Why did the New Republic have such a small fleet?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

4) NR doesn't tax heavily and could only get funding for a Defense Force that contained about 5,000 less capital ships (ISD Size Range I'd think).

That was only during the Black Fleet Crisis era, we ought ot assume the republic should have recovered back to a 100k vessels atleast by the early NJO era.

Well, if they really had 100,000 warships, it is hard to believe even with incompetent leadership they'll have trouble with the Vong, who started out with perhaps 1000 warships and IIRC even during the invasion of Coruscant, there were what, 10000, 30000, definitely not one hundred thousand counted.

[Illuminatus Primus]

It is one whole galaxy. The Senators are not going to allow local fleet elements to get involved, tying them up where they're not needed. The distant Outer Rim worlds were probably just protectorates or allies and were just cut loose by the political morons. It wasn't until Ithor that we really see action against the NR. The Vong arrived w/ several thousand heavy ships and proceeded to break open Sernpidal and turn it into their Kuat. They did this w/ several other worlds too. They immediately began growing and producing. The whole idea is to take the NR by blitzkrieg before they can react and adjust. It failed. 100 k is very reasonable considering the whole galaxy. The NR has also had to deal w/ whole fleets of collaborators. I'd give the Vong say 30 k big ships at least as of Destiny's Way.

Remember they had so many interdictors they were able to pretty well plug up major hyperlanes. The Vong fleet isn't "small" my any stretch of the imagination, and neither is the NR's.

[Darth Yoshi]

God you don't get that a lot of EU scaling of the GFFA is just plain wrong.

If it were that easy to punch through an ISD's shields, don't you think no one would bother building such monstrosities?

Fighters alone cannot hope to penetrate the defenses of ISD-size vessels and above. Fighters are hopeless for stopping anything larger than an Imperial medium destroyer, apparently.

Show me an instance in the official realm where an ISD was verified to be shot down by fighters alone.

Fighters can't take down an ISD. The flak from the TIEs and the light guns will rip any fighter group to shreds. It'd be like the asteroid belt, but without the asteroids and the ISDs actually trying to destroy the fighters rather than capturing them.

I'm just pointing that out.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Isn't that what I just said?

And I'm not sure the light guns on the SD are really anti-fighter. Since we have official evidence to the contrary and the strafing fighters in the movies not getting torn apart before they get w/in one klick of the ship.

[His Divine Shadow]

Thier manuverability and firepower make them lethal to anything smaller than a Star Destroyer automatically

Why? I'd certanly not give them much of a chance against dreadnaughts, VSD's, Interdictors and such, not counting that these ships have lots of AA weapons, said fighters would need alot of torpedoes, high yield ones, focused in one spot, at the same time.

In large numbers those fighters would be able to swarm over star Destroyers and nail Torpedoes all over the hull

And in so doing effectively nothing but wasting ordinance while getting picked off like apples from a tree.

Imperial accuracy seems to tapper off a bit at small ranges, a pair of y-wings skimming the hull of the ISD would be free to hit any target in front of them easily

I beg to differ, known calculations on imperial accuracy is 60-80% for lighter weapons

[His Divine Shadow]

Well, if they really had 100,000 warships, it is hard to believe even with incompetent leadership they'll have trouble with the Vong, who started out with perhaps 1000 warships and IIRC even during the invasion of Coruscant, there were what, 10000, 30000, definitely not one hundred thousand counted.

Not really, the galaxy is large, and I don't think they started out with just a thousand ships, even so at Coruscant the Vong had 30k ships or so and lost most of it, and in total over the entire war their casualties is about 1/3rd of their numbers.

[His Divine Shadow]

And I'm not sure the light guns on the SD are really anti-fighter. Since we have official evidence to the contrary and the strafing fighters in the movies not getting torn apart before they get w/in one klick of the ship.

They might fulfill a double role, or they might have even smaller weapons for AA weapons that are not mentioned.

[Darth Fanboy]

IceHawk did you fall asleep reading "The Bacta War" again?

I think the light guns on the SD are anti fighter, remember in ANH when they were targeting the droids' escape pod. Instinctively targeting small moving objects leads me to believe thats what they're there for.

Remember Darksaber, when Daala reunited the fractured Empire's warlords and formed a unified fleet. Their strike against the NR would have worked had it not been for the Jedi and Dalla's incompetence (wasting a bunch of ISDs and an ECS on Yavin 4)

If an enemy decides to hit multiple places at once how can a mobile fleet like the Fifth be effective? You could divide the fleet, and then reduce its strength signfcantly or you can allow targets to be destroyed. The NR was so caught up in racial bias and the political games of the bureaucracy that it could not rebuild as the Empire had post-clone wars. The NR constiuents also wanted to ensure they would never havea political takeover such as palpatine's again and in oing so they decentralized the Republic to the point where it has a role morelike todays United Nations than as an official governing body.

