Star Dreadnought vs Viscount battleship

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2005-06-14 05:26pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote: No, the NR is too pacifistic to build a dedicated warship that big. http://newrepublic.homestead.com/shipstats.html

Maybe not build them but they did keep two SSD's in their fleet and used them in their struggle against the Yuuchan Vong. The Lusankya and the Guardian.

Trooper TK12746 wrote: And the only armament figures for the Viscount (As far as I know) are found on the following link:
http://newrepublic.homestead.com/shipstats.html

No sources on that site tells where those figures are from, I suspect they are only fan made. I have seen the Viscount picture before on a another site listed it as MC cargo ship 25-30 meters long. That site does not convince me in the slightest.

Trooper TK12746 wrote: And the figures in the SWGTVAV 's figures for the SSD armament are wrong, check the following links for good SSD figures.
http://www.galacticempiredatabank.com/SSD.html

The 12 km figure contradicts the size of the SSD seen on screen, the movie overrides those figures, they are the ultimate canon above anything else, so the 17.6 km is closer to more correct figure.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-14 09:43pm

Maybe not build them but they did keep two SSD's in their fleet and used them in their struggle against the Yuuchan Vong. The Lusankya and the Guardian.

The Viscounts are Republic built. They were not captured from the Empire

No sources on that site tells where those figures are from, I suspect they are only fan made. I have seen the Viscount picture before on a another site listed it as MC cargo ship 25-30 meters long. That site does not convince me in the slightest.

It didn't convince me either, but those were the only numbers I could find. If you can find another site, let me know.

The 12 km figure contradicts the size of the SSD seen on screen, the movie overrides those figures, they are the ultimate canon above anything else, so the 17.6 km is closer to more correct figure.

I think they were trying to compromise. But the other statistics seem more realistic than some of the other versions I have seen. Seemed like decent stats all in all.

applejack · Post by **applejack** » 2005-06-15 12:41am

Dark Primus wrote:Here:
http://www.njoproject.com/ns/s_viscount.shtml

Is that sight official? The pictures look kind of like a modified Mon Cal Battleship, except that the Viscount looks like it has a smoother hull and a somewhat different aft end. It would be really interesting if the Viscounts are enlarged versions of these battleships.

Dark Primus wrote:But then there is also a question in my mind no one here can answer to. The EU authors used the 8 kilometer figure for the SSD, the official information that was then, if it had been confirmed stated to be 17.6 km from the very beginning, you don't think the Star Defender MIGHT have been almost equal as large as the 17.6 km Executor?

The "official" length of the Executor was still eight klicks when Vector Prime came out, I think. They might have changed it to 12.8 by then, I'm not sure. In any case, the official recognition that the SSDs are 19 KM were relatively recent. Any comparison of the Viscounts to SSDs would be to the smaller versions.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-06-15 04:08am

Nephtys wrote:I thought Weber's use of Dreadnaught stemmed from the turn-of-the-century era, where HMS Dreadnaught (and dreadnaught-type battleships) made all preexisting battleships obsolete.

The same happened in Age of Sail too (74 gun warships replacing 50 and 60-gunned ships in the "line of battle") which is what Weberverse combat typically duplicates. And Weberverse "dreadnoughts" and "superdreadnoughts" really don't match up with the WW1-era "dreadnoughts" (Weberverse dreadnoughts still hav ea mixed starship battery remember.. using grasers and x-ray lasers against other capital ships in a "broadside" fashion.. again more like Age of sail.)

And of course, he abuses the WW1/naval definition of battlecruisers and destroyers too. Basically the term "destroyer" "cruiser" and "battleship/dreadnought" are designed to define ships of varying size/tonnage and power (battlecruisers can't match dreadnoughts, destroyers cna't match heavy cruisers, etc.) Kinda like how you had "Rates" in the age of sail.)

They in turn were made obsolete by WW1 Era 'Superdreadnaughts', which eventually were renamed back to battleships. Right?

"Superdreadnought" was generally applied to Dreadnought battleships that utilized guns larger than 11-12" inches - infrequently used even so. (Again not really appliyng to "Weberverse" ships.)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-06-15 04:12am

applejack wrote: Yeah. I thought we established this already.

OKay.

Connor MacLeod wrote: Meh. Like I said, it's a good place to start off.

