Something big

[fractalsponge1]

The carrier should easily carry something like 24 wings of fighters. Probably quite a bit more actually (something on the order of 32?), depending on how many troops it's also carrying. Each small bay in the mandible can launch a full wing, without even counting the volume behind the open areas.

[Eternal_Freedom]

144 squadrons? Damn!

[fractalsponge1]

A TIE is something like 300 cubic meters. The carrier is at least 5-6 orders of magnitude more volume.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh I know that logically it should be a boatload of fighters, but I suppose I'm too used to an ISD carrying six squadrons, an Executor carrying twelve and the Imperial Navy not really having a fighter-heavy doctrine.

[fractalsponge1]

The ISD figure I think is justified by the AT-ATs it carries, which are enormous, along with the enormous dropships to move them and the enormous space to maintain them. I think if an ISD carried just a division of ship-based infantry, or one with repulsortanks, it would have at least a Group of fighters like a Venator does.

144 fighters for an Executor...well I just don't have the words to describe how dumb an idea that was to inject into the EU in the first place. Seriously, the main bay can swallow ENTIRE STAR DESTROYERS .

[23 November 1939]

Very nice. I admit to being a sucker for anything between 500 and 5000 meters. The trade-offs just seem so much more obvious, and intriguing. Obviously, you envisioned the Assertor as trading some of the Executor's accel and carrier/troop load. But, somehow it feels more tactile on a smaller scale.

All that being said, I'm always happy to see more of the Bellator and the Wrath. I can remember keeping a running tally of the Assertor's batteries, as she grew (the aft ball turrets were a real bear to keep track of ).

I do agree with Eternal_Freedom. Your numbers make perfect sense. But I still get thrown a little by just how *off* the numbers were in the EU novels/RPGs; obviously, there are perfectly sensible (real-world marketing) reasons for that, nevertheless... It can still sneak up on me.

[fractalsponge1]

Very nice. I admit to being a sucker for anything between 500 and 5000 meters. The trade-offs just seem so much more obvious, and intriguing. Obviously, you envisioned the Assertor as trading some of the Executor's accel and carrier/troop load. But, somehow it feels more tactile on a smaller scale.

Most of the load, really. Then massively redistribute the volume from a thin hull that can't mount big reactors to a much shorter and thicker one that can mount a really really really big reactor. That's where the firepower figures come from. I'm thinking Assertor will pull 1.5-2x the standard weapon broadside of an Executor, nevermind the spinal weapon forward. Executor's combat power is its usual difficult self to determine, of course.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The ISD figure I think is justified by the AT-ATs it carries, which are enormous, along with the enormous dropships to move them and the enormous space to maintain them. I think if an ISD carried just a division of ship-based infantry, or one with repulsortanks, it would have at least a Group of fighters like a Venator does.

144 fighters for an Executor...well I just don't have the words to describe how dumb an idea that was to inject into the EU in the first place. Seriously, the main bay can swallow ENTIRE STAR DESTROYERS .

No, please don't hold back, tell me what you really think...

For the ISD though, isn't that intended to be part of the trade-off? IIRC the ISD-1 was supposed to be a "do everything" ship - fight other ships, but not as well as dedicated Destroyers, carry troops, but not as well as actual troopships, carry fighters, but not as many as proper carriers etc.

[23 November 1939]

I'm thinking Assertor will pull 1.5-2x the standard weapon broadside of an Executor, nevermind the spinal weapon forward. Executor's combat power is its usual difficult self to determine, of course.

Now I find myself pondering endurance. Which gets into the fun question of what kind of endurance one is thinking of (full scale set-piece combat, hunter-killer operations, sublight cruising, hyperdrive, etc.) The Assertor has such an enormous volume to work with that I'm not sure an Executor would best it in endurance (never-mind the relative work done during that period). Assertor vs. Executor is starting feel like battleship vs. flight-deck cruiser. Of course, as with a flight-deck cruiser, you definitely gain flexibility in certain operations.

