Fleet Strength to take on DS1

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2002-10-21 02:15pm

How much by way of ships, fighters, other stuff would you bring in a serious effort to take on the First Death Star? Assume the Exhaust ports have been covered, and they have upgraded the fighter defenses in general to be about 5-10 times as heavy as seen. What off the wall tactics or technology would you use to try to even the odds if you didn't have enough resources to win in a straight fight?

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2002-10-21 02:17pm

Load up Mon Calamari cruisers with explosives of all kinds and turn them into big bombs, crash them into the Death Star and hope you hit something critical before you run out of ships.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2002-10-21 02:22pm

Personaly, I would recomend at least trying to do something about the shields and capital ship guns first, but that's similar to a tactic i've used in an RPG in the past.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-10-21 02:23pm

Stravo wrote:Load up Mon Calamari cruisers with explosives of all kinds and turn them into big bombs, crash them into the Death Star and hope you hit something critical before you run out of ships.

Unless they were very stupid and put ssomething vital close to the surface, I doubt that would work. You'd have to get through sheild, turbolasers, and fighters. Any full out fleet assualt with anything less than several thousand capital ships is going to fail. Now if it has it's own fleet deployed and ready for battle that number will go up by an order of magnitude.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2002-10-21 02:26pm

Quite frankly, it's doubtful that any faction save the GE has the ships to deal with the Death star. The rebels certainly do not have the fleet strength to deal with a fully functional death star - this is the reason why they were willing to bet everything in destroying it while under construction. Theyknew that once fully opertaional, the death star would be invulnerable to their fleets.

Lord knows how many Imperial ships would be needed to destroy the Deathstar if it went rogue and decided to blow up Coruscant.

If you really wanted to get creative you could try and insert a commando team on board with a few nukes and they could try and get as depe inside the station as possible and set the things off...but that's almost fantasy.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2002-10-21 02:27pm

I'm asuming it only has its organic support elements, and yeah the force I would field against it would be at least a couple thousand capital ships. The main vulnerability would be the fact that fighters can get under the shield. The problem with this is that the turbolasers can be set to flak bursts, so fighter losses are going to be near total until you can effectively deal with a fair number of the surface emplacements.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-10-21 02:30pm

consequences wrote:I'm asuming it only has its organic support elements, and yeah the force I would field against it would be at least a couple thousand capital ships. The main vulnerability would be the fact that fighters can get under the shield. The problem with this is that the turbolasers can be set to flak bursts, so fighter losses are going to be near total until you can effectively deal with a fair number of the surface emplacements.

You can get under part of it's sheilds, it does however have particle and ray shields under those penetrated by the X-wings.

The best tactic for a fleet assualt on the DS would be to concentrate all the firepower you have on one smallish area. Drop the shields locally and start scouring the turbolasers off and keep pounding until you hit something vital. Use some of your ships as escort for the bombardment fleet and the fighters as further cover.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-21 03:09pm

Except the DS can Easily Rotate and can blow cap ships up by the dozens per sho(Even .10% Power shots should be able to take as many as twenty prehaps more ISDs in a Strait line)

Also the problem is the high shield strength of DS means that not only are you going to need thousands of Ships but also Hundreds of Interductors as given the relative speed with which even the DS can jump to Hyperspace one is fucked if it does a Micro-jump out and gives it a mintue or two to recharge its shields

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-10-21 03:11pm

The goal should be to clear out the anti capital ship weapons over an area of the surface, followed by a close in attack aimed at blasting through any armor and firing into the stations interior decks. Basically blast a crater big enough to fly capital ships into in it till you can reach something important, like the main reactor. That's not going to be a quick process.

The only the main reactor has the power to destroy the station, but many of the massive power feeds and other unknown power cells and equipment within the station could unleash enough energy to cripple the station.

I'd launch my attack near or possibly within the superlaser dish, which heavy initial fire used to knock out the emitters to kill the super laser. Flying low almost into the dish would reduce the area that needed to be clear of surface weapons, and destroying the power feeds behind it wont be good for the station.

I figure 5000 destroyer rate ships minimal, and even then I'd fear being overwhelmed by the millions of TIE's the Death Star 1 could carry if it wanted to. I'd also want 24 or so interdictors spread around to keep the thing out of hyperspace.

