Executor vs 10 star destroyers

[Ace Pace]

In the X-wing books a SSD is not that powerful, two star destroyers are more than capable of atleast holding thier ground, as well as doing considerable damage to its weaponry. And later a few fighter are capable of actually destroying one!!!! (the one Zinj steals from Kuat i think)

Thats irrelevent, it was a barely finshed SSD with little to no crew, non of which had battle experiance.

The ship still lacked most of its guns(as far as I can recall) and only had an engine crew to let it follow Zsinj's SSD.

[Darth Tanner]

okay i forgot about that but its shields were operational and easily penetrated by mere fighters

[VT-16]

That's the game mechanics being used. I recall someone saying some of the authors of the X-wing centered books using game mechanics for their battles. No wonder it looks idiotic, then.

[Darth Tanner]

I know, what is it with people and super X-wings, thorughout the Xwing series two dozen X-wings and a couple of As and Ys must have destroyed half the imperial fleet, why the hell did they bother recruiting the moncals battle ships, they only need snub fighters to purge the galaxy!

That incident where fighters destroy a lancer! crazy!

[Gurthoron]

The X-wing series are a fairly poor guide for what an SSD can and can not take. Their SSDs follow the 250 turbos and 250 ions set of stats, which is an incredibly small armament for such a craft. They also have two cases of SSD deaths and one deadly threat to an SSD.

Threat: During the mission to take out the Rogue's base in The Bacta War, the Lusankya was locked on by 300 proton torpedo launchers. The captain and crew reacted as if this meant their absolute destruction, at least if they were hit by multiple waves. Due to events this never materialized, but suggests a couple wings of fighters doing mass torpedo launches would devastate an SSD.

Kill 1 Lusankya: The Lusankya was finally killed by multiple volleys of torpedos (80 per volley, 2-3 full volleys totalling 160-240 missiles. Those numbers are estimates due to lack of description during the battle.) an "Alderaanian War Cruiser" (Appears equivalent to a Carrack-class cruiser) and an ISD. In the process it reduced the the other ISD to zero threat and took out an unspecified number of freighters. It was finally eliminated as a threat when a second ISD and 3 squadrons of A-wings arrived, which proceeded to take down its shields and eliminate its turrets. Of note is that the SSD had no starfighters for this engagement, allowing the Rogues to pretty much single-handedly deal with ground based starfighters. A sideline, none of the capital ships were eliminated in this battle, only lost their capability to deal damage.

Kill 2 Razor's Kiss: Killed by torpedo and strafing runs by (if I remember correctly) four squadrons: 1 B-wing, 1 A-wing, 2 X-wing. They did not even use their full weapon complements. In the engagement the SSD had no shields and no defenses other than its armor, but took enough damage to render it unable to move. I believe it was self-destructed to prevent the Alliance from capturing it, as there is no way that few starfighters could turn it into the debris that Zsinj later salvaged.

The big problem with the X-wing series is that they support the starfighters killing capitalships theory. A squadron of X-wings is seen as an even match for an Interdictor cruiser (The Rogues drive off two Interdictors in the books.) and can take on a VSD if needed. (Shown with the killing of the Corrupter in The Bacta War.) If we want to accept these battles at face value a SSD is incredibly weak, maybe an even match for a pair of ISDs.

These books and the whole SSD length debate sparked a theory I have, that there are two "SSD" classes. One, including the Executor, are the true fleet in one ship, huge combat vessels. The other, including the Lusankya, Iron Fist, and Razor's Kiss (And possibly Knight Hammer) are the smaller version with more of a command or possibly repair/replenishment role. The repair/replenishment was brought up to give a role for the huge hangar bays which supposedly carry only 12 squadrons. Both classes share a similar appearance, but the latter is far smaller. Although the Lusankya and Executor are supposedly sisterships, they were created at two different shipyards, with the Executor built at Fondor and the Lusankya at Kuat Drive Yards. Interestingly, the Razor's Kiss was also constructed at Kuat, and the Iron Fist may have come from there. Please note that this theory is merely conjecture on my part, based off discrepancies in the various sources.

[Darth Tanner]

A good theory that would explain the crazy x wing books but the Lucy is supposed to be an exact copy of the Executor, both Kuat and Fondor claiming to have produced the Executor with Palp actualy hiding one under coruscant. However i suppose that the design could have been the same but the executor received a major amount of additonal work in the form of weapons/equipment that the others didnt, which could explain my earlier comment on the shear cost of the Executor.

