Viscount stats unveiled; SSD mess resolved

[Alyeska]

Seriously though, You can imagine all you want, but that isn't what happened. Fighters helped take out the shields and a fighter took out the bridge and as for the situations being dissimilar...

Fighters took out the Executors shields? Please explain. If the Executor can be downed by FIGHTERS even when shielded, that just goes to show how fucking pitiful a ship it was. A pair of A-Wings made a pass on the Executor after her shields were already down. They could not have destroyed those two globes if her shields were still up. The killing blow was delivered by a Fighter, but that is irrelevent because at this point in the battle any Rebel capitalship could have slagged the Bridge.

[Jim Raynor]

Ok, so thats 12 cruisers and 7 frigates. Everything else is so minor as to be ignorable.

Whatever you see on screen is very limited in scope, and shows only the absolute lower limit of what was there. There is no evidence that there were a mere dozen or so Mon Cals at Endor. There could have been dozens and dozens of Mon Cals offscreen for all we knew.

The Executor with 5,000 main guns and being 100 times the size of an ISD is taken out by a force of ships that is worth 20% what the Executor is worth.

In a normal battle, the Rebels wouldn't have even gotten close before being slaughtered. In a normal battle, the Executor would NOT have been taken out, because there wouldn't have been a Death Star for it to collide into mere seconds after losing the bridge.

And so the Executor with an apparent shield weakness that allows its bridge to be blown to pieces.

How is this a shield weakness? Power has to be used to shield the entire ship, and although it's important, the bridge would only be receiving a fraction of that power. Even if the Rebel forces were only 20% as powerful as the Executor as you believe (something with no supporting evidence), it makes sense for them to be capable of overwhelming one small part of the ship's shields with a full, concentrated bombardment.

EDIT: fixed quote tags

[K. A. Pital]

There is no evidence that there were a mere dozen or so Mon Cals at Endor. There could have been dozens and dozens of Mon Cals offscreen for all we knew.

Indeed. The novellisation even says as much: dozens of Rebel cruisers.

In the next minutes, dozens of Rebel Cruisers moved in astronomically close to the Imperial Star Destroyers

And this is how the Rebel fleet looked after the battle, in which presumably a large fraction of it (not less than 40% anyway) has been vaped:


I could only count 25 ISDs in formation on screen, though:


Perhaps doing a recount of ships with the new DVD versions would be good. Rebels had clear numerical superiority, as far as the movie goes. Firepower-wise the Imperials outgunned them, but did not outnumber.

Also, there's the issue of ineffective attack plan of the Imperials because of Palpatine's DS-wanking - he didn't order the fleet to blast the Rebels straightaway, allowing them to close in for point-blank shootout. And at close ranges the Imperials got owned.

At the moment of Executor's death there had been from my count a bare minimum of 10 MCs that have been shown on screen - and some 10 MCs concentrating all their fire on the Executor could've led to a temporary loss of shields, IMHO. Even more likely, there were more than 10 MCs (see the ROTJ novel quote).

[Havok]

Seriously though, You can imagine all you want, but that isn't what happened. Fighters helped take out the shields and a fighter took out the bridge and as for the situations being dissimilar...

Fighters took out the Executors shields? Please explain. If the Executor can be downed by FIGHTERS even when shielded, that just goes to show how fucking pitiful a ship it was. A pair of A-Wings made a pass on the Executor after her shields were already down. They could not have destroyed those two globes if her shields were still up. The killing blow was delivered by a Fighter, but that is irrelevent because at this point in the battle any Rebel capitalship could have slagged the Bridge.

Ackbar: "We've got to give those fighters more time. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer"

Two A-Wings fly on screen and shoot at and destroy the structure on the top of the command tower. Cut to the bridge of the Executor. The screen is still shaking from the explosion and an officer looks at a monitor, THEN...

Officer: "Sir! We've lost our bridge deflector shields"
Piett: "Intensify the forward batteries. I don't want anything to get through.