If one was on hand, a smaller superlaser would be very useful. I'd use an opened moderate power shot to help disable the DS's own main weapon to avoid a flakburst killing my whole fleet, and then once the armor is breached, fire another shot using all remaining energy into the blast gap aimed at the reactor.With luck this shot would reach it and destroy the station. Though the blast would take most of the fleet with it.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-10-21 03:15pm

Mr Bean wrote:Except the DS can Easily Rotate and can blow cap ships up by the dozens per sho(Even .10% Power shots should be able to take as many as twenty prehaps more ISDs in a Strait line)

Except for two things, that's right.

1) you can keep moving your ships to keep them in geostationary orbit over the DS

2) The DS1 isn't generally credited with the ability to actually target capships.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-10-21 03:19pm

Forgot to add. The gal is to clear out enough turbolasers so that your fleet can attack without return fire. This likely means killing tens if not hundreds of thousands of stations, but once the initial attack force passes through the shield, one shot from anything will kill one. If X-Wing laser fire will do it then megaton level LTL's will do it to. A single ISD could wipe out thousands of stations a minute, though it would be rather quickly killed.

Stormbringer, the superlaser has to flak burst to create its plant killing effect. Thus may have the ability to do this at much shorter ranges. , wiping out swarms of ships at once.

However approaching close to the surface and orbiting around the station, while exposing the fleet to alot of surface fire, would allow for it to approach and destroy the emitters without taking a blast.

Thus however assuming that the ships can hyper in close or the DS comes out of hyperspace into an ambush. If it is the attacking force then the fleet is in deep shit.

Spartan · Post by **Spartan** » 2002-10-21 03:53pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Except for two things, that's right.

1) you can keep moving your ships to keep them in geostationary orbit over the DS

2) The DS1 isn't generally credited with the ability to actually target capships.

True the DS can't rotate faster than those ships can reorient themselves. But your talking about hundreds if not thousands of ships in close proximity to the DS. How are you going to coordinate them all; there more a threat to each other than the DS in close like that.

The superlaser is a non-issue, once it discharges you have 8+ hours till it can refire. We have no proof that it can be fired at less than planet killer level. Simply split your fleet, and wait for it to fire; then jump everybody in.

The key here is to collapse or circumvent the shield, once there gone the DS will go down easy. If the Mon Cal crusiers can punch through its hide and make the whole station quake (as per ROTJ novel), killing it after is not a problem.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-21 05:04pm

The superlaser is a non-issue, once it discharges you have 8+ hours till it can refire. We have no proof that it can be fired at less than planet killer level. Simply split your fleet, and wait for it to fire; then jump everybody in.

*COUGH COUGH FUCKING COUGH COUGH, The Fucking PROTYPE could fire at greatly reduced power-levels for anti-cap ship work and your telling me the Production Model could not?

hvb · Post by **hvb** » 2002-10-21 05:17pm

Sea Skimmer has some good Ideas, but they rely on a fleet the size of 20% of the Emperial Navy (25k ISD, as opposed to the Emperial Starfleet of 2e6 or so ISD) and an Eclipse class or some other superweapon ship.

With anything less then this my approach would have to be an attack on the logistics train:
1) Intercept and destroy any and all supply ships headed for the DS.
2) BDZ any major resupply facilities it relies on.
(this may cost a few trillion civilian losses, but then thats revolution in action for you

)
3) Hope like hell they run out of something critical before I run out of ships!

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-21 05:22pm

1) Intercept and destroy any and all supply ships headed for the DS.
2) BDZ any major resupply facilities it relies on.

The DS is self sufficent having room to grow its own food and supposdly enough Materal Supplies to susitance itself and its squadrens for over 5 Year.... Easy...

A ISD has enough room for 1 Year of Parts and Supplies and the Maw Cluster held out quite well for over 15 Years...

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2002-10-21 05:44pm

Mr Bean wrote:
The superlaser is a non-issue, once it discharges you have 8+ hours till it can refire. We have no proof that it can be fired at less than planet killer level. Simply split your fleet, and wait for it to fire; then jump everybody in.
*COUGH COUGH FUCKING COUGH COUGH, The Fucking PROTYPE could fire at greatly reduced power-levels for anti-cap ship work and your telling me the Production Model could not?