[K. A. Pital]

Wow. Thanks for pointing out that "guidance system" stuff, one more marker in my novellisations

[Spetulhu]

EDIT - found it: ROTJ novelisation, p169. '...three Rebel Star Cruisers headed for the huge Imperial Super Star Destroyer, Vader's flagship, which seemed to be having difficulties with its guidance system.' This is all before the rebels focus their fire on Executors power generators, so no significant damage could have been done to her. She was not at 100%, and was almost certainly outmaneuvered by the rebel ships.

Was this the result of sabotage or is it a flaw for all ships of the class? Or just a flaw of the Executor that's been corrected in later production ships?

[Spartan]

Going by ROTS: ICS The weaker Mandator II Star Dreadnaught reactor output is 7.6E26 W or approx 76 times that of an ISD. Not surprising as it can fight up to a thousand light Star Destroyers on equal terms. Dr Saxton estimates that the Executer class's reactor output is 1.3E27 W or around 130 times that of an ISD! Which he estimates outputs 1.0E25W. An Executer would still have a power output 13 times that of a 10 ISD flotilla. ROTS:ICS also states that a true warship can divert nearly its total reactor output to her main guns. Take the 5,000 turbolasers and ion cannons from Inside the Worlds gives it over; and each would yield 2.3E23 W.

10 ISD's vs. the Executor:

Even after charging they’re capacitors for 10 seconds with their full power output the still don't match the Executors firepower. While during that time she will have gotten off 10 full power broadsides. Unless they Executor's captain is grossly incompetent, or under orders that limit his ability to maneuver of return fire; they just can't do it. After all three of them ramming the shields at high sublight can only just collapse the shields. According to ROTS:ICS a Munificent-class Star Frigate can charge it twin heavy turbolasers to a 2.8E26 J in about 22 minutes of charge time. So, 30-40 ISD's employing solid tactics might be enough, if a good number and hold back and overcharge their weapons. They'll still take heavy losses, as some will have to intentionally draw fire, and they'll also need to physically block her path to prevent an escape to hyperspace.

Loss of the Executor:

1. The Executor like all the other imperial capital ships, do not immediately engage the rebel fleet. They are ordered to hold back and take hits because of it.
2. Since the rebel are not limited by stupid command decisions that can concentrate their fire on the Executer without fear of reprisal.
3. The imperials allowed the rebels to close to point blank range before returning fire.
4. There were (3) Home One class Star Cruisers present each 3.8 km long and each at least 10 times as powerful as an ISD.
5. There were 6-10 Mon Cal cruisers, that if the ROTJ sketchbook is to be believed range from 1.2 km to 2.3 km in length; all of which were at least comparable to an ISD.
6. There were at least a dozen other lesser combatants.
7. There were an unspecified number of robot ramships made from converted Gallofree transports.
8. Only the bridge shields are known to have failed, temporarily.
9. The rebels could have held some vessels in reserve to overcharged their turbolasers. A single Home-1 type vessel with an output of approx 1.0E26, after charging up one minute could output a weapons yield of 6.0E27 J. More than 4 times the Executor’s total output and thus more than her peak dissipation rate.

Loss of the Lusankya:

1. The vessel's state of maintenance and provisioning are unknown, but unlikely to be anywhere near peak status.
2. The vessel was modified to serve as a hidden prison, thus may have been modified or may even had systems removed.
3. The vessel was possibly under crewed and captained by an imbecile.
4. The shields were dropped by 80 torpedoes of unspecified size and yield by freighters of unspecified class.

[Spartan]

VT - 16 wrote:

The Independence was there, and it was confirmed on OS Q&A as being of the same design as the HO, so that's two of them. Then there's the second ship getting fragged by the DS II. It looks like the HO design from the still-frame. (And I inspected it, and found it to have more similarities with the HO model than the Liberty model).

Going by the SW CCG there may have been as many as three present including the Independence and Defiance.

[VT-16]

There was a HO-design associated with the name Defiance? Did this ship survive Endor? Because, if it did, we'd have four vessels present of this type! 8)

[Spartan]

Indeed, here the link:

+ttp://web.archive.org/web/20021222001650/http://www.decipher.com/starwars/cardli ... iance.html

I had to use webarchive to retrevie it. The Defiance was definitely Home-1 class. I have never seen anything saying she was destroyed prior to Endor or built after. So, we can safly assume that she was their. As the entire rebel fleet was present.

[Lazarus]

Concerning the destruction of the Razor's Kiss, the whole situation becomes even more daft when the SSD actually BREAKS UP due to fighter bombardment!