Fighters took out the shields. There are 2 seconds from the time Ackbar gives his order to when the structure explodes and one more second for the office to inform Piett that they lost their bridge deflector shields.

And Could've, would've, should've. My mom could have fired a fucking RPG and blew the fucking thing up, but despite what you may want to have happened so that you didn't find it "funny" An A-Wing crashing into the bride was the killing blow.

[Alyeska]

Seriously though, You can imagine all you want, but that isn't what happened. Fighters helped take out the shields and a fighter took out the bridge and as for the situations being dissimilar...

Fighters took out the Executors shields? Please explain. If the Executor can be downed by FIGHTERS even when shielded, that just goes to show how fucking pitiful a ship it was. A pair of A-Wings made a pass on the Executor after her shields were already down. They could not have destroyed those two globes if her shields were still up. The killing blow was delivered by a Fighter, but that is irrelevent because at this point in the battle any Rebel capitalship could have slagged the Bridge.

Ackbar: "We've got to give those fighters more time. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer"

Two A-Wings fly on screen and shoot at and destroy the structure on the top of the command tower. Cut to the bridge of the Executor. The screen is still shaking from the explosion and an officer looks at a monitor, THEN...

Officer: "Sir! We've lost our bridge deflector shields"
Piett: "Intensify the forward batteries. I don't want anything to get through.

Fighters took out the shields. There are 2 seconds from the time Ackbar gives his order to when the structure explodes and one more second for the office to inform Piett that they lost their bridge deflector shields.

And Could've, would've, should've. My mom could have fired a fucking RPG and blew the fucking thing up, but despite what you may want to have happened so that you didn't find it "funny" An A-Wing crashing into the bride was the killing blow.

Brilliant, you've just reduced the Executors effectiveness to nothing now that fighters can kill it.

Now consider this. For the A-Wings to destroy the shield generator, they have to get through the shields. Tell me how the fighters are going to get through the shields to take them down.

[Havok]

You keep saying that the situations are dissimilar. You say the Executor lost shields at a critical time in a critical place. How do you think that Wedge and Lando got into the DSII to blow it up? It lost it's shields at a critical time and place.

The DS2 was unfinished and reliant on an external shield source that was taken out by a commando raid. Completely dissimilar.

Target A loses shields at a critical moment that directly lead to its destruction.
Target B loses shields at a critical moment that directly lead to its destruction.

Which one is the Executor? Disimilar my ass.

Your saying that a force that was only 20% the size of the Executor was able to destroy it and that you find that "funny" Could someone please figure out for me what percentage 30 fighters is compared to the DSI??

We already know that the DSs destructions are a big mark against the Empire.

Never said anything to the contrary.

Just admit the 2 DSs gettin' blowed up was funny too!!!

Do you actualy have anything to add here?

Just trying to add some levity.

[Havok]

Fighters took out the Executors shields? Please explain. If the Executor can be downed by FIGHTERS even when shielded, that just goes to show how fucking pitiful a ship it was. A pair of A-Wings made a pass on the Executor after her shields were already down. They could not have destroyed those two globes if her shields were still up. The killing blow was delivered by a Fighter, but that is irrelevent because at this point in the battle any Rebel capitalship could have slagged the Bridge.

Ackbar: "We've got to give those fighters more time. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer"

Two A-Wings fly on screen and shoot at and destroy the structure on the top of the command tower. Cut to the bridge of the Executor. The screen is still shaking from the explosion and an officer looks at a monitor, THEN...

Officer: "Sir! We've lost our bridge deflector shields"
Piett: "Intensify the forward batteries. I don't want anything to get through.

Fighters took out the shields. There are 2 seconds from the time Ackbar gives his order to when the structure explodes and one more second for the office to inform Piett that they lost their bridge deflector shields.

And Could've, would've, should've. My mom could have fired a fucking RPG and blew the fucking thing up, but despite what you may want to have happened so that you didn't find it "funny" An A-Wing crashing into the bride was the killing blow.

