SB.com ICS thread

[Jedi Master Spock]

I am following with some interest the latest ICS thread at SB.com.

However, I'd like to look at one point in particular:

Mith, the bottom line is that you are basically claiming that a hand grenade is equal in firepower to a sixteen-inch battleship cannon, and refusing to accept that if this was the case, battleships would carry thousands of grenade launchers instead of a few sixteen-inch guns. If your claims were correct, we would be seeing a completely different strategic and tactical paradigm than what is visible in the movies. There is NO way around this.

If fighter torpedoes are equal in powerful to heavy turbolasers, the Venator's fighter wing is HUNDREDS OF TIMES more powerful than its main battery. If that were the case, it would NEVER EVER make sense for a Venator to EVER close to gun range with ANYTHING; it should stand off and launch fighters ONLY. The aviation cruiser concept would have REIGNED SUPREME instead of being consigned to the dustbin as a failed concept, and the Empire would have NEVER abandoned hyperspace-capable fighters for ones dependent on weak turbolaser-armed carrier vessels.

This is precisely the case in the WWI-WWII era battles that SW fights are indeed based on.

The most powerful weapons carried by any combat ship in WWII were torpedoes. Bombs from aircraft, in WWII, easily matched these.

So why didn't battleships carry lots and lots of torpedoes and bombs? Most powers moved away from torpedoes on battleships, focusing on big guns.

One, it was fairly hard to hit with a slow torpedo at long range. 16 inch shells, although less powerful than 24" torpedoes, flew much faster, were fired faster, and could be carried in much greater numbers. Torpedoes were mostly used on ships that you could afford to get in close with.

Two. Capital ships that carry bombs are called aircraft carriers. The greater effectiveness of bombs vs large gun shells is why aircraft carriers were considered more important after WWII, and the intermediary of a (fairly expendable) unit that can bring the payload to the target is necessary.

SW capital ships are precisely the same way. They mostly don't use missiles because they're expected to engage at longer ranges with a sustained barrage of cheap turbolaser bolts.

As pointed out in the thread, the role of the Republic Attack Cruiser aka Venator Star Destroyer as an "aviation cruiser" carrying more fighters than an ISD is not clear within the higher canon. We generally do not see the number of fighters described in the C canon being launched in the G canon; this was the case with ISDs and MCCs, it's also the case with RACs and TFBs.

[Jedi Master Spock]

I will say I expect a lot more Rogue Squadron-like action in the cartoon series. It plays well, especially to younger audiences.

[Mr. Oragahn]

My point of view is that torps would likely be more powerful than the guns which can be used to spam targets.

That said, it may be possible in SW to crank TL firepower up, as it does not need to be 100% WWII I suppose.

As for the number of fighters carried, if tightly packed, the Venators can carry quite a good number of fighters inside their central bays.

At the beginning of TCWS #3, we see Anakin having a quick briefing with his pilots, and we can observe the height of the bay, the racks on the roof, and how the LAATs don't use so much space. LAATs also are taller than Y-wings.
That said, those other fighters with pivoting fins and wings would still take quite some room, but I'm fairly sure there's room to cram several dozens of them in there.

That said, 400 fighters, I have issues believing this.

EDIT: Just after the scene where Dooku reveals the existence of the Republic medical station, we see Y-wings in a Venator. They do in fact take most of the room's depth. Only stacking them up would solve the number issue.

[l33telboi]

What struck me the most about the simple design of the Venator was that in the TCW movie those sides are basically hangars. In the ICS, they're said to be docking ports.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Not the first time the ICS's choice of ascribing a function to a part has been called into question.

What strikes me is how JC, Interrupted keeps going on about a single example after Grin_Reaper mentioned a lot of other examples. And that nobody has mentioned that the Lancer frigate, according to the EU, was designed as an anti-fighter ship.

The Rogues beat up a Victory-class Star Destroyer in The Bacta War, collapsing the shields on one flank with an almost full-squadron torpedo volley, but the ship simply rolls to present its intact shields. The arrival of an automated Alderaanian war cruiser helping them by attacking the unshielded side is what allows them to take it out.

In Wraith Squadron, the tititular fighter group destroys a Nebulon-B with concentrated torpedo volleys when they take it by suprise with their initial volley. They also cripple an ISD by taking it off guard and unloading a concentrated torpedo volley and turbolaser fire into its reactor while the ship's shields are down, followed by a couple of fighters shooting up its power cells from the inside of the ship.

In Iron Fist a large group of fighters beats the tar out of the SSD Razor's Kiss, but that's only after the shields get taken out and the bridge is destroyed. The ship was just complete (and promptly featured in a case of Grand Theft Starship) and only had a small crew aboard. The fighters never really come close to destroying the ship; they only damage it enough that Zsinj can't escape with it.