[fractalsponge1]

For the ISD though, isn't that intended to be part of the trade-off? IIRC the ISD-1 was supposed to be a "do everything" ship - fight other ships, but not as well as dedicated Destroyers, carry troops, but not as well as actual troopships, carry fighters, but not as many as proper carriers etc.

Yeah, and that's why I think the ISD numbers are actually ok. It needs to carry lots of stuff, and moreover have the space to service them. If they happen to be AT-ATs or bigger, well, them's the ropes.

But if I were an ISD captain out in the Rim, I'd find a way to "forget" half my AT-ATs in depot somewhere and reconfigure for triple my starfighter complement in a heartbeat. I imagine ISDs assigned to something like Azure Hammer with real troopships attached would routinely do this straight out of first refit.

Now I find myself pondering endurance. Which gets into the fun question of what kind of endurance one is thinking of (full scale set-piece combat, hunter-killer operations, sublight cruising, hyperdrive, etc.) The Assertor has such an enormous volume to work with that I'm not sure an Executor would best it in endurance (never-mind the relative work done during that period). Assertor vs. Executor is starting feel like battleship vs. flight-deck cruiser. Of course, as with a flight-deck cruiser, you definitely gain flexibility in certain operations.

I think that's a fair comparison. In my mind, the match up would be like ...I dunno, Montana vs one of the Gibbs and Cox hybrid battleship-carriers for the Soviets (presumably "C" with 10 16"). The Assertor would win the vast majority of fights, but it just could not do some of the things an Executor can do, and it'd be close enough that the Assertor couldn't shrug off an Executor either.

Endurance...meh, I have nothing to go on. Executor seems optimized for hunter killer and acceleration, so it needs endurance for engines. Assertor needs it for weapons and shields for set-piece combat. Fuel tanks in SW don't seem to be particularly large in any event.

[23 November 1939]

In my mind, the match up would be like ...I dunno, Montana vs one of the Gibbs and Cox hybrid battleship-carriers for the Soviets (presumably "C" with 10 16"). The Assertor would win the vast majority of fights, but it just could not do some of the things an Executor can do, and it'd be close enough that the Assertor couldn't shrug off an Executor either.

Endurance...meh, I have nothing to go on. Executor seems optimized for hunter killer and acceleration, so it needs endurance for engines. Assertor needs it for weapons and shields for set-piece combat. Fuel tanks in SW don't seem to be particularly large in any event.

Makes sense. I started getting excited, and then realized that even by Star Wars standards I was dangling WAY out on the pseudoscience limb. Presumably there are limits, but the best explanation (at least reading Saxton and the many contributors on this site) is that full-power combat requires so much more energy than anything else that it isn't really worth talking about. As to full-power combat conditions, perhaps this is one of those things that 25,000 years has provided some rough rules of thumb for balancing endurance vs. power (with capacitors allowing a little cheating at the micro-level)? Perhaps it is just one of those things not really worth mentioning, unless someone starts to really over-gun their designs (putting them in the camp with a design D.K. Brown wrote about, where a computer program decided the most efficient arrangement of a hull was to have the engines outside... the hull... somewhere :p).

Sorry if this ended up as a tangent , but it is one of the things I love about this site, and this thread in particular. An opportunity to discuss, at least in general terms (which is all I am capable of) these sorts of practical issues in our favorite space opera.

[23 November 1939]

For the ISD though, isn't that intended to be part of the trade-off? IIRC the ISD-1 was supposed to be a "do everything" ship - fight other ships, but not as well as dedicated Destroyers, carry troops, but not as well as actual troopships, carry fighters, but not as many as proper carriers etc.

Perhaps more akin to a colonial-station design, like the second class battleships the British designed, or perhaps the colonial ships the French Navy had in the Cold War period (Avisos?) ?