Brilliant, you've just reduced the Executors effectiveness to nothing now that fighters can kill it.

Now consider this. For the A-Wings to destroy the shield generator, they have to get through the shields. Tell me how the fighters are going to get through the shields to take them down.

I will give you this...

Ackbar stared wild-eyed out the observation window. He was looking down onto the deck of the Super Star Destroyer; only miles away. Fires burst over the entire stern , and the Imperial warship was listing badly to starboard.
"We've knocked out their forward shields," Ackbar said into the comlink. "Fire at the bridge."
Green Leader's group swooped in low, from bottomside, up from the Death Star.
"Glad to help out, Home-One," called Green Leader.
"Firing proton torpedoes," Green Wing advised.
The bridge was hit, with kaleidoscopic results. A rapid chain reaction got set off, from power station to power station along the middle third of the huge Destroyer, producing a dazzling rainbow of explosions that buckled the ship at right angles, and started it spinning like a pinwheel toward the Death Star.

Looks like the novel agrees with you, but unfortunetly what is in there is directly contradicted by what is on screen.

I'd like to believe that ships were already engaging the Executor and that Ackbar's order just turned every gun on it. Maybe even, the shields were already weakend. Non of that is shown anywhere on screen though. What is shown is three A-Wings destroying the Executor.

[Havok]

I could only count 25 ISDs in formation on screen, though:

Perhaps doing a recount of ships with the new DVD versions would be good. Rebels had clear numerical superiority, as far as the movie goes. Firepower-wise the Imperials outgunned them, but did not outnumber.

In the scene when Lando first turns towards the fleet of SDs I counted 36 plus the Executor.

[Havok]

Seriously though, You can imagine all you want, but that isn't what happened. Fighters helped take out the shields and a fighter took out the bridge and as for the situations being dissimilar...

Fighters took out the Executors shields? Please explain. If the Executor can be downed by FIGHTERS even when shielded, that just goes to show how fucking pitiful a ship it was. A pair of A-Wings made a pass on the Executor after her shields were already down. They could not have destroyed those two globes if her shields were still up. The killing blow was delivered by a Fighter, but that is irrelevent because at this point in the battle any Rebel capitalship could have slagged the Bridge.

On the shields still being up... Why couldn't they have destroyed the structures when the shields were still up? In ROTS we clearly see Anakin destroy a shield generator while the "shields are still up".
Also, only one globe was destroyed by the A-wings and the straffing run was cleary done before the Officer announced that they had lost the bridge deflector.

[VT-16]

Since I've had it pointed out time and time again that "The Rebels brought their entire fleet to Endor!!11!", why not take this to it's limit?
Who's to say the Rebels didn't have some of their Bulwark-class battlecruisers operational? In general, all the different shiptypes we've ever seen or heard of them having in the Rebellion era?

There's some huge bolts flying into ISDs throughout the battle, maybe they're coming from a ship with a little more firepower than just a fraction of the Executor? There's also the various ships in the ROTJ novelization coming from Corellia (destroyers, cruisers, battleships) and the Home One type, which we already know is bigger than ISDs.

With all this combined and with at least a dozen Mon Cal cruisers visibly functioning at the end of the battle, is it really so impossible to believe the Executor can be taken out by an large fleet like that?

Also, only one globe was destroyed by the A-wings

That was not the main shield, that was a sensor globe with an auxillary shield for the bridge.

Using known facts on the ISD and their relative comparison to the Rebel fleet, we can come up with some general known facts.

We have no choice, General Calrissian. Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude.

This he says only after the DSII is shown to be operational, implying they were holding their own against the Imperial fleet.

[Havok]

Also, only one globe was destroyed by the A-wings

That was not the main shield, that was a sensor globe with an auxillary shield for the bridge.

Please note that I only refered to it as "the structure" or "the globe". I did not comment on it's function. Alyeska said the A-Wings got both. Just a correction.

[FTeik]

Shields have to be powered up constantly.

Turbolasers can be charged up for some time.