Why? A case can be made that an ISD is not a "destroyer", except to use the term perhaps a Weber does (the smallest and most commonest "warship" around, which is kinda what Saxton intends when he calls it a "Destroyer".)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-06-15 04:16am

SVPD wrote:I'm not sure I understand what the "uniform main battery" has to do with anything.

It seems to me that most warships of Star Wars are only loosely comparable to 20th century vessels. They seem to have perfected a hybrid carrier-warship system that is far more effective at both rolls than any real ship ever has been.

Why do SW warships have to have uniform main batteries to fill the roles of battleships? Just because 20th century battleships did?

Probably for much the same reason why battleships converetd from numerous little guns (age of sail) to a few really powerful guns (Monitor and WW1-2 era battleships.) Bigger guns have more range, more penetrating power, and are in general just more powerful. (you could of course get away with alot of smaller guns, but it gets harder to coordinate them all firepower-wise.)

applejack · Post by **applejack** » 2005-06-15 04:34am

Connor MacLeod wrote:Why? A case can be made that an ISD is not a "destroyer", except to use the term perhaps a Weber does (the smallest and most commonest "warship" around, which is kinda what Saxton intends when he calls it a "Destroyer".)

Well, IIRC Saxton says that the terms have less to do with comparisons with real life warships as it does to their relationships with each other. While I wouldn't go so far as to pick out ships from comic book frames and declare them to be discreet classes, the general impression I get shows that there are ships that fill the gap between ISDs and Executors. Being the mid-sized category sort of places it in the destroyer area. And since "destroyer" is already a part of the term Star Destroyer, it's just an easy conclusion for me to reach.

It's even easier since Saxton wrote the last two ICS books and made terms like Star Dreadnaught and Star Battlecruiser canon. It's clear (or at least slowly pointing in that direction by Saxton and DK Publishing) that KDY (and later the Imperial Starfleet which apparently adopted KDY's scaling convention) adds the "Star" prefix to warship types it owns and operates, such as destroyers, battlecruisers, and dreadnaughts. Therefore, I'm not inclined to think that "Star Destroyer" refers to anything other than a destroyer within the context of the Imperial Starfleet and KDY.

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2005-06-15 11:30am

Trooper TK12746 wrote:
Maybe not build them but they did keep two SSD's in their fleet and used them in their struggle against the Yuuchan Vong. The Lusankya and the Guardian.

Trooper TK12746 wrote: The Viscounts are Republic built. They were not captured from the Empire
I didn't say the Empire built them.

Trooper TK12746 wrote: It didn't convince me either, but those were the only numbers I could find. If you can find another site, let me know.
I do sometime look for anything that states their size and firepower, but can only find fan made stats.

Trooper TK12746 wrote: I think they were trying to compromise. But the other statistics seem more realistic than some of the other versions I have seen. Seemed like decent stats all in all.

They didn't want to displease one group for the other group I guess, both supported different sizes, only that one group was more correct then the other. So instead of correcting the mistake, they just made a new one.

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2005-06-15 11:38am

applejack wrote:
Is that sight official? The pictures look kind of like a modified Mon Cal Battleship, except that the Viscount looks like it has a smoother hull and a somewhat different aft end. It would be really interesting if the Viscounts are enlarged versions of these battleships.

I don't think it is official, but I do find it good they are making up fan made models of the ships from the NJO so the fans can have an idea how the ships might look like. It is possible the creator of the Viscount model took some inspiration from the MC on The Force Net.

applejack wrote: The "official" length of the Executor was still eight klicks when Vector Prime came out, I think. They might have changed it to 12.8 by then, I'm not sure. In any case, the official recognition that the SSDs are 19 KM were relatively recent. Any comparison of the Viscounts to SSDs would be to the smaller versions.

That is news to me

and they say its even 19 km in length? That would make it close to 12 ISD's in length, roughly. Does it say it on the official SW website?

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-15 01:50pm

I didn't say the Empire built them.

Then what was the point of bringing up the captured SSDs?

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2005-06-15 01:59pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:
I didn't say the Empire built them.
Then what was the point of bringing up the captured SSDs?

The point was the New Republic was reluctant in feilding such large ships as SSD's but changed the policy in doing so The Lusankya was used in battle and I belive the Guardian was used in battle and the Republic finally started to build multikilometer large warships.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-15 02:06pm

They built three Viscounts. And they always used captured Imp gear because of the glaring defincies in there fleet strength. They never replaced the SSDs. And they were originally going to scrap the Lusankya, and maybe the Gaurdian.

