How would you blockade a planet?

[Karmic Knight]

I have a question after reading the build your own Deffense Force and How many man would it take to conquer a planet (paraphrase) threads. I want to know how would you blockade a planet.

The specs are this: Naboo an Outer Rim/Mid Rim planet, Sector Capital, has began to rebel the senoir leadership has order SecCom to blockade the planet and is not suppling resources. You have the Sector Fleet, the same as the Endor Fleet and you must continue to defened the other planets in the sector (If I am wrong tell me but from watching RotJ I conclude 1SSD 21ISDs.)

The objectuve is to keepthe planet from reciving reinforcments, until the Emporer's business on Endor has concluded and the Rebels can be crushed.

The DS1 has been destroyed and DS2 is with the Emporer at Endor so they are unavalible.

[Darth Wong]

Put thousands of ships in orbit to create a web around the planet, so that ships leaving from any point on the planet's surface are within effective weapons range of at least one ship. This job is a lot easier if the planet is mostly uninhabited or uncivilized, because there would be only a few areas where a ship is likely to take off from.

In practice, it would be very hard to make a complete blockade: some ships might always be able to sneak through.

[Vehrec]

Set up some orbiting weapons platforms, maybe automated ones. Add a few rapid-orbiting SDs for flavor. We don't need thousands of ships, just enough to cover the planet quickly. Add interdiction/jamming fields to finish the job, blockading hyperspace and communications as well. 1 AU denial zone seems reasonable, but I don't know the ability of interdiction fields well enough to tell how many you would need.

[Lord Revan]

As Mike said it would really hard (if not totally impossible) to form a complete bloackade (while sector has more then 22 ships most of those are really light (corvetes and such)), but it is possible to make a blockade that allows you to prevent any signifigant re-enforsments (and/or supplies) from landing (the Sith did this at Ruusan).

[Karmic Knight]

I am sorry the 22 ships are just the Big CapShips, I forgot to include th Corvettes, frigates, fighters, etc.

[HSRTG]

If the planet has a defense shield this gets very simple, drop some automated platforms in orbit that'll keep a constant low-level bombardment (not enough to break the shield) going towards large cities. If they drop the shield, they lose a ton of civilians. Keep a couple Star Destroyers and escorts, plus an Interdictor or two around, and you'll have as close to a total blockade as possible.

[Scottish Ninja]

I would think that in this situation, given the lack of too many ships, any blockade strategy would be geared more towards interception than trying to place a huge orbiting space wall around the planet.

Additional, the OP states that the objective is to prevent the planet from receiving reinforcements; this implies keeping ships from reaching the planet, so I'd place a large number of sensor platforms far out on the system, especially on heavily used hyperspace routes. Ships in high orbit should have the drop on anything trying to crawl out of the gravity well, while the rest would have enough reaction time to meet approaching ships.

[CaptHawkeye]

Starfighters and minefields for the low altitude planetary blockade. Backed up by any other light cruisers I can pull. Keep the Star Destroyers in a long distance blockade pattern from the planet. So they can stave off any attackers coming to liberate the planet. Since the Star Destroyers are a fairly good distance away from the planet, they have time to accelerate to the speed fleeing enemies are moving at. And as we have seen, Star Destroyers can obtain very high speeds.

[Starglider]

I don't have a better answer to the original scenario, however:

I've sometimes wondered whether SW tractor beams could have the range and power to help in a blockade role. On an ISD there only seem to be numerous low-power tractor beams around the docking bay, presumably for dragging in disabled ships only. In TESB an ISD wasn't able to target the Falcon with a tractor beam when it was flying around in close proximity, but in the escape from cloud city Piett claims that they will be 'in range of the tractor beam within moments' despite the ISD being head-on to the Falcon, suggesting that this isn't a firing arc limitation. Presumably the tractors had too narrow a beam and/or couldn't be steered fast enough to lock on while the Falcon was changing bearing so quickly and unpredictably, though there's no obvious reason why the slew rate would be worse than a light turbolaser.

Anyway, we know the Death Star had much more powerful and long ranged tractor beams, but I'm still not clear on the exact limits and capabilities. If the Trade Federation had been able to fit their ships with a couple of large turreted tractor beam projectors (say on the top and bottom of the central sphere), would the royal yacht ever have got through the Naboo blocade? Similarly if the ISDs in TESB had been configured for pirate hunting and patrol duty (for which long-range tractors are presumably more useful than in fleet engagements) instead of fleet escort for the Executor, would the Millenium Falcon never have managed to escape? The most efficient way to blockade a planet, if you have the luxury of custom-designed hardware to do it, might be a network of satellites mounting tractor beams, stationkeeping thrusters and point defences only. If you can effectively trap all the blockade runners in treacle a handful of capships should be able to take them out at leisure.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

If it's a planet like Naboo, I'd keep my larger capital ships over the major space ports and population centers, with fighters on patrol in between.

If it's a large industrialized world, I'd pull my capital ships further away from the planet, and place them close to major hyperspace exit vectors.

[Lord Pounder]

The best way would be to plant Interdictors on the most likely Hyperspace jump points. Back them up with Lancers and if need be a few Star Destroyers. Maybe some corvettes and Escort Frigates on patrol around the planet.