Why can't the MonCal use some of their heavy turbolasers like the Munificent-Class Star Frigates during the battle at Endor? Accumulate enough energy to be able to overwhelm the shields of the Executor. Their redundant shields would have given them the time to do that.

[Vympel]

Fighters took out the shields. There are 2 seconds from the time Ackbar gives his order to when the structure explodes and one more second for the office to inform Piett that they lost their bridge deflector shields.

Obviously then, two seconds must've actually passed in the battle

OT:ITW/CLSW: Executor was bombarded by the Rebel fleet to knock down it's shields, not just two A-Wings.

RotJ novel: Executor was under attack before the order to concentrate all fire was even given.

On the shields still being up... Why couldn't they have destroyed the structures when the shields were still up? In ROTS we clearly see Anakin destroy a shield generator while the "shields are still up".

What the fuck are you talking about? Obi-Wan was referring to the shield over the hangar, not the shields in general. Real useful shields they'd be, they're up but they can't stop fighter lasers where the Droid Control Ship could effortlessly shrug off proton torpedo salvos

In any event, the CLSW indicates that the shields protecting the hangar shield generator were down.

Also, only one globe was destroyed by the A-wings and the straffing run was cleary done before the Officer announced that they had lost the bridge deflector.

So fucking what? RotJ novelization:

"Forward ships have made contact with the Imperial fleet, sir."

"Concentrate your fire on their power generators. If we can knock out their shields, our fighters might stand a chance against them."

The Rebel fleet plan was to knock out their shields so the fighters might stand a chance. I never thought someone here would be so inane to seriously subscribe to that A-Wing bullshit

In any event, in general, we don't know how much time actually passed in between Ackbar's order and shield failure, and Executor obviously was not fighting hard- we can thank the battle's generally shitty capital ship battle effects for that, we don't see it firing on any enemy ships in long range shots of the entire ship whatsoever. Don't really know why, it just didn't. In any event, the effect of the death of the Emperor as related in the RotJ novel probably had something to do with it, just as it did with the disorganized fighter response to Rebel fighter attack on the Death Star.

In addition, not every Rebel ship has to be in LOS (range is not an issue) to do damage- the heat sinks would still be "filled up" from fire from other quarters.

[Vympel]

I think some people are thinking about the Mandator II Star Dreadnought that could fight off 1,000 Recusant-class Separatist ships from the RotS:ICS, and because Executor is a Star Dreadnought as well, why couldn't it fight the Rebel fleet by itself?

The obvious answer is that there's no reason to believe the quote about fighting off 1,000 Recusant somehow means that it's shields could take the fire of 1,000 ships. The Mandator II actually has to fucking fight back. Something Executor, (and the Imperial fleet in general) didn't do with any great gusto until far too late in the day- and when they did- the Emperor was dead (refer to RotJ novel on the effect of this) and they "fought like cadets" (Thrawn, HTTE).

[nightmare]

On the shields still being up... Why couldn't they have destroyed the structures when the shields were still up? In ROTS we clearly see Anakin destroy a shield generator while the "shields are still up".

Just look at the facts, here's a few examples:

TPM - Anakin the kid slips into the hangar in one of those "million to one" events and destroys the TradeFed battleship from the inside, while an entire squadron of Naboo fighters armed with nuclear torpedoes proved ineffective. Those small external explosions we see are ~150 m+ in diameter when you account for scale.

ROTS - Anakin destroys a hangar shield generator from the outside of the Invisible Hand. Obviously, this generator didn't protect something else, including itself. The separatists are noted for poor ship design, btw.

ANH - Luke and the rebels blow up a shield deflector tower on the Death Star, after having passed through the external shield. Death Star defences were specifically noted to be designed to hold off capital ships, but not fighters. The DS1 exhaust port cannnot be attacked successfully with energy weapons because it is "ray shielded".

TESB - Hoth base is invulnerable to clean bombardment as long as the shield stays up. The shield generator has to be destroyed from the ground before the invasion can begin.