I actually quite like the X-Wing books on the whole, their only downside being the ridiculously wanked out starfighters and minimalism. I think this should be blamed more on poor source material than on the author himself, Michael Stackpole seems otherwise an excellent author IMO.

Taking the more common sense sources as a basis, I'd guess that an Executor-class could be disabled by around 30-40 ISD's, although this would require the sacrifice of quite a few of them, not to mention the starfighters.

[nightmare]

The Defiance, the Independence, and the Home One, were all at Endor, as was no less than seven unidentified ships, not counting various types of visible Mon Cal cruisers (I forgot the count. 20-30?), frigates, etc. Even so, the Executor only faced a temporary breach of bridge shields when under bombardment from the combined rebel fleet.

Of course, that condition quickly got permanent, but that had nothing to do with firepower. One should not underestimate her.

As for the Lusankya -

"You're rather bold, Terrik, for having a station with minimal shields, a half-dozen laser cannons, and ten turbo­laser batteries."

Terrik's image laughed. "We've made some modifications to the station." The figure nodded to someone outside the image area.

...


"Sir, we have multiple proton torpedo and concussion missile sensors locked onto us."

"How many?"

"Many, sir, over three hundred." Waroen looked up. "We're dead, sir."

Drysso turned back to the viewport and imagined the rippling fire of three hundred proton torpedoes and concus­sion missiles smashing into his forward shield. Under that onslaught it would collapse and the missiles would begin nib­bling away on his ship. And that's only the first volley. The subsequent volleys would consume the Lusankya utterly and completely.

With Drysso's vision of disaster came the crumbling of his plans for the future. The Lusankya was the key to every­thing, but he'd been tricked. Antilles had anticipated the strike at the station. He had set up a trap to destroy the Super Star Destroyer. Even if I do shoot and eliminate some of the launchers, some of the tractor beams, all that will get away will be a severely damaged ship.

[NecronLord]

Even so, the Executor only faced a temporary breach of bridge shields when under bombardment from the combined rebel fleet.

That's unjustified. For all we know, the rebels would have hammered a great big crater into the dorsal side after that. And 'temperory?' The generators were blown up.

[Spartan]

Lazarus wrote:

I actually quite like the X-Wing books on the whole, their only downside being the ridiculously wanked out starfighters and minimalism. I think this should be blamed more on poor source material than on the author himself, Michael Stackpole seems otherwise an excellent author IMO.

They aren't all bad, with certain assumptions you can justify most of it. As far as source material, Stackpolecould have just watched the damn movie and read the ROTJ novel. Instead he based them almost solely off a video game!

Taking the more common sense sources as a basis, I'd guess that an Executor-class could be disabled by around 30-40 ISD's, although this would require the sacrifice of quite a few of them, not to mention the starfighters.

Oh they'd lose at least 15-20 ISD's easily. Assuming no one rams her as their final act. The Executor fighter group would most likely outnumber the combined number of fighters. EU be damned, until they come out with new stats for the 19 km long Star Dreadnaught.

[Spartan]

Necronlord wrote:

That's unjustified. For all we know, the rebels would have hammered a great big crater into the dorsal side after that. And 'temperory?' The generators were blown up.

I don't see how. It's allot easier to believe that the rebels knocked down the bridge shields than to believe that overloaded he entire shield grid.

Remember the rebel fleet attacked the "power generators". Since the the Ex didn't go up in a massive reactor breech. The rebels are obviously attacking some local or regional power system associated with the bridge. After all they only mean to cripple her, they know they can't kill her.

As far as the generators being blown. She's a warship, she doubtless has redundant power relays, and generators. We know that shields can be repositions from other arcs to cover breechs. So, yes the shield failure was temporay. Had she not crashed into the Deathstar the secondary bridge would have taken over.

[Spartan]

Nightmare wrote:

The Defiance, the Independence, and the Home One, were all at Endor, as was no less than seven unidentified ships, not counting various types of visible Mon Cal cruisers (I forgot the count. 20-30?), frigates, etc. Even so, the Executor only faced a temporary breach of bridge shields when under bombardment from the combined rebel fleet.

And those seven vessels if they match the ships in the ROTJ Sketchbook could have been anywhere from 1.6 - 2.3 km long. Driving the rebels firepower at Endor up still further.

[consequences]

Presumably, the fighter strike that hit Razor's Kiss was specifically armed with anticapship weapons, while most of the time, they cart around multi-purpose birds. If it's shields were actually totally gone, it's a miracle it held up as well as it did.

For that matter, its unclear how much damage may have been done to the ship in the escape from Kuat.