Thier manuverability and firepower make them lethal to anything smaller than a Star Destroyer automatically

Why? I'd certanly not give them much of a chance against dreadnaughts, VSD's, Interdictors and such, not counting that these ships have lots of AA weapons, said fighters would need alot of torpedoes, high yield ones, focused in one spot, at the same time.

Don't forget Lancer Frigates which are capital ships designed for anti starfighter actions. In fact, the smaller the capital ship, thebetteer it can deal with Starfighters because of ighter weaponry more apt to the task and sublight maneuverability that would be vital as well.

In Rogue Squadron, just one of these craft on its own was enough to make the most elite squadron in the galaxy nearly shit itself, along with the Y-wing they were escorting, it was sheer luck and a close call that got the pilots out of that (thanks to the SW equivalent of technobabble and actions taken by the stupidest Jedi ever, Corran Horn)

the Empire did have its smaller ships though that could use hyperspace and torpedoes to their advantage. Assault gunboats were mass prodcued and used in that aspect quite often, also Sentinel-Class assault shuttles.

[IceHawk-151]

One problem with the Lancer-class Frigate. It's slower than the fighters. Most every fighter the Republic fields can outrun them. Slower ships like Y-wings and B-Wings might be to big to get out of the way, but an X-Wing squadron could easily avoid one of these frigates. The Rouge's had to take out the Lancer because it was threatening the bombers, which I believe were crucial to the mission.

The weapon we see tracking the Escape is, in my opinion, not a Turbolaser. It seemed like a Heavy Laser Cannon set up to fire on anything in or around the vicinity of the hangar bay. They seemed pretty confident that it could damage the Escape Pod, but that is unshielded and has no combat armor.

Pellaeon's VSD fleet would be unstoppable by even Palpatine's standard. The 24 ISD's assigned to each sector have alot of space to cover and even they would not be able to stop Pelleaon's squadron. Anything less than 10 ISD's would get mauled by the Vics. Any task force smaller would be hard pressed to survive long enough to take out any of the VSD's. However a war is not made up of a massive hit and fade tactic. Pellaeon's gole was to cauise as much damage in as little time as possible to underdefended worlds.

[Darth Fanboy]

True the frigates are slower than the fighters, but the Frigate was blocking the Fighter's escape vector. If the ROgues were covering it alone then Corran would not have needed to lead the whole wing of Ywings on an attack run using the near treknobabble tactic of "sending out targeting telemetry."

The weapon we see tracking the Escape is, in my opinion, not a Turbolaser. It seemed like a Heavy Laser Cannon set up to fire on anything in or around the vicinity of the hangar bay. They seemed pretty confident that it could damage the Escape Pod, but that is unshielded and has no combat armor.

So just because your opinion says so i have to consider it an htL? give me some more proof to make it reasonable. Theres a human gunner sitting behind the thing doing targeting. I would think the HTLs would be at least a bit larger than what was depicted in ANH.

I agree though that Pellaeon's VSD fleet while working for Warlord Teradoc was incredibly powerful, however that fleet was a large fleet intended to wipe out an enemy for good, and lets not forget that 12 ISDs under the command of an idiot like Daala were surviving rather well for a bit. The fleet of Crimson ISDs were probaby Teradoc masing almost all of his availiable forces in a vain attempt to destroy HArsk, should any of his other enemies decided to attack using a hit and fade it may have made any victory by Pellaeon seem trivial.

and one last thing just for fun.....

Remember Palpatine's standard for unstoppable though. 1 Death Star, a large Imperial fleet led by the Executor, and later on, the Galaxy Gun and Eclipse Class SSD and an enormous Imperial Fleet.
Both times though those got defeated

[Kerneth]

True the frigates are slower than the fighters, but the Frigate was blocking the Fighter's escape vector. If the ROgues were covering it alone then Corran would not have needed to lead the whole wing of Ywings on an attack run using the near treknobabble tactic of "sending out targeting telemetry."

Corran Horn didn't emply "treknobabble" and "send out target telemetry". Rather, he had the Y-Wings lock onto his starfighter's IFF (identify friend/foe) beacon and fire their torpedos at him, then he flew towards the Lancer on a collision course, juking to avoid incoming fire, dove under the ship, and pulled up as he passed beneath it, causing the tracking torpedos to plow into the Lancer. It was actually a fairly reasonable tactic to use, imo.