In Solo Command Wraith Squadron thrashes of couple of Carrack-class cruisers, but they only cripple the ships, they don't destroy them. The Dreadnaught-class crusier Reprisal gets taken out by a large bomb disguised as a piece of false hull and a concentrated torpedo volley which finishes it off. There's numerous cases of fighters harassing capital ships, but not of doing signifigant damage by themselves.

In Solo Command it's stated that one of the uses of starfighters is to prevent enemy ships from devoting all of their shield capacity to the arcs facing the enemy and leaving their unengaged sides unshielded.

He skipped most of the references that make the old Obsidian Order pages, which include specific numbers:

Isard's Revenge also has a Golan's shields taken out by eight fighter proton torpedoes. Golans are space stations about the size of ISDs (2158m diameter according to Wookieepedia, with 35 turbolaser batteries, 10 torpedo launchers, and 13 on-board fighters).

The Hutt Gambit has four fighter proton torpedoes taking out a bulk cruiser's shields. Bulk cruisers are 450-600m ships with 30 quad turbolasers.

It also has 20 proton torpedoes take down a Dreadnought's shields and start damaging it; the Dreadnought class is 600m, and carries (base model) 20 quad turbolasers, 10 turbolaser batteries, and 10 laser cannons; upgraded, 20 "light quad" turbolasers, 15 turbolaser batteries, and 15 turbolaser cannons.

The specific numbers for the Bacta War incident are 22 proton torpedoes to blow through the shields and start doing some damage, potentially. The Victory is 900m. This particular version (VSD-II) carried 20 quad and 40 double turbolaser batteries, plus 20 ion cannons.

The Interdictor incident shows 22 torpedoes not only busting the Interdictor's shields, but also causing damage. Interdictors are 600m and carry 20 quad turbolasers.

ISDs aren't actually supposed to have much stronger shields than these warships. They have a lot more area to shield. So the most famous incident in the Bacta War, which Grin_Reaper tactfully doesn't bring up - the Lusyanka incident, where eighty proton torpedoes pierce the shields of a Super Star Destroyer and start causing damage - gets overlooked.

One fighter squadron firing a volley of torpedoes to crack the shields of a capital ship is nothing new for the Star Wars franchise. Not even cracking the shields of something 2 km across. See above example with the Golan station. I will not be surprised when the CW show borrows more "Rogue Squadron" type features that play like the SW EU from the 1990s, only with Ani and Obi instead of Wedge and Luke.

[Praeothmin]

Just read a quote from LEO1/Vympel in his debate with l33telboi, when they argue about the possible interpretation of the events leading to the SSD's demise in RotJ (on page 18 of the ICS thread, might I add).

LEO1's position is that the order of events is non-indicative that the Globe that got destroyed bu the A-Wing was a shield generator.

the A-Wings blew up a structure on the bridge and then they said they lost the bridge deflector shields, therefore that must be a shield generator, even though no other ship type has exposed shield generators

Guess he never watched RotS, where Anakin shoots and destroys the externally located hangar shield-generator when he wants to go in Gen Grevious' ship... :)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Just read a quote from LEO1/Vympel in his debate with l33telboi, when they argue about the possible interpretation of the events leading to the SSD's demise in RotJ (on page 18 of the ICS thread, might I add).

LEO1's position is that the order of events is non-indicative that the Globe that got destroyed bu the A-Wing was a shield generator.

the A-Wings blew up a structure on the bridge and then they said they lost the bridge deflector shields, therefore that must be a shield generator, even though no other ship type has exposed shield generators

Guess he never watched RotS, where Anakin shoots and destroys the externally located hangar shield-generator when he wants to go in Gen Grevious' ship... :)

Actually discussing this bit with him, I can tell you that this element is conveniently waved away without even an ounce of valid counter point. The best I can remember from his deck of fast-one-shot-replies is that it's a hangar shield and it doesn't look like the globe. Anyone would understand that there's no logic there, no link between both statements, that the "look" is certain not a factoring element here.
But that's enough for him and this ends there.

[Praeothmin]

Yeah, I read through the page after posting this and saw your replies to him, and his wall of obstinacy.

Would that qualify as "Warstardism"? :)

[Jedi Master Spock]

Couple quick notes:

HOWEVER. The ICS clearly shows that all along the sides of the flight deck are hangars, stretching to half the width of the ship at any one point.
For honesty's sake I'll leave off the first few dozen meters, and we'll take a hangar length of 500 meters.
Width of hull runs from 91 to 342 meters at those points, for an average of 216.5 meters. Half of that is roughhly 108 meters. Substract the average of the flight deck (68 meters), that makes 40 meters of hangar, for an average of 20 meters of hangar on either side of the flight deck.
Total hangar surface, another 20,000 square meters.

Combined flight deck and hangar space, roughly 57,125 square meters.