[fractalsponge1]

For the ISD though, isn't that intended to be part of the trade-off? IIRC the ISD-1 was supposed to be a "do everything" ship - fight other ships, but not as well as dedicated Destroyers, carry troops, but not as well as actual troopships, carry fighters, but not as many as proper carriers etc.

Perhaps more akin to a colonial-station design, like the second class battleships the British designed, or perhaps the colonial ships the French Navy had in the Cold War period (Avisos?) ?

I think a better historical analogy is more like battlecruisers on foreign stations. Those ships could run down fast warships, AND outgun everything. Before you had fast cruisers and slow 2nd capitals that could do one, but not the other. The combination was devastating. Ships before the ISDs could pack firepower density (Victory) or have speed and fighter capacity (Venator), but ISDs did both, paid for with extra cost and size.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm...that does bring up an interesting observation I've made of late. ISDs (both Is and IIs) seem (in the books at least) to have comparatively weak shielding for their size and firepower. In the X-Wing novels for instance, in the two instances of ISDs fighting each other I can recall (Moonshadow vs. Direption over Liinade III and Emancipator vs. Decisive over Ciutric) they are invariably described as having their shields collapse after one full salvo from the opposing ISD (in the latter case, the first salvo doesn't collapse the Emancipator's shield because she reinforces it to stop shots going past her to hit Home One).

Further evidence can be seen at the Battle of Endor when Mon Cal cruisers are able to overwhelm and destroy several ISDs despite being outnumbered, while the only Mon Cal ships killed are the couple hit by the DSII, suggesting the ISDs lack shielding proportional to their guns. This would, IMO, fit real-world comparisons to battlecrusiers on foreign stations; they simply aren't meant to fight in a fleet action (that's what the Allegiances, Bellators, Assertors etc are for).

Could it be then that another of the trade-offs in the ISD design is not being build to withstand their own guns?

[fractalsponge1]

We don't really know. I think the XW novels are a bit suspect because of the use of game mechanics. Endor was not really a normal fight either - the Imperial fleet deliberately dragged it out after all. I think you would be hard pressed to find statements in the EU that ISDs have exceptionally weak shielding. Certainly it's well established that Mon Cals are unusually rugged, but the opposite? I'm dubious.

[23 November 1939]

I do like the parallels with the Invincibles (battlecruisers, this time, rather than carriers :p ). ISDs (certainly at least at a strategic level) handling Clone Wars-types as the Invincible & Inflexible did the Scharnhorst & Gneisenau is attractive and has rational arguments for it (I may have gotten a bit carried away trying to consider an ISD from the average planet's perspective, without remembering just how many ships were probably still floating around after Mustafar).

On Eternal_Freedom's point, from what I can recall of the X-wing series (aside from the question of fighters vs. ISDs, which I tend to chalk up to literary license) short-range ion-cannon fire often seemed to have a dramatic effect. Partially RPG mechanics, and partially a legacy of the Hoth ion cannon? I was never certain as to whether the novels thought ion-cannon were just particularly effective against shields (in exchange for the more direct destructive effects of turbolasers) or if they ignored shields entirely - either way they often fell more into the "magic" than "technology" category.

As to Endor, it was something of brawl (something like the Dutch in the first Anglo-Dutch war), which could have lent itself to the Mon Cal dog-piling ISDs - which would have been easier if the ISDs were also having to maneuver to keep the Rebels between them and the Death Star.

[darthscott]

Good point on the smaller fighter complement, with respect to what an ISD needs to support in terms of ground forces. Always thought of an ISD as a jack of all trades, master of none sort of warship. Adequate to face most potential threats that might come their way, or hunt Rebels across the Outer Rim. Then I would think the Empire would have many other designs to fill those roles in a more dedicated fashion.

