why would you build a death star in the first place?

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Agreed then Karrde, but this is all assuming a fleet can knock out its sheilds in the first place. In ANH, the sheild was semi-permeable to small craft, so the X-Wings didn't have to deal with it. And at Endor the sheild generator was blown up, but at the time when it was up the Rebel fleet didn't even think of attacking it, so its safe to say they wouldn't of had a chance to knock em out.

With this, we can see that the DS didn't need any other defences, and it was just design flaws and sabatoge that claimed the DS sheilds on either occasion. If we had had a completed, fully operational DS2, it would have essaintially been invulnerable.

[Talon Karrde]

Darth, the shield capabilities that Death Star II had during it's Endor tenure was from a planetary shield generator, thus the shield would be esentially as powerful as a planetary shield. No fleet of the Rebel Alliance could ever penetrate such a shield with it's miserable forces, especially the one they gathered for Endor.

[Master of Ossus]

The DS is not invincible, but it would not need to be. It merely needs to outlast any fleet sent to attack it (relatively easy, since it could gather its own fleet at the same time, and its firepower/defenses would be immense), or the planetary/industrial defenses it would go up against. This would also be very easy because it would not need to spend ages on target.

BTW, it is almost impossible to burrow through several hundred meters worth of durasteel, to the point where the tactic would be impossible, especially if the DS would be able to continue firing with its other weapons while you are doing that.

And why wouldn't the DS just rotate?

[Lusankya]

Personally, I'd build it because I could.
Wouldn't you.

If you had the resources of an entire galaxy, and someone said to you, "look, you can build this super duper thingo without going completely bankrupt," wouldn't you?

(DS2 was built in pretty much complete secrecy, so the building of a death star couldn't take away too great a percentage of the galaxy's resources - otherwise someone would have noticed.)

[Cpt_Frank]

According to the Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia (I use this because of more statistical information) the outer hull of Death Star II was made of quadanium steel which is apparantly powerful enough to withhold turbolaser fire, or at least long enough that it won't make a difference for the opposition. Some more stats from the Unofficial Encyclopedia are astounishing as well, here are a few:

Capabilities to hold 4 Capital Ships
Docked 7,200 TIE Fighters
5,000 turbolaser batteries
5,000 heavy turbolaser batteries
2,500 laser cannons
2,500 ion cannons
768 tractor beam generators
27,048 officers
774,576 troops, pilots, and crewers
378,576 support and maintenance crewers
400,000 support droids
25,000 stormtroopers
Could house up to 600 Squadrons of Fighters
And of course the superlaser

This information comes from the TIE Fighter Hangar Bay, he quotes his information from the Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia

Oh and one more thing: the gun numbers don't correspond with the observed gun density on the DS in the movies. Look at the star wars technical commentarries for that.
The DS I had hundreds of thousands of guns, and the DS II probably millions.

[consequences]

and the reported population was almost certainly rebel propaganda as well

[Talon Karrde]

The DS is not invincible, but it would not need to be. It merely needs to outlast any fleet sent to attack it (relatively easy, since it could gather its own fleet at the same time, and its firepower/defenses would be immense), or the planetary/industrial defenses it would go up against. This would also be very easy because it would not need to spend ages on target.

BTW, it is almost impossible to burrow through several hundred meters worth of durasteel, to the point where the tactic would be impossible, especially if the DS would be able to continue firing with its other weapons while you are doing that.

And why wouldn't the DS just rotate?

If the DS rotates, the fleet can rotate too Im sure you just left that piece of information out.

[Master of Ossus]

The DSII's rotational acceleration is vastly in excess of the Rebel fleet's observed linear rotation, and the DSII can almost certainly rotate in one direction, get the fleet moving in that direction, then change rotational direction and make the Rebel fleet turn around in order to try to catch up. That would require it to kill its direction, and then re-accelerate, but it could easily use such "evasive maneuvers" if attacked with the strategy that you all propose. And the fleet would still be taking fire the whole time.

[Talon Karrde]

That's true Ossus and a good point. However, if a fleet was large enough it could cover a large enough amount of space to wipe out the laser cannons and turbolasers from the surface of the DS in a certain location. Obviously a turbolaser on the opposite side of the Death Star can't fire on ships on the other side. Although the theory of roating is good, I still believe a fleet could keep up. This of course is still irrational thinking, the Death Star should as we've already established annihlate a fleet regardless.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

If the DS had a crew of a million, it would be emptier than a movie theater playing a Kevin Costner film. Waterworld, anyone? Anyway, the DS has to have a far larger crew, perhaps in the hundreds of millions, or even the billions. And given the concentration of guns seen in the movie, it has to have more than 25,000 guns, unless there are huge patches without TLs.