[Knife]

Most ships take some sort of hyperspace routes. Those entry and exit vectors would be the primary spots for ships to blockade. From there, station various ships in orbit so that their fighter craft or weapons can deploy in an overlapping web around the planet to stop any craft from going for uncharted exit vectors.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I remember there was considerable research going into interdiction fields and that large scale fields were being closely studied, with the Death Star I having a large one on board presumably for use for blockade. It might be possible to deploy an interdiction cruiser which can emit a large scale field while deploying a good number of escorts plus a host of other light cruisers, frigates, corvettes to chase down blockade runners. Further more, it would do well to deploy a fleet to deal with any potential external threats that come to relieve the blockade.

[Lord Pounder]

A Gravwell on the DS would be a waste. It's more economical and practical to mount them on the cruisers they currently use. From what I've read because of the dangers of hyperspace there wouldn't be more than a dozen jump points in a system. A dozen Interdictors and Star Destroyers and their escorts are going to be a lot cheaper to build and move into place than a DS or even a Star Dreadnaught.

[Starglider]

Most ships take some sort of hyperspace routes. Those entry and exit vectors would be the primary spots for ships to blockade. From there, station various ships in orbit so that their fighter craft or weapons can deploy in an overlapping web around the planet to stop any craft from going for uncharted exit vectors.

This probably wouldn't work. It should be possible to do a microjump (of a hundred AU say, preferably out of the system's ecliptic to avoid local hazards) in any direction to get clear of the blockade, without travelling a significant distance in interstellar terms. The blockade runners would then have plenty of time to plot their main jump along any departure vector needed. I'm not saying this would definitely work, as I can't cite specific canon evidence for it, but hyperspace routes can't be that narrow or inflexible as if they were they would quickly become invalid just due to relative stellar motion.

I don't think you're going to get away with anything less than complete spherical coverage, unless you can be sure where the ships will be launching from.

[Warsie]

with the Death Star I having a large one on board presumably for use for blockade.

Tarkin had A prototype grav-well generator on the DS, but it wasn't active.

The DS's Mass generated a natural gravity well as well.

[Patrick Degan]

I should think you'd need one stardestroyer in geosynchronous orbit over every spaceport on the planet at minimum, with two or more covering circumpolar orbits.

[Kuja]

Grab an Interdictor cruiser to add to the mix. The average Imperial interdictor generates a mass shadow equivalent to that of a yellow star, which is more than enough to envelope an entire planet and prevent ships from going right to hyperspace.

[Darth Wong]

The fact, however, is that the Millennium Falcon escaped not one, but two star destroyers. Queen Amidala's royal yacht got past a Trade Federation battleship. There is a class of starship which is actually called the "Blockade Runner". It's pretty obvious that if you have the right combination of tactics, speed, and shields, you can get past a blockade unless it's extremely enveloping.

[Vehrec]

The Falcon escaped by running to Hyperspace. The Queen's Starship escaped because the Trade-fed crew didn't want to blow it up. The 'Blockade Runner' wasn't that much faster than a Star Destoyer, so it would probably be entering/exiting hyperspace very close to a planet.
All these situations can be fixed simply by having an Interdictor Cruiser(and I mean a propper 3km Crusier) around to deny the enemy freedom of movement.

[Connor MacLeod]

Some sort of planetary shield. We know shield effects can be projected from remote locations (Endor generating the DS2's shield.) it doesn't seem improbable for the reverse to be applied (although i bet it would require a number of larger ships working in concert to do it.)

On some planets, like Tattooine youo might be able to get away with projecting more limited shields over, say, spaceports.

[Starglider]

Some sort of planetary shield. We know shield effects can be projected from remote locations (Endor generating the DS2's shield.) it doesn't seem improbable for the reverse to be applied (although i bet it would require a number of larger ships working in concert to do it.)

You might not have to keep the shield up all the time. You could just start projecting it when you detect a launch (assuming you have full sensor coverage). Jam their sensors and watch their ship go *splat* against the shield as it tries to climb out of the atmosphere. This might be a viable anti-fighter tactic for capships actually; wait until Rogue Squadron begin one of their trademark insanely close strafing runs, extend the shield in that direction and *wham* exploding X-wings (depending on whether ISD scale shield emitters can do that fast enough to be useful and without dangerously weakening the main shields). Certainly the Executor could've used some secondary shields placed in the trenches of its superstructure, ready to suddenly snap on and cut short the existence of any fighters trying to hide in there.

[Galvatron]

An effective blockade could be achieved merely with the threat of shooting down any ships attempting to make a run for it, in which case it all boils down to the weapons range and targeting accuracy of the picket ships.

[Patrick Degan]

An effective blockade could be achieved merely with the threat of shooting down any ships attempting to make a run for it, in which case it all boils down to the weapons range and targeting accuracy of the picket ships.

Funny, that threat didn't prove all that effective a blockade at Hoth.

[Galvatron]

The ion cannon probably had a lot to do with that. The Tyrant's captain seemed pretty confident of his "first catch of the day" until his ship was neutralized by surface artillery.