For long term fighter support, you need hangar space for all your fighters. Also, these are going to be suboptimally packed. These will not be wingtip-to-wingtip.

Actually, the illustration in the ICS makes the relationship between the central flight deck and the attached hangars pretty clear. There is, to be precise, a row of 22 distinct hangars, varying in size, facing the flight deck from the visible starboard side. Some of the space is taken up by spots that don't open into hangars; a couple of the doors show two craft.

On the port side, we have a cutaway showing the hangars, confirming that machinery takes up some of the potential hangar space.

We also confirm the depth of the hangars. They are at best deep enough for two LAAT/i gunships to go nose-to-tail, at the wider part of the ship, although no "two deep Larty" situations are displayed:

(Image taken from the Revenge of the Sith ICS and displayed in accordance with fair use policies for educational purposes.)

The hangar space does narrow a bit towards the nose. The furthest forward hangars look like a very tight fit for one Larty lengthwise.

Personally, I count about 40 craft actually visible in the picture (rather than the 460 the ICS lists as a full complement) and it has around 44 hangars, and an average hangar size big enough for about 1.5 Larties, 2 ARCs, 4 V-wings, or 6 Jedi starfighters under cramped conditions.

I can believe the maximum carrying capacity of the Republic Attack Cruiser is 460 craft... for short term strike missions, packing the flight deck as much as safely possible. Imagine ten times as many fighters as are actually present in the illustration above.

Final point:
Nimitz flight deck: 25,000 square meters.
68m x 550m flight deck: 37,000 square meters.

Nimitz fighters: 90
RAC fighters: 460? Really? For extended operations, that seems pretty high no matter how we dice it.

[Mith]

Couple quick notes:

HOWEVER. The ICS clearly shows that all along the sides of the flight deck are hangars, stretching to half the width of the ship at any one point.
For honesty's sake I'll leave off the first few dozen meters, and we'll take a hangar length of 500 meters.
Width of hull runs from 91 to 342 meters at those points, for an average of 216.5 meters. Half of that is roughhly 108 meters. Substract the average of the flight deck (68 meters), that makes 40 meters of hangar, for an average of 20 meters of hangar on either side of the flight deck.
Total hangar surface, another 20,000 square meters.

Combined flight deck and hangar space, roughly 57,125 square meters.

For long term fighter support, you need hangar space for all your fighters. Also, these are going to be suboptimally packed. These will not be wingtip-to-wingtip.

Actually, the illustration in the ICS makes the relationship between the central flight deck and the attached hangars pretty clear. There is, to be precise, a row of 22 distinct hangars, varying in size, facing the flight deck from the visible starboard side. Some of the space is taken up by spots that don't open into hangars; a couple of the doors show two craft.

On the port side, we have a cutaway showing the hangars, confirming that machinery takes up some of the potential hangar space.

We also confirm the depth of the hangars. They are at best deep enough for two LAAT/i gunships to go nose-to-tail, at the wider part of the ship, although no "two deep Larty" situations are displayed:

(Image taken from the Revenge of the Sith ICS and displayed in accordance with fair use policies for educational purposes.)

Wait, they were saying that the long strip is the flight deck?0o

I think I understand where they're coming from now. Tell me, that long thing with the ships on it is indeed the flight deck, and the small compartments is where they keep the supposed other ships, right?

[Jedi Master Spock]

Wait, they were saying that the long strip is the flight deck?0o

I think I understand where they're coming from now. Tell me, that long thing with the ships on it is indeed the flight deck, and the small compartments is where they keep the supposed other ships, right?

Dead on. You can see some LAAT/is and fighters inside the hangars.

[Mith]

Wait, they were saying that the long strip is the flight deck?0o

I think I understand where they're coming from now. Tell me, that long thing with the ships on it is indeed the flight deck, and the small compartments is where they keep the supposed other ships, right?

Dead on. You can see some LAAT/is and fighters inside the hangars.

ROTFL!

I was talking about the small bays to begin with!

As some of you may have noticed, that the flight deck was empty in the Clone Wars episode(s)! I wasn't even paying attention to it; I just thought it was just an exit covered by a blast shield.

EDIT:

By the way, may I borrow this image for the thread in question? It would clear up a great deal.

[Jedi Master Spock]

As some of you may have noticed, that the flight deck was empty in the Clone Wars episode(s)! I wasn't even paying attention to it; I just thought it was just an exit covered by a blast shield.

That's not a bad functional description of an enclosed "flight deck" on a starship.

[Mr. Oragahn]

All depends if they can pressurize it. One could imagine that under critical needs, they could jam the line, plus fill the side hangars as well.

[Mith]

All depends if they can pressurize it. One could imagine that under critical needs, they could jam the line, plus fill the side hangars as well.

They probably could if they needed to.