ROTJ - Death Star 2 is invulnerable to any attack until Han Solos team brings down the shield. Regular ISDs prove invulnerable to fighter attacks, or for that matter, fighters crashing into them. The much larger Executor has no visible damage whatsoever until the rebel fleet concentrates firepower on it. Note that we don't know how long it took them to do so due to cutscenes. In fact, the script notes that the rebels already began to fire on it before Ackbar's order:

"The battle between the Rebel and Imperial fleet
rages on. Several cruisers fire at the giant Super Star
Destroyer.

127 INT REBEL STAR CRUISER - BRIDGE 127

ACKBAR
We've got to give those fighters more time.
Concentrate all fire on that Super Star
Destroyer."

After the Executor loses bridge shields, A-Wings attack the conn dome and destroys it with salvos of concussion missiles (armor penetrating nuclear warheads of some type). An A-Wing, undetermined if it was by kamikaze or accident, strikes the bridge window, which is an incredibly small target compared to the rest of the Executor. The bridge shatters, the crew is killed. The A-Wings missile load goes off and sets off a chain reaction that causes much internal damage. Within seconds, the engines misfire and propels the Executor into DS2 were it is destroyed before the secondary bridge can do anything about it.

Quite simply, there's no reason to believe that the Executor was any less protected than the ISDs which suffered no damage from fighters. Script: "The damaged Y-wing plummets toward the Star Destroyer, and
crashes into the control tower, exploding."

Also, only one globe was destroyed by the A-wings and the straffing run was cleary done before the Officer announced that they had lost the bridge deflector.

The fact that only one dome was destroyed should make it obvious that its destrutction had nothing to do with the bridge shields going down. Beause, y'know, there was still one undamaged one.

[K. A. Pital]

The Executor is huge and powerful, but the Rebels had a few HO-class ships at the battlefield as well. And they were not constrained by any sort of "do not fire" order - they assaulted the Executor and the IF straighton.

Also, what is rarely taken into consideration - the Rebel fleet while closing in could very well could've taken the advantage of the IF's linear location and the lower blind spot for the general caliber on all ISDs and the Executor. At least several Rebel ships were seen coming from below during the fight with the IF. And the blind spots of the imperial ships are really, really damning in a point-blank fight.

[K. A. Pital]

The obvious answer is that there's no reason to believe the quote about fighting off 1,000 Recusant somehow means that it's shields could take the fire of 1,000 ships.

Indeed. Remember how the Executor's shields were lost when three ISDs collided with them when coming out of hyperspace. I think a half-an-hour long HTL barrage had the same effect.

[VT-16]

the Rebels had a few HO-class ships at the battlefield as well

And possibly Bulwarks as well, unless something happened to all of them prior to Endor.

[Ender]

Alyeska, why is it then when I point out the explanation for the end of ROTJ in a debate where it help you, explaining it in terms of physics, you get right behind it, but here you ignore that?

It comes down to weapons system employed and physics people. The bridge shields are obviously going to be weaker then anywhere else - they smaller volume of the tower limits the size of both the heat sinks and radiators, and thus the power they can handle. Missiles, due to their high power/energy ratio, are excellent at shield disruption. Pietts dialogue indicates that he was worried about physical projectiles, not energy weapons (as you can't shoot down a TL bolt or Ion cannon blast), thus indicating that that is what had been used. The novel talks about using transports packed with torpedos as fireships, and we see some in that scene.

The Executor bridge shields got hit with either a brace of missiles or a ram ship. This took out the projectile shields, which allowed teh A-eings to take out the sensors. Blind and with no bridge shields, an A-wing got through and took out the bridge. Engineering rang up a fast bell to get out of there, and sicne they had no idea where they were going, they rammed the Death Star.

Not a pathetic death, not in need of a bunch of extra unseen cruisers, not in need of taking ships invented 15 years later to fill the gaps. Just simple tactics and physics.

[Cykeisme]

Hmm.. particle shields going down before the ray shields on the Executor's bridge? This does make sense..