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2005-06-15 03:08pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:They built three Viscounts.

Have you read the NJO novels? Do you know if those large ships participated in any fleet engagement with the Vong?

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-15 03:13pm

It was said that three of them were ordered by the NR. IF you can find any other number, say it. And all the major battles in the NJO had non-Viscount flagships. And their assigned role was to coordinate the battlegroups and basically act as the commandship (which is usually the flagship). This implies that they were not used in great numbers. ANd not even in the most important NR battlegroups.

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2005-06-15 05:29pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:It was said that three of them were ordered by the NR. IF you can find any other number, say it. And all the major battles in the NJO had non-Viscount flagships. And their assigned role was to coordinate the battlegroups and basically act as the commandship (which is usually the flagship). This implies that they were not used in great numbers. ANd not even in the most important NR battlegroups.

That is a dissapointment. They maybe were afraid of loosing such expensive ships so they didn't want to risk loosing them in battel.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-06-15 06:39pm

Dark Primus wrote:
Trooper TK12746 wrote:It was said that three of them were ordered by the NR. IF you can find any other number, say it. And all the major battles in the NJO had non-Viscount flagships. And their assigned role was to coordinate the battlegroups and basically act as the commandship (which is usually the flagship). This implies that they were not used in great numbers. ANd not even in the most important NR battlegroups.
That is a dissapointment. They maybe were afraid of loosing such expensive ships so they didn't want to risk loosing them in battel.

IIRC the only time we here of a Viscount-type warship (the Viscount itself) commanding a fleet is in "The Unifying Force" when she fought alongside such ships as the Executor-class, Guardian and the MC90-type, Harbinger.

As to establishing a size of the Viscount, we haveto look to "
Vector Prime":

"Vector Prime" pp. 77-78 wrote:Like all Mon Calamari ships, this one was unique, an artwork, sleek and flowing, and ultimately deadly. It was the largest ship ever produced on that watery world, nearly twice the size of the battle cruiser [Mediator] they had left behind on Osarian and Rhommamool, and the first Mon Calamari Star Defender produced for the New Republic fleet. (Emphasis mine)

The above passage tells us that it the largest ships ever made by the Mon Cal, and that it is twice as big as the Mediator seen earlier in the book.

If we look back to the Mediator, we see that it is:

"Vector Prime" pp. 4 wrote:Indeed, the battlecruiser was an impressive warship, an updated and more heavily armed and armored version of the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser.

Alright. Not much there either, only that it is an updated version of the MC Cruiser. Well, according to EU, Mon Cal cruisers range in size from the modest Liberty at 1500m (as well as other ships smaller at 1200m) all the way up to Home One-type craft at nearly 4000m. So we have some limits on the size of the Mediator:

1200m </= Mediator </= 4000m

Personally, I prefer to lean heavilly towards the higher end of that range although that's just my speculation.

Now, as to the Viscount, it is "nearly twice the size" of the Mediator.

That then, sets the limits on Viscount at around:

2150m </= Viscount </= 8000m

However, since Viscount was stated to be the largest ships ever constructed by the Mon Cal, it CAN'T be less than 4000m (Home One's appx length), so our new range on Viscount is:

4000m< Viscount </= 8000m

Likewise, this allows to see that the Mediator at slightly more than half Viscount's lengthCAN'T be less than 2000m in length (as anything smaller would hamper with Viscount's "largest ship" status). So we also have a new limit on Mediator:

2000m</= Mediator </= 4000m

In the end, our final size ranges (crude as they are) for the Mediator and Viscount are as follows:

Mediator: 2000m</= Mediator </= 4000m

Viscount: 4000m< Viscount </= 8000m

Of course, since this is a very crude analysis, the Mediator may possibly be much larger than Home One, although not likely given the text, which would therefore make the Viscount much larger. However the given limits present the most likely ranges for the Mediator and Viscount.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-06-15 06:41pm

That is news to me and they say its even 19 km in length? That would make it close to 12 ISD's in length, roughly. Does it say it on the official SW website?

Hidalgo seems to refuse to update the SSD, AT-AT and DS sizes in the Databank due to some strange vendetta he has against Saxton and his work, but Leland Chee has stated on the Official Forums that the size of the Executor shown LL's Database, The Holocron, is "about 19 kilometers."

