Tactical Exploitation: The ISD

[Abacus]

I'm sure as any hardcore Star Wars Imperial fan will know, there is a famous quote about the Imperial-class Star Destroyer from the EU:

An Alliance Special Operations man said that the Star Destroyer had 174,000 design flaws waiting to be exploited.

This is taken from the ISD II page on Wookiepedia. It got me thinking: just what are a few of those 174,000 design flaws? How can they be exploited? Are there tactics involved that can deflect people trying to take advantage of those flaws? This really hit in when I came across the "Which ship would you use" thread. I personally love the ISD above any other ship in the SW universe. It was what had the most impact, visually, on me as a kid. I even had a little pewter ISD toy from back in the 80s.

Input? Ideas? Thoughts?

[The Romulan Republic]

From memory, the most obvious ones are:

a) the blind spot behind the bridge tower.

b) the exposed bridge. Though this one is only a problem if shields come down.

Edit: its also a flaw that's exceedingly common in the Star Wars universe, so its not a point against just the ISD.

[Stark]

The 'flaws' referred to in the stupid wiki will be things like 'fluid pump #3421819 can fail when required to handle secondardy and tertiary loads' and 'known overrun error in code for lounge display script B' and 'void 778BB2 at frame 903 reserved for cancelled upgrade' and 'internal baffle assembly 78-1257 paint does not adhere to OH&S legislation'. All complex mechanical shit has stuff that is less than perfect or not as expected, but not worth actually fixing.

[JointStrikeFighter]

173,000 of them will be variants of "the door to supply locker 4B-58-91A cant be opened when the door to supply locker 4B-58-91B is open"

EDIT: Dammit!

[FedRebel]

So, with all those trivial things padding the list, I'm guessing that "Alliance Special Operations" is a division of the Imperial Janitorial Corps.

Great now I have "Scrubs: IN SPAACCEE!!" in my head.

[Raxmei]

Is that just a misquote of Booster Terrick complaining about how big a pain in the ass it is to keep his personal star destroyer running?

[Bakustra]

Is that just a misquote of Booster Terrick complaining about how big a pain in the ass it is to keep his personal star destroyer running?

The original quote came from a WEG sourcebook, and it was an off-hand joke in a list of slang used by Rebel Special Forces.

[Omeganian]

Are the 37 085 crewmembers counted among the flaws? And if they are, are any of their different limbs counted separately?

[dworkin]

Is one of the flaws "Ship is entirely crewed by nameless extras who will only get a mention when Vader strangles them."?

That's probably another one "Ship is understaffed due to Vader strangling crew when cranky."

[Abacus]

You guys are getting a bit off topic...disregarding possible mechanical failures, what are some tactics you would use against the ISD in general?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Oh ffs; its not a video game boss you have to min-max to beat; it's an engineered piece of military hardware crewed by professional soldiers who know and undertsand it's strengths and limitations.

Saying stuff like "stay behind it and shoot the back" isn't going to work because they are going to know you will try it and act accordingly.

Go inside and shoot the captain to defeat American aircraft carriers wool

[Eternal_Freedom]

Tactics to use against it? Ram it with a dreadnought. Or get a Jedi to pull it out of orbit and crash it on a planet. Or, I dunno, have a more powerful ship to shoot it to pieces.

[NecronLord]

To address the topic, the chief visible weakness seems to be that all its very heavy armament is on the dorsal side with some mid-sized guns in the trenches. Presumably it makes it relatively easy to limit the firepower it can use against another ship on its ventral side. Until it rolls over.

This is probably a compromise on the monetary or mass front though, as other designs (say, separatist vessels) only have small numbers of super-heavy guns too, that don't cover all arcs, and you want to be able to concentrate the guns somehow.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The ISD has most of it's guns in the side trenches IIRC, plus the heavy batteries on the dorsal superstructure. Also, they weren't desisgned to fight broadside or up and down, but to focus firepower in the forward arc, which they seem rather capable of doing.

