforts will succumb. Droids of all sorts demand a lot more in material – rare metals, energy for their batteries – than a clone. That makes the CIS more susceptible to attacks on their interior lines of supply. The CIS also doesn’t have nearly as many planets on the supply side as the Republic or even the GDL does. Could for stealth destroyers do enough damage to such trade routes to matter? No. Could several thousand, backed by starfighters? Yes. As for hard targets, that is what the Tyrant’s series is for. As it stands, the Bane could take on Coruscant, let alone any lesser system. They are the equalizer, precisely because they can interdict and destroy anything. Lucrehulks: Yeah, I know those are the official numbers. I looked at the page. Made no sense to me as they were indeed used in walls of battle and slugging matches in the comics and books. So that is the way they are being used currently. Eventually That will change and new ship designs will be created. Although, I do like you point about how the Republic fleet became so top heavy. That’s a neat point, I will say. 3.I think it would depend on circumstances which is more difficult, the jump in or out. You could also have the computers pre-programed and constantly updating while the battle is going on to jump to a specific point. Starfighters needing to swap out their drives every few ‘hot jumps’ makes a lot of sense, excellent point. I think that light cruiser and above would have spare hyperspace engines. Destroyers wouldn’t nor would gunboats – too small. 4.An excellent point about the CIS essentially running on the merchant marine template. Yeah, it is weird to think Lucrehulks had fewer crew than the Munificents. Weird. I like the Harrington series too – until it introduced her second love interest after Honor and co. escaped from prison. I thought it went badly from then on, although I might try to get into the audiobook version if the reader is any good. (manTICoran rather than Manticoran Harkness and all male characters sounding like little girls, very weird pronunciation of other words, blaargh). At this point, the civies in the GDL and Republic are getting news from all sides. The CIS is doing their best to curtail news from the war that paints them in a bad light, and for the most part it’s working. But if they continue to commit atrocities and start to lose besides, that’s going to cause issues.

Beleriond

Yes FINALLY! Thank you for replying. It's nice to hear from you. 1) A Dreadnought is, generally speaking, a ship designed more for intimidation than practicality. It does not have a specific range for weapons and armour load-out. I would say Star Destroyer fit this category, as they are as you said poorly designed and impractical. Their main purpose is also to intimidate entire systems into compliance. The Super Star Destroyers, might be considered Super Dreadnoughts. 2) I should correct myself a little, that power might not be a requisite for flying through shields. Jedi Astrogation seems to be more reliant on skill and sensitivity than power. Sidious himself used failed jedi recruits and mildly talented force-sensitives to scout across the galaxy for surviving jedi after the purge. I'm glad you like the idea for a training course. The Agro-corps should be a great source of recruits, looking for those who while they might lack power, are very sensitive to the force. 4) Fair enough on the ships. It would still be better from both a moral and morale (wordplay) perspective for the stations to be evacuated though. 5) I do enjoy the more modern shows, like The Expanse, where they put actual rules in place for how things work and why. 6a) I get that, but I thought they were still keeping the TB's full capabilities a secret until they had a defensive fleet up. Otherwise it would make them a much bigger target, causing the CIS to make destroying the GDL a priority. 6b) Note: when I was referring to rare metals, you are probably thinking of gold or silver. Those are important yes, but they could be easily replaced with the sheer scale of resources an interstellar empire would have to work with. I was more referring to heavy metals, especially radioactive ones. Something a lot of people wouldn't think of, but trust me it's important, is timing. In programming, you need extremely precise timing for executing algorithms correctly, especially when something like the droid brain on a CIS mothership would be controlling tens of thousands of battle droids, the other ships in the fleet, and its own inbuilt systems. These might be handled by individual processors in many cases, but they would all need to communicate seamlessly in order to function without major crashes. The most likely way that the CIS, and other factions in Star Wars accomplish this is with atomic clocks (look them up). These need specific and rare radioactive elements. If you could cut off the CIS' supply of those, it would really hurt them a lot. 6c) The oppressed planets I was referring to would be almost exclusively those captured from the Republic by force, or those under the control of the major corporations of the CIS (Trade Federation, Banking Clans, Techno Union, etc.). If you discount being controlled by amoral corporate interests and the Sith, the CIS actually holds the moral high ground in my opinion. They may be called the Confederacy, but this time they are the good guys. Most of the planets seceded peacefully after being abused by the Core Worlds for generations and being denied fair representation. They also chose to make an army out of droids rather than one made up of slaves, so there's that. I should note that the Senate itself is certainly corrupt enough that it is also controlled by corporate interests more than it should be, and Sidious himself is of course running things behind the scenes, so the most amoral aspects of the CIS are shared with the Republic.

Novus

Was startled to see a reply here :-p. I mostly agree on your counter points, so only a few quickish things. 1. Ship Loses/Replacement: Can the Republic actually replace Capital Ships as fast? It's been a bit since I read Magic, so I might be mixing Magic and Horse details. But wasn't Magic the one where all the hidden Republic shipyards were attacked right at the start? The Main KDY yards are still there, unlike in Horse, but the specialty yards for the new classes are gone. Since Rendili and Coreilla went over to the GDL...I'm not actually sure the Republic would legitimately have the capacity to outbuild the CIS in the short term? In the long term, the sheer size difference means they could. But for the immediate future? Questionable. Troop Replacement Cost: Your point about the Clones vs Droids is a good one. But I was speaking specifically to GDL loses. And they don't use clones. The Republic doesn't use Clones for Starfighter Pilots either, I don't think, since Jango wasn't a fighter pilot. Lucrehulks: Makes sense, if that's the direction you came from, modifying them to logically be battleships. Stealth Ships: Yeah, if they can get the numbers you're talking about, that absolutely changes things. I was figuring things based on their current capabilities for the class, not if they manage to build them in bulk. Even a few hundred Stealth Frigates could wreck havoc on supply lines in a serious way. 3. Canon says even most light freighters have a backup hyperdrive for safety, though it's usually a slow one. So, yes, I'd expect cruisers to have such. Particularly as warships have to account for the possibility of battle damage. 4. Absolutely agree the Honor Harrington series went downhill sharply at that point. I stopped at roughly the same point. I thought the Audiobook reader I'm familiar with (Alison Johnson) was actually pretty amazing. But I may be less bothered by small nuances.