[Master of Ossus]

That's true Ossus and a good point. However, if a fleet was large enough it could cover a large enough amount of space to wipe out the laser cannons and turbolasers from the surface of the DS in a certain location. Obviously a turbolaser on the opposite side of the Death Star can't fire on ships on the other side. Although the theory of roating is good, I still believe a fleet could keep up. This of course is still irrational thinking, the Death Star should as we've already established annihlate a fleet regardless.

This is a much better attack plan than the one that was proposed earlier (burrowing to the core). The fleet could not keep up, with the exception of light ships, starfighters, and other things that would be much too small and too weak to really have much of a chance of burning through the ship. It would probably be easier to sabotage the ship, somehow, than to attempt to destroy it with a conventional attack.

BTW, if the DSII's defenses were significant enough to prevent anyone from even attempting a frontal attack on it because the attacker would know that he was screwed, they are already doing their job and there is little reason to continue improving its defenses. Further, in almost all circumstances all that the surface defenses would need to do is hold out for less than forty-five minutes so that the DS could fire its superlaser and escape.

[Darth Yoshi]

DS II had no Achilles' heel, like DS I. Which means that the Rebels had no hope of stopping it once it was complete. In ANH, Dodonna says that the DS was designed to be impervious to capship assault, but the exhaust port left it vulnerable to snubbies. The Emperor obviously would have corrected the exhaust port problem for the DS II, which means fighters no longer work. Since the DS I was invincible against capships, and the opening crawl said that DS II was an improved DS, DS II will still be invincible against capships. That's why the Emperor allowed the Rebels to find out about the DS II. The Rebels can't afford not to take the bait, which means that the Emperor could crush them at his leisure.

[Soontir C'boath]

I would build the Death Star has the largest luxory hotel in the galaxy and make a good chunk of credits.

Cyaround,
Jason
P.S.- Don't ask me how i'll cover the maintainence and salaries of my workers...plz don't

[AL]

Absolute power, and that the only reason to build it. If the dsII was completed the emperor could effectively rule from the ds, if anyone defied him he could just blow up a few plantes and then the defiance would stop. There would have been no way in hell to take out the dsII if it was ever completed. The emperor could not have ever been stopped. His power over the galaxy would be absolute, and thats what he was going for.

[Talon Karrde]

DS II had no Achilles' heel, like DS I. Which means that the Rebels had no hope of stopping it once it was complete. In ANH, Dodonna says that the DS was designed to be impervious to capship assault, but the exhaust port left it vulnerable to snubbies. The Emperor obviously would have corrected the exhaust port problem for the DS II, which means fighters no longer work. Since the DS I was invincible against capships, and the opening crawl said that DS II was an improved DS, DS II will still be invincible against capships. That's why the Emperor allowed the Rebels to find out about the DS II. The Rebels can't afford not to take the bait, which means that the Emperor could crush them at his leisure.

We've already establsihed this piece of information. What we've been discussing is the possibility, however remote, that the Death Star could have been taken out by capital ships.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Well, assuming that a fully completed DS2 shield is the same as DS1's, it its semi-permeable to small fighters. Seeing as the Rebs are the biggest power against the Empire as of ROTJ, the amount of fighters we saw them using, I don't think, would be enough to destroy allof the turrets on the DS2s surface. And when you factor in the that they'll be being chased TIE fighters, theres almost no chance that they can kill the DS2's offensive power.

Capships on the other hand, will not be able to do anything but watch their TL blasts splash harmlessly against the DS's shields, while they're getting pummled by the DS's TLs, and TIEs.

Thus with no handy dandy thermal exhaust port, or open superstructure, the fighters will be all but usless for anything but clearing the TLs on the surface, until they are inevitably blasted to subspace and back by TIEs. And anyways,fighters they simply don't have the firepower to knock out the shield generator (burried under X kilometers of armor). Capships will be even more usless, being fired on, and unable to fire back.

So you see, the DS2 would've been invincible had it been completed, and it was only through the Emperor's arrogance that it wasn't, which saved teh Rebels butts real good.

[paladin]

A DS could be built to make up for a lack on "manhood."

[paladin]

A DS could be built to make up for a lack of "manhood."

[consequences]

only conventionally built star wars ships would be completely helpless. Take an imperator sized hull and build it from the ground up to include a mini-superlaser down the length of the ship. Engineer it to take the full power output of the ship. Build enough of them and you should be able to create holes in the shield, and maybe cause some hull damage.