Really though, in a space battle the placement of heavy guns doesn't really matter when as Necron Lord said, you can roll the ship easily. We see the VSD Corrupter doing this to fend off fighter attack at Alderaan in "The Bacta War."

[NecronLord]

The ISD has most of it's guns in the side trenches IIRC, plus the heavy batteries on the dorsal superstructure. Also, they weren't desisgned to fight broadside or up and down, but to focus firepower in the forward arc, which they seem rather capable of doing.

Not quite. They're parallel to the centerline. The ones at the back have to shoot through the ones at the front, to fire at a target the ISD is accelerating directly towards. The ship has to be aiming to have the enemy (as it mostly will be anyway if its underside is vulnerable) pass above it in an engagement if it wants to bring all eight heavy turrets to bear on one target, or to the side of it, to bring eight to bear.

Really though, in a space battle the placement of heavy guns doesn't really matter when as Necron Lord said, you can roll the ship easily. We see the VSD Corrupter doing this to fend off fighter attack at Alderaan in "The Bacta War."

If anything, it may be a stronger design than the separatist ships with the guns at the front, because they can't fire at a target to their sides or above, and are very limited in firing arc. Given the Munificent's horrific firepower (enough to one-shot an ISD, go through and hit the one behind if fully charged) that may be a necessity to handle the gun's recoil though.

[Baffalo]

When it says design flaws, it doesn't specify that they can be used to destroy the ship. It might be an example of just how well ASF knows the Imperial ship inside and out, and might be a subtle way of saying, "We've got technicians going over every nut and bolt of an ISD's plans looking for weaknesses". Makes sense, because if they can find a way for one man to take out a ship like that, they can damage or cripple a huge portion of the Imperial fleet with little risk.

[NecronLord]

When it says design flaws, it doesn't specify that they can be used to destroy the ship. It might be an example of just how well ASF knows the Imperial ship inside and out, and might be a subtle way of saying, "We've got technicians going over every nut and bolt of an ISD's plans looking for weaknesses". Makes sense, because if they can find a way for one man to take out a ship like that, they can damage or cripple a huge portion of the Imperial fleet with little risk.

Also, it depends on the mission. If there's a way that a Rebel Agent can say, hack the turbolifts into behaving in an unsafe manner, that's a design flaw, and it's one that could become important. Hack a turbolift to say, slam into another one, and you've got a way for one rebel agent to assassinate say, Darth Vader, or the Emperor.

[RogueIce]

When it says design flaws, it doesn't specify that they can be used to destroy the ship. It might be an example of just how well ASF knows the Imperial ship inside and out, and might be a subtle way of saying, "We've got technicians going over every nut and bolt of an ISD's plans looking for weaknesses". Makes sense, because if they can find a way for one man to take out a ship like that, they can damage or cripple a huge portion of the Imperial fleet with little risk.

Also, it depends on the mission. If there's a way that a Rebel Agent can say, hack the turbolifts into behaving in an unsafe manner, that's a design flaw, and it's one that could become important. Hack a turbolift to say, slam into another one, and you've got a way for one rebel agent to assassinate say, Darth Vader, or the Emperor.

Indeed. Heck it could be doing something like Luke and Mara's little adventure on the Chimaera in DFR. Something you could use to pull some shenanigans on the ship and maybe escape, but nothing that'll blow it up as if it had a faulty warp core or anything.

[Ahriman238]

Well, In Dark Force Rising there's an exposed sensor tower on the ventral side. It's somewhat armored but a reasonably skilled fighter pilot can destroy it and lead the ISD blind to that side.

In the X-Wing books a single squadron of X-Wings can fire off all their torpedoes in one volley that will overwhelm the shields on one side. Of course, this is common knowledge, so any decent captain will immediatly roll or otherwise manuever to keep the vulnerable side away from the enemy.