All the hits that damaged the bridge toward the end (missiles and an A-Wing) are all solid objects.. and it would explain why the Rebel ships firing at the Executor didn't simply finish the dreadnought off with more turbolaser fire.
This is also corroborated by the "intensify forward firepower, I don't want anything to get through" line.

Is it possible that the Rebel ships had some of those starfighter-sized assault concussion missiles? As in, the missiles the size starfighters, as seen on the Acclamator-class ship in Republic Commando. These may have disrupted the particle shields surrounding the Executor's bridge.

Of course, it's possible that energy absorption/dissipation of particle and ray shields aren't separate, in which case it was just a general failure of the bridge shield after sustained concentrated bombardment from the Rebel fleet; it just happens that the last hit was the A-Wing.

[Cykeisme]

Also, I have another possibility to raise.
As we know, shields are, in many ways, volumetric effects. Perhaps the bridge is protected by both the "bridge deflector shield" and the primary shields that cover the entire topside. In effect, the command center mounts an additional shield system due to its added importance.

This would serve two purposes: firstly, heavy concentrated enemy capital ship fire with a high power may not be entirely dissipated by the primary ship shields, so any energy that seeps through is absorbed into the sinks of the smaller secondary bridge shield system.

Secondly, these localized shield systems may provide protection against attacks coming from extremely close to the hull, such as attacks from fighters. Protection from the wide-area primary shields may be less effective against these threats.


Thus, what happened was that whatever damage the Executor did take was sufficient to overload the bridge shield, though the primary shields were still up to protect it from enemy capship fire, which would be coming from further out.
Once the local bridge shield was down, the fighters could move into close range and target the globes, and ultimately got something through to the command center itself.

This also explains why fighters have any use at all in Star Wars.. to move into extremely close range and take advantage of momentary, localized disruptions in capship shielding.

[Alyeska]

Not a pathetic death, not in need of a bunch of extra unseen cruisers, not in need of taking ships invented 15 years later to fill the gaps. Just simple tactics and physics.

Which goes to show how pitiful the design is. Or rather how flawed. All your eggs in one basket. An enemy with a fraction of the resource equivilent has time and time again shown how flawed the design is.

[Jim Raynor]

Have you even been reading the various arguments people have been posting? If it could happen to the Executor, it could have happened to an ISD or a Carrack cruiser against a proportional (much smaller in both numbers and sizes) force of Rebel ships.

An unknown number (presumably the entire fleet) of Rebel ships were able to actually get close because of some bullshit order from Palpatine, and drop the shields in one small part of the Executor (probably only the particle shields, as Ender explained). They were LUCKY that there was a Death Star for it to crash into. Basically, under normal circumstances, the Executor would NOT have been destroyed, or even lose its bridge.

[Ender]

Not a pathetic death, not in need of a bunch of extra unseen cruisers, not in need of taking ships invented 15 years later to fill the gaps. Just simple tactics and physics.

Which goes to show how pitiful the design is. Or rather how flawed. All your eggs in one basket. An enemy with a fraction of the resource equivilent has time and time again shown how flawed the design is.

A RHIBoat packed with explosives can take out a DDG. Does that mean the design of the USS Cole was flawed? Fireships are not something you design warships to combat.

[Alyeska]

Not a pathetic death, not in need of a bunch of extra unseen cruisers, not in need of taking ships invented 15 years later to fill the gaps. Just simple tactics and physics.

Which goes to show how pitiful the design is. Or rather how flawed. All your eggs in one basket. An enemy with a fraction of the resource equivilent has time and time again shown how flawed the design is.

A RHIBoat packed with explosives can take out a DDG. Does that mean the design of the USS Cole was flawed? Fireships are not something you design warships to combat.

A fluke, maybe. Except thanks to the EU we have two more SSDs being taken down by relatively minor forces.

And actualy, you do design warships to combat fireships. You combat them by blasting them before they get into range. Thank Palpatine for that not working in ROTJ.