Bean,

I thought the main difference between the DS1 and DS2 was that it could recharge fast enough to be used as an anticapital ship weapon. The DS1 could not reliably target anything smnaller than a planet and it took something like 8 to 16 hours to recharge between each shot. According to the Death Star techinical companion.

The DS2 was supposed to be the next step up in advancement.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2002-10-21 06:16pm

*COUGH COUGH FUCKING COUGH COUGH, The Fucking PROTYPE could fire at greatly reduced power-levels for anti-cap ship work and your telling me the Production Model could not?

All sources mention that Tarkin's Death Star was incapable of firing shots in rapid succession. The fact that the Prototype had that capability is immaterial.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-10-21 06:53pm

hvb wrote:Sea Skimmer has some good Ideas, but they rely on a fleet the size of 20% of the Emperial Navy (25k ISD, as opposed to the Emperial Starfleet of 2e6 or so ISD) and an Eclipse class or some other superweapon ship.

With anything less then this my approach would have to be an attack on the logistics train:
1) Intercept and destroy any and all supply ships headed for the DS.
2) BDZ any major resupply facilities it relies on.
(this may cost a few trillion civilian losses, but then thats revolution in action for you )
3) Hope like hell they run out of something critical before I run out of ships!

Given that it out masses the 25,000 ISD's by several orders of magnitude, if 5000 as I expect could take it on it would not reflect well on the investment in the battle station, at least in terms of normal combat ability.

Anyway I subscribe to Marina's fleet calculations, thus its 5000 out of about 2 million.

I doubt you can starve out a station that big before it blasts every planet and base you have.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-21 07:04pm

We must concluded that Bevel Lemisk and Co where idiots if the Proto-type produced in the Maw was able to nearly hit the Sun-Crusher and fire multiple times in under a half hour

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2002-10-21 07:07pm

How about sending fighters/bombs down the turbolaser shafts?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-21 07:10pm

How about sending fighters/bombs down the turbolaser shafts?

To small, we have rough guess about how the Shaft of the SL is and I'm guess there are multiple Shield layers in thier that one has to destroy to get down through it, plus whatever raw energy is bouncing around in there

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-10-21 07:12pm

StarshipTitanic wrote:How about sending fighters/bombs down the turbolaser shafts?

They're barely large enough for a small fighter. Anyway if you could reach the shaft entrance, then you could also send down a salvo of turbolaser fire to knock it out of action.

Bean the protype was what 1/100 the power and a fraction of the size? You could aim a G5 with much greater ease then Iraq's planned 1000mm super gun that needed a mountain for support, yet both where designed by the same man and worked on the same basic principals.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-21 07:29pm

Bean the protype was what 1/100 the power and a fraction of the size? You could aim a G5 with much greater ease then Iraq's planned 1000mm super gun that needed a mountain for support, yet both where designed by the same man and worked on the same basic principals.

Except it was stated to be a fully funcitoning proto-type that could destroy worlds just the DS Could, You Anology is a bad one it was much smaller but evidently still had much of the same firepower(Which makes sense It lacked Shield Generators and surface emplacments, much of the DS 1 power was going towards the secondary things on top of the Superlaser, The Prototype was just the Superlaser itself

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2002-10-21 08:50pm

"The superlaser's power needed recharging between blasts, limiting the number of firings per day. The weapon could produce a blast scaled to destroy capital ships at a rate of one per minute. The superlaser could only fire planet-destroying yields once per day."

http://www.starwars.com/databank/techno ... er/eu.html

Notice that this is concerning DS1, not DS2, which has it's own entry.

omegaLancer · Post by **omegaLancer** » 2002-10-21 11:24pm

The super laser is the least of your problems, the DS1 was cover with thousand of Turbolasers, a fleet ( no matter how large) would find itself hopelessly out gun by the DS1.

The Commando team option seem the best. sneaking them on board and have them overload the Hypermatter generator....

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Fleet Strength to take on DS1

Fleet Strength to take on DS1

What about the 1000's of Trbo laser station