Thankfully Fractalsponge has given us many of those designs. I would hope their would be more design diversity in terms of size, function, role, and shipbuilders than we actual have seen considering the size of the settled Galaxy, the resources at hand, and the level of technology. I think it would have been that way long before the Empire came to power as well. Never liked how in the Legends universe there was a rather linear progression in the length and presumably the power of Star Wars warships. Over 25,000+ years, it would be nice to see what was hinted at in EGTW, that over the centuries as strategy and technology changed, that sometimes space warfare favored larger warships and at other times smaller more versatile warships.

[fractalsponge1]

New 16-core machine: acquired.

Some new modeling to break it in:

[MKSheppard]

Just dropping in here to say that virtually all of your stuff that I've seen has that "Star Wars" feel.

In that it feels like something that should be in one of the movies or one of WEG's sourcebooks.

Also glad that someone is doing the numbers and such on giving the ground troops the equipment they need for a proper operation. They've been neglected far too long.

[evillejedi]

A TIE is something like 300 cubic meters. The carrier is at least 5-6 orders of magnitude more volume.

I remember having a model that I tried to figure out how much support space a tie in a rack needed in the ISD bays by using shell extrusions of various parts of the geometry. The conclusion was that an ISD could carry about 600 Ties with little to no difficulty just in the adjacent space for the front bay without impacting main bay flight operations and without making any dent in the internal volume for other systems.

using the same scaling, by using the main bay completely and the ATAT hangar space you could conceivably pack in 2000-2500 ties in rack launchers

Factor in the ATAT barges, Lambda shuttles and other less space conscious ships, a few small apartment blocks for crews to raise their indoctrinated children and a number of cavernous entertainment arenas for droid gladiatorial combat and the number still probably means that an ISD could leisurely mount 200-300 Ties of various sizes

[Abacus]

I just wanted to weigh in as a former US Army LT on something: while it's fine to adjust for sizes in regards to volume, you also need to take into consideration space for repair work, space for parts storage, etc. Basically for each TIE there should be an equivalent amount of space that is left for the necessary material and space for it to be worked and repaired on. I know, because I use to command an M1A1 Abrams and those things, while they can be shipped in compact groups, need a lot more space for maintenance and repair kits. You might say that the repair materials would be in storage, but I can tell you from experience that you don't want to have to haul one particular part all the way across from deep storage every time you've got a bolt loose.

I mention this because I know that most here want and desire Ansel's designs to be as realistic as possible.

[fractalsponge1]

Just dropping in here to say that virtually all of your stuff that I've seen has that "Star Wars" feel.

In that it feels like something that should be in one of the movies or one of WEG's sourcebooks.

Also glad that someone is doing the numbers and such on giving the ground troops the equipment they need for a proper operation. They've been neglected far too long.

Thanks!

I just wanted to weigh in as a former US Army LT on something: while it's fine to adjust for sizes in regards to volume, you also need to take into consideration space for repair work, space for parts storage, etc. Basically for each TIE there should be an equivalent amount of space that is left for the necessary material and space for it to be worked and repaired on. I know, because I use to command an M1A1 Abrams and those things, while they can be shipped in compact groups, need a lot more space for maintenance and repair kits. You might say that the repair materials would be in storage, but I can tell you from experience that you don't want to have to haul one particular part all the way across from deep storage every time you've got a bolt loose.

I mention this because I know that most here want and desire Ansel's designs to be as realistic as possible.

Absolutely an important point about maintenance. This is why I think 1 Wing is actually reasonable for an ISD given the AT-ATs. But you do need to see evillejedi's layout. I'd do one but I'm lazy and his would be better. We're conditioned to think of planes and tanks as relatively large objects relative to a ship. But ships that are large for us are tiny compared to an ISD, and SW fighters are actually smaller than modern day fighters (sort of). There really is enough space there for very large complements of fighters.


Another commission. Crusader-class Corvette.

[Weedle McHairybug]

Hmm, your missing the Crusader6 image on your WIP 1. But very good render overall.

[fractalsponge1]

A new commission:

[Eternal_Freedom]

Drool...

That's my new desktop background.