The ships have massive crews and large complements of ground troops. Supposedly they have food, water, and air for a year or so, but that must take up a ton of space.

Most Star Destroyer captains appear to be idiots. See the men in ESB who very nearly managed a 3-ship collision. Quite a trick in space.

They have vidscreens. Vader can choke people over the vidscreen without bothering to come down and do it in person, which would be more work for him and just maybe less turnover among the command staff.

Their computer hardware looks like it came from the 70s or something.

This is one for the Death Star too, but thanks to the Thrawn trilogy books it also applies to ISDs. Why do they even have man-sized garbage chutes in the detention area?

[RogueIce]

This is one for the Death Star too, but thanks to the Thrawn trilogy books it also applies to ISDs. Why do they even have man-sized garbage chutes in the detention area?

Because that's a lot more convenient than dragging the body into a turbolift and then out to someplace else. Duh.

Most Star Destroyer captains appear to be idiots. See the men in ESB who very nearly managed a 3-ship collision. Quite a trick in space.

Well let's be fair, with 25,000 or so Star Destroyers (and thus 25,000 or so captains) you're bound to have a few dummies here or there.

Of course, Death Squadron is supposed to be the best of the best, so... I guess shit happens. Personally, I wonder what all their TIE fighters were doing that they only had like what, five or so chasing the Falcon at once? I guess they were all over Hoth, but I dunno.

In the X-Wing books a single squadron of X-Wings can fire off all their torpedoes in one volley that will overwhelm the shields on one side. Of course, this is common knowledge, so any decent captain will immediatly roll or otherwise manuever to keep the vulnerable side away from the enemy.

This is what those 36 TIE fighters and 12 TIE interceptors are there for. And they probably do reasonably well against units that aren't led by Wedge Antilles.

[Abacus]

And they probably do reasonably well against units that aren't led by Wedge Antilles.

Or against anyone that isn't a main character...

[Cesario]

This is one for the Death Star too, but thanks to the Thrawn trilogy books it also applies to ISDs. Why do they even have man-sized garbage chutes in the detention area?

Because that's a lot more convenient than dragging the body into a turbolift and then out to someplace else. Duh.

Best answer to this question ever.

[The Romulan Republic]

And all too likely to be true, given the Empire's treatment of prisoners.

[Ahriman238]

Because that's a lot more convenient than dragging the body into a turbolift and then out to someplace else. Duh.

Fair enough, but you must admit it's a semi-serious flaw in their security. Prisoners can blast open the grating and hop down, or (as in the books) outside forces wishing to stage a jailbreak can break into the far less secure trach compactor and climb up into the detention area, evading almost all the guards, cameras, etc.

This is what those 36 TIE fighters and 12 TIE interceptors are there for. And they probably do reasonably well against units that aren't led by Wedge Antilles.

Yeah, that's another flaw. Imperial fighters are a lot less technologically advanced, and their fighter pilots less skilled, than the Rebellions. Generally Imperials are dismissive of fighters as a threat, but their own are mostly an afterthought to prevent their ships from being swarmed.

IIRC there's a bit of fluff about an Imperial Fleet regulation against launching fighters against rebels without at least a 3 to 1 advantage in numbers...

[JointStrikeFighter]

Yeah, that's another flaw. Imperial fighters are a lot less technologically advanced, and their fighter pilots less skilled, than the Rebellions.

This isn't true at all; every time we saw them in the movies they achieved generally 1:1 combat ratios against anyone who wasn't an ace.

As for less technologically advanced that is also not true; TIEs simply have differing design priorities to x-wings. They emphasize acceleration and turning performance to maximize space superiority performance. The x-wings "superior" features; shields, more powerful guns, hyperdrive are irrelevant to its dogfight performance and even compromise it. Instead they reflect it's real (eu be dammned) role as more a long range strike fighter.

To use a modern analogy the TIE fighter is an F-16 whereas the X-wing is an F-15E Strike Eagle.