Personally, I like to think that Shalla Neprin did some unmentioned sabotage on the internal systems before getting to her fighter.

[need4spd]

Dr Saxton estimates that the Executer class's reactor output is 1.3E27 W or around 130 times that of an ISD! Which he estimates outputs 1.0E25W. An Executer would still have a power output 13 times that of a 10 ISD flotilla.

Wow and our sun only outputs 3.83e24 watts or 91,500,000,000 (9.15e10) megatons of tnt per second!

Hyperdrive power generators must use other dimensional matter for their fusion reactor generators. Because the sustaining burning the sun requries is 8.5 billion pounds of matter a second!

So a Executor would need to burn 340 times that amount. Then again the sun doesn't completely destroy matter. Most of the process is just converting hydro to helium.

[Xess]

Wow and our sun only outputs 3.83e24 watts or 91,500,000,000 (9.15e10) megatons of tnt per second!

Hyperdrive power generators must use other dimensional matter for their fusion reactor generators. Because the sustaining burning the sun requries is 8.5 billion pounds of matter a second!

So a Executor would need to burn 340 times that amount. Then again the sun doesn't completely destroy matter. Most of the process is just converting hydro to helium.

The Sun outputs 3.8e26 Watts. And ISDs and the like don't use fusion reactors, they use Hypermatter reactors. Which is far better, though someone else will have to give you the details as I'm not up to speed on it.

[Crazedwraith]

-snip-

That quote means nothing.Those were the just sensor systems. Later in the book the figurefor torpedeos actually fired is 80 torps per volley.

[Lazarus]

Actually, I'm pretty sure we can tell quite a bit about the Lusankya from that quote. If 300 Proton Torpedoes will result in the Lusankya being 'dead', in the words of the ships own helmsman, then surely that says something about its defensive capabilities?

[nightmare]

That quote means nothing.Those were the just sensor systems. Later in the book the figurefor torpedeos actually fired is 80 torps per volley.

In case you didn't notice, that's what the captain of the Lusankya at the time was thinking about what he could handle and not. To call that 'nothing' is, ahem, silly. Especially since we don't know thew yield of any of the missiles and torpedoes. But since you asked so nicely:

"Now I have forty, no, eighty. Eight zero."

Drysso's jaw dropped as he saw a nova flare blossom up over the horizon of his starboard bow. The shields held for a second or two, then collapsed. Warning sirens started shriek­ing on the bridge as multiple torpedo and missile hits ex­ploded six kilometers away on the ship's bow. The brilliant fire gnawed at the clean lines of his ship, shattering armor plates and triggering dozens of secondary and tertiary explo­sions.

Even before the tremors reached the bridge, Drysso started shouting orders. "Waroen, kill those sirens. Give me damage control reports. Guns, what have you lost and why haven't you gotten me the Freedom yet?"

Waroen's voice rose above the din. "Captain, we have full bow shield collapse."

"How did they get that many missiles off, Lieutenant?"

"Sir, I don't know, sir."

"Sithspawn! Find out how!" Drysso watched as the Free­dom fired down at the Super Star Destroyer. Salvos of red turbolaser bolts pulsed out from the smaller ship, savaging the Lusankya's unprotected bow. Vaporized armor immedi­ately condensed into metal clouds that hid the full extent of the damage done, but Drysso had no hopes that his bow would look like anything but a blackened, battered lump. Still, that damage is nothing compared to what we can do.

Over a hundred starboard ion cannons fired back at the Freedom in a display so massive it appeared as if sheets of blue energy had erupted from the Lusankya's side. The Impe­rial Star Destroyer's shields imploded, leaving azure lightning to skip and arc all over the ship's surface. Drysso saw second­ary explosions ripple through the smaller ship's port gun decks, letting him know the Freedom had been badly hurt.

"Captain, I've lost fifteen percent of my starboard fire­power."

"Thank you, Guns. Lieutenant Waroen, where did those missiles come from?"

"The freighters, sir, they're launching missiles that ap­pear to be using the starfighter telemetry to target us." Waroen glanced at his monitors.

[Surlethe]

Wow and our sun only outputs 3.83e24 watts or 91,500,000,000 (9.15e10) megatons of tnt per second!

Hyperdrive power generators must use other dimensional matter for their fusion reactor generators. Because the sustaining burning the sun requries is 8.5 billion pounds of matter a second!

So a Executor would need to burn 340 times that amount. Then again the sun doesn't completely destroy matter. Most of the process is just converting hydro to helium.

What makes you think Star Wars power generation is based on conventional nuclear fusion?