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Is the Imperator Star Destroyer (Devastator) superior to the Imperator II (Avenger)?

For:

1- heavier dorsal Heavy Turbolaser Turrets: the barrels are larger.

2- visible Heavy Ion Cannon turrets

2- lateral quad heavy turbolaser turrets: position on the brim trench notches, these give the Imperator a greater radius of firepower for its heavy weapons, and serve to partially alleviate the lack of visible, heavy weapons on the ventral surface. The Avenger model doesn't appear to have them.

3- A well-protected bridge, much less visible windows or nodules. Maybe if the Executor had a bridge like that it wouldn't have died it's horrible death?

Against:

1- the dorsal heavy turbolasers on the Imperator II allow for a huge 64 barrel array as opposed to the paltry 12 barrel array on the Imperator- allowing for increased fire but at the price of slightly less massive barrels.

2- the Imperator II presumably has heavier shields and armor according to EU material IIRC.


The question is, why not design the Imperator II with some of the more admirable features of the original?

It is unclear why the design changes were made, but the Imperator II is almost certainly designed more for planetary bombardment and fleet battles than the original one was. The changes in design are probably the result of a slight change in roles for the ship, and an optimization for a different set of goals.

Maybe the Imperator II didn't so much succeed the Imperator but complement it in the shipyards? Could be like the Soviets did with their kit, for example:

- MiG-29 9.13 FULCRUM-C (with extra fuel and a few other minor improvements) didn't replace the MiG-29 9.12 FULCRUM-A, but complemented it.

IIRC in between ANH and ESB they (ILM) changed the array in between the domes on the bridge tower on the original Devastator model to make it look more similar to the Avenger type, but the triple baffles on the engine and presumably all the other features remained.

This is good because it means a modernization/upgrade program on the Imperator I vessels. If they're going to replace such an obvious sensor array, maybe they replaced the supposedly less effective shield generators?

It's possible that the two models were designed to serve together, but I find it more likely that the ISD-I was phased out because the ISD-II served the roles that Star Destroyers were being tasked with to a greater degree than the ISD-I. It was probably a change of roles switch.

The ISD 2 sacrifices most of the ISD-1's ion cannons for more turbolasers (and it goes with eight quad turrets rather than six twin). It also appears to mount much more individually powerful guns (between I estimate 2 to 5 times more powerful than the ISD-1 guns) Obviously, this makes it better at ship to ship combat, as well as bombardment. IT also gives the ship more offensive weapons to use against fighter interdiction (more TLs to supplement point defense.)

Its also possible this increase in the number of guns and types (individual turrets and batteries) is also an attempt to allow for more diverse applications of firepower (how this works, I dunno. Individual turrets probably carry greater punch per barrel, but the batteries, involving multiple turrets, probably can generate larger barrages with consecutively greater punch, but each bolt is still weaker. The HTL turrets probably combine both concept individually powerful bolt fired en-masse.)

Although no stats yet exist for point defense on the ISD-2, I suspect it will have them. Possibly this capability was expanded as well as its TL capacity.

Depending on your sources, the ISD-2 also has better shielding, but some of the stats don't match this. I generally assume they reinforced the shields as well (And I think the hull perhaps.)

The ISD-2 seems to be made more for raw combat, designed to slug it out close up (and at distance) with more powerful opponents a well as larger groups of smaller opponents. Its main role is pure destruction (it may also be that the Navy decided the ISD did not need nearly so many ion cannons and decided to deveot ethe additional space to increasing firepower.)

Actually, the removal of ion-cannons and addition of turbolasers seems to indicate a shift from fighting against other ships and fleets to attacking planets. This is in keeping with the Imperial control of the Galaxy. Once you've conquered territory, it's much more important to be able to hit a planet then battle with non-existent fleets.

Master of Ossus wrote:Actually, the removal of ion-cannons and addition of turbolasers seems to indicate a shift from fighting against other ships and fleets to attacking planets. This is in keeping with the Imperial control of the Galaxy. Once you've conquered territory, it's much more important to be able to hit a planet then battle with non-existent fleets.

Depends on the purpose. In Rogue Squadron, ion cannons were considered more useful in knocking down the shields protecting the Borleias base because they wouldn't do the kind of damage to the property/structures that turbolasers would. If you're intending to take the place more or less intact, then ion cannons are probably more of the way to go.

Odds are though with stronger planetry shielding - including both the Hoth version and full shield planetary shields - ion cannon fire is too weak to penetrate effectively, whereupon we have things as thought at the time of the Ukio incident in The Last Command. That is, that only MASSIVE offensive bombardments of turbolaser and warhead fire can breach the shields, but the resulting attack generally results in chances of greater damage and devastation than one may want.

Its possible ISD-2's were meant to better allow Imperials to overwhelm shielded planets, but I suspect that if we follow the planetary-bombardment reasoning, it was to make a Single-ISD BDZ both more effective and more rapid/destructive. Witht he loss of the Death Star and only a handful of Executors to begin with, emphasizing the threat of a BDZ against unneeded/rebellious worlds would become more useful. Its possible the 20 ion cannons the ISD-2 retained were sufficient to knock down Borelias-like planetary shielding after one or two sustained turbolaser salvos.

I still wouldn't rule out increased offensive capability though. An ISD-2 would be more capable of shredding most planetary defense fleets, and with the addition of the Mon Cals to the alliance, it may have been felt that a greater edge in firepower would give the Imperator an edge in combat with the star cruisers.

Also, I dont know yet if they've totally conquered the whole galaxy. IIRC from teh ISB, they still discover a new planet every 207 minutes.. and teh tens of millions of protectors as well as the million member systems of the empire is a small fraction of its overall size (and for that matter, only a small frraction of the numbe rof inhabited systems..) So conquest is still an issue no doubt.

the replacement of the 12 superheavy cannons to a a array of 64 heavy cannons seems a move to essantially saracfice a bit of the individual power of the bolts but allowed far more to be fired.

The ISD II seemed to me as far as this cannnon change is concerned is move toward close range combat where rate of fire seems more important then the firepower of each individual cannon.

Heavy cruiser vs Light cuiser armamant of world war II