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2005-06-15 09:01pm

The Original Nex wrote:
That is news to me and they say its even 19 km in length? That would make it close to 12 ISD's in length, roughly. Does it say it on the official SW website?
Hidalgo seems to refuse to update the SSD, AT-AT and DS sizes in the Databank due to some strange vendetta he has against Saxton and his work, but Leland Chee has stated on the Official Forums that the size of the Executor shown LL's Database, The Holocron, is "about 19 kilometers."

In fairness to the deuchbag, it may just be a time issue. The guy has to run the hyperspace section, update the site, write a few short stories, write the second SW chronicles, and maintain the site iself. So it's not necessarily because he a piece of shit, it may just be a conicidence.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2005-06-15 09:08pm

To give a sense of where the Viscount class would farr in firepower, consider the following:

In DW MC80Bs are said to posess world shattering armerments. Assuming this menas just cracking the crust, this is firepwoer in the 4e25-4e26. The massive reactor indicated in the OEGVV and that the Mon Remonda led the fight against zsinj with very little support suggests it is closer to the higher volume.

The MC90 is more powerful then the MC80B was, being a fully dedicated warship with galactic standard technology.

The Mediator class would be even more powerful, as it is described as a battlecruiser and the 90 series as a cruiser or heavy cruiser.

The Viscount is even more powerful then the Mediator class.

I would also point out the length comparisons are inherrently inaccruate, as volume is what needs to be used. Volume is porportional to mass which is proportional to power.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-06-15 09:29pm

Ender wrote:
The Original Nex wrote:
That is news to me and they say its even 19 km in length? That would make it close to 12 ISD's in length, roughly. Does it say it on the official SW website?
Hidalgo seems to refuse to update the SSD, AT-AT and DS sizes in the Databank due to some strange vendetta he has against Saxton and his work, but Leland Chee has stated on the Official Forums that the size of the Executor shown LL's Database, The Holocron, is "about 19 kilometers."
In fairness to the deuchbag, it may just be a time issue. The guy has to run the hyperspace section, update the site, write a few short stories, write the second SW chronicles, and maintain the site iself. So it's not necessarily because he a piece of shit, it may just be a conicidence.

He seems to have time to add whole new sections to the Databank, it should be a small issue to go into existing entries and change ten or eleven numbers that have been officially changed for more than a year. He's got time, he's just an asshat.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-06-15 09:31pm

I would also point out the length comparisons are inherrently inaccruate, as volume is what needs to be used. Volume is porportional to mass which is proportional to power.

I wasn't trying to calculate the power of the thing, just present a length to go with the class as people were inquiring about the matter. I know that power is independant from length.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-16 09:45am

IIRC the only time we here of a Viscount-type warship (the Viscount itself) commanding a fleet is in "The Unifying Force" when she fought alongside such ships as the Executor-class, Guardian and the MC90-type, Harbinger.

I thought that battle was led by one of those new Bothan ships (their name escapes me). And an ISD has an armament capable of cracking the crust of a planet. You cannot really judge firepower by that qualifier.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-06-16 02:58pm

I thought that battle was led by one of those new Bothan ships (their name escapes me).

Pretty much every single Republic/Galactic Alliance warship was present at the battle.

Fleet Admiral Kre'fey commanded the First Fleet on Ralroost the "Bothan Assault Cruiser".

However, Guardian, Viscount, Harbinger and others commanded the other Fleets of the Republic.

Then of course there's all the other fleets from various galactic factions headed by their own leaders. The Hapans brought most of their fleet, the Chiss sent a token task force, the Imperials sent a task force, the Hutt Resistance sent their ships, even the Bakuran/P'w'eck Alliance sent some vessels.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-16 03:52pm

Then of course there's all the other fleets from various galactic factions headed by their own leaders. The Hapans brought most of their fleet, the Chiss sent a token task force, the Imperials sent a task force, the Hutt Resistance sent their ships, even the Bakuran/P'w'eck Alliance sent some vessels.

Where does it mention them? I only remember a few Chiss fighters and an Imp taskforce (plus some Hapans over Zonoma Sekot).

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-06-16 04:14pm

Where does it mention them? I only remember a few Chiss fighters and an Imp taskforce (plus some Hapans over Zonoma Sekot).

The presence of numerous Chiss fighters would suggest at least one home vessel for them, the Hutts were present at a meeting of fleet commanders, and IIRC a P'w'eck was as well. I know Bakuran warships are mentioned, and given the very small number of such warships, I'd assume them to be complemeted by the more numerous P'w'eck/Ssi-ruuk ships.