[Master of Ossus]

Well, assuming that a fully completed DS2 shield is the same as DS1's, it its semi-permeable to small fighters. Seeing as the Rebs are the biggest power against the Empire as of ROTJ, the amount of fighters we saw them using, I don't think, would be enough to destroy allof the turrets on the DS2s surface. And when you factor in the that they'll be being chased TIE fighters, theres almost no chance that they can kill the DS2's offensive power.

And you are assuming that its shield is the same.... why? DSII is bigger (by a lot) and more powerful. I agree with you that starfighters would have little or no effect on a completed DSII, even with its shields down. I also agree with you that the Rebels would never have had a chance to get enough capital ships together to be able to destroy the DSII through a conventional attack.

[Master of Ossus]

only conventionally built star wars ships would be completely helpless. Take an imperator sized hull and build it from the ground up to include a mini-superlaser down the length of the ship. Engineer it to take the full power output of the ship. Build enough of them and you should be able to create holes in the shield, and maybe cause some hull damage.

This is purely speculation, and the Rebel Alliance had nowhere near the engineering skill or resources to construct a group of these ships. If they built only one or two, they would be destroyed before they were able to attack the station because they would not be able to be heavily protected.

BTW, mini-superlasers are longer than an ISD, even the Dark Saber was.

[consequences]

the length of the mini superlaser is dependant on how much power you want out of it, we know that similar weapons have been designed much smaller than that from AOTC. I thought the point was whether capital ships in general could successfully attack, not necessarily the Rebel Alliance, which would be insignifigant in a true fleet battle, much less one revolving around a Death Star.

[Doomriser]

Here is the most accurate information on can find of the specifics of the first Death Star crew. The crew of the first Death Star design was 27,048 officers; 774,576 troops, pilots, and crewers; 378,576 support and maintenance crewers; 400,000 support droids; and 25,000 stormtroopers.

That was the minimum crew too.

"The population of 31,622,963 postulated for the Death Star I in The Technical Book of Science Fiction Films is much more reasonable For the small size of the station assumed in this book, this means a surface density of crewman of 2217.46 / km². However the crew live and work on at least hundreds of layered decks throughout at least the top few kilometres of the the station's skin. Thus we still have problems with underpopulated corridors."
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds.html#population

[Doomriser]

This is from the Mandel blueprints (which is unfortunately replete with size underestimates)
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/blue/dsblue2.gif

Giving the DS 31 million crew.

Also, from the Star Wars Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels first edition

P. 34

"The station had a crew of over 265,000 soldiers. Gunners, ground troops, starship support crew, and pilots brought the total onboard personnel to nearly 1 million beings. Even more amazing, these figures indicated minimum crew standards." [no emphasis]

[Patrick Degan]

One large, powerful superweapon will always be more tactically efficent than hundreds or even thousands of smaller weapons. If you want an analogy, consider the atomic bomb.

The United States could have kept hitting Japan with fire raids. They could have kept up a naval blockade and starved the island out. They could have invaded Japan and eventually conquered the island. Problem is that the costs in materiél, time, and lives would have been horrendous in comparison with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An invasion would have entailed a whole year's extention of World War II, with a half million casualties on the American side and twice that number, at minimum, on the Japanese side. Additionally, the Japanese still had armies in the field in China and SE Asia which would have continued fighting on. A blockade would have resulted in mass starvation of the Japanese population. Continued fire raids would have lost their effectiveness once the last Japanese city was reduced to ashes. Two atomic bombs, however, decided the issue in four days.

The Death Star is overkill. That's the whole idea. An offensive military force such as the Empire, or the United States in World War II, will always opt for deployment of overwhelming force to achieve victory in the quickest possible timeframe. The Death Star is designed to win wars by the scientific application of mass destruction and terror. Blow up a few planets, and you terrify other planets into surrender. In battle, it is always the best option to end a fight as quickly as possible to preserve the fighting strength of the army through the long-haul of a campaign or a whole war. In war, it is desirable to fight and win it as quickly as possible, as protracted warfare drains national resources. That's wisdom direct from Sun-Tzu. Furthermore, a random-walk strategy for the Death Star would make it impossible for an enemy to predict which worlds would be hit, which means they would be forced to spread their forces out to protect every world likely to be hit by a Death Star attack, which means they are weakened everywhere and vulnerable at any given point.

That's the advantage of overkill.

If you have the means to end enemy resistance quickly and capture whole worlds intact, you have their resources and populations added to your assets rather than having to destroy them outright. Sun-Tzu said that it is always desirable to capture an army, a city, a country intact rather than to destroy it utterly. The Death Star, as a terror weapon as well as a powerful tactical asset, provides the Empire with the means to end wars quickly.