Something big

[Sea Skimmer]

Messing about:

I like.

Ever think about doing something a bit off kilter, like three sets of narrowly paired wings? Like this idea driving by completely irrelevant helicopter logic
http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h35 ... 20tilt.jpg

[Adam Reynolds]

One reason why heavier ships don't proliferate that much might be due to the risk of destruction by starfighter. If you buy into Brian Young's theory about capital ship shields being semi-permeable to fighter attacks, then a larger ship would be proportionally more vulnerable than a smaller one, and able to be more easily destroyed by a smaller expenditure of resources.

The two major heavy vessels we have seen in the current canon, Malvolence and Executor, were both lost to fighter attacks after all. It would explain why there are so few larger vessels, that they are just too vulnerable in that sense to be effective. While they are sufficiently heavily armed with AAA that fighter attacks are extremely costly, they are still cheaper than trying to do the job with your own capital ships.

[23 November 1939]

The battlecruiser concept was however like, 190 billion percent effective at the Falkland Islands, where both British ships together took 5 casualties. I bring this up to illustrate a key choice you got to make behind whatever logic.
[Snip]
If aggregate over time is all that matters meanwhile then notionally any sized ship could be useful, because they can gang up with equal results to heavier gunfire. A bunch of swarmy crap isn't vulnerable to a battleship appearing out of hyperspace in that situation.

But if caliber is the dominate factor, and I kind of think the sum of rough evidence and logic says it should, then one must be careful about the niches one uses, or at least which ones you really want to rationally justify. The problem with the battlecruiser was it was easily rendered obsolete by over matching threats. That's also what later discouraged increasing 8in cruiser calibers any higher, it turns into 'build Alaska' real fast...and Alaska cost as much as an Iowa by the time they actually finished her. If caliber dominates...then we should expect a ship like Executor to just waste a destroyer as a fighting unit with one or two broadsides.

Of course all that rambled, you could also bring back the term protected cruiser, or scout cruiser, or varying rates of cruiser or rates of scout cruiser or a bunch of other things, heck at one point the British were going to call the Tribal class destroyers corvettes in view of their heavy gun armament, a throwback to the sailing use of the term for a small but potent gunship. They decided against it though, and not long after awarded that designation to a new category of small mobilization ASW vessel everyone has heard of. For my own fiction I adapted that, then added for bonus the classification of Armored Corvette, something popular in the 1860s, to account for some real life destroyers mostly real only on paper which had some real armor on them. I once got myself up to 27 successive tiers of cruiser by category inflation like that, assuming you count the special branches for ASW Hunter Killer and High Angle cruiser which was about seven of em.

No argument re: Falklands. Interesting that the Admiralty argued for closer action to conserve ammunition (sensible if one expects to have to fight without replenishing; less so if engagements are fewer and farther between, which all things considered seems more likely). For that matter, might not Blucher's fate at Dogger Bank be one more argument in favor of the theory of the battlecruiser, at that time? As you say, the doctrine of over-match. And, of course, exploring the battlecruiser fully, takes one deep into Fisher's tactical and strategic mindset (heavier guns to permit exactly the sort of long-ranged, one-sided engagement that was achieved at the Falklands; battlecruisers in general intended to allow economy on overseas protection, while focusing on submarines and other torpedo craft in home waters, to permit the economies that he promised when he was made First Sea Lord).

I do tend towards your view that sailing era might be a better analogue, given the relative plateau of technology (not absolute, of course, but level enough for our purposes). No analogy is perfect. As you note, the range of useful hull sizes is potentially much greater in space than in a pre-Seppings wooden-hulled, sailing fleet. Within tiers of hull-sizes, the analogy does seem very apt. So an interesting blend of the material possibilities of steam and steel, but within tonnage ranges more closely resembling fighting-sail.

I think it was Fractal who noted that if Star Wars damage is measured in the aggregate, the heavier hull types would still have the potential to permanently remove force from a swarming fleet quickly (I think that observation may be what drew me to studying the Restoration navy, what little I can find on it). So, in a pitched battle, the Force would seem to be on the side of the big-ships. Of course, a war is more than the heaviest pitched battle. But, intermediate classes do feel potentially wasteful. Perhaps the strongest argument there is economic? Even the Empire has finite resources. Other than the occasional Separtist and individual-polity (i.e. Mon Cal) heavy, how big an average unit do you need to impose whatever your Empire wants to impose?

[Knife]

One reason why heavier ships don't proliferate that much might be due to the risk of destruction by starfighter. If you buy into Brian Young's theory about capital ship shields being semi-permeable to fighter attacks, then a larger ship would be proportionally more vulnerable than a smaller one, and able to be more easily destroyed by a smaller expenditure of resources.

The two major heavy vessels we have seen in the current canon, Malvolence and Executor, were both lost to fighter attacks after all. It would explain why there are so few larger vessels, that they are just too vulnerable in that sense to be effective. While they are sufficiently heavily armed with AAA that fighter attacks are extremely costly, they are still cheaper than trying to do the job with your own capital ships.

I reject the notion that the Executor was lost to 'fighter attack' since on screen dialogue and onscreen visuals show the Rebel fleet enveloping the ship with orders to focus all fire on her. Now the Malvolence, you have a point. Although, they just knocked out the main weapon, and IIRC, the hyperdrive and it took a Jedi pilot to do that.

[Weedle McHairybug]

One reason why heavier ships don't proliferate that much might be due to the risk of destruction by starfighter. If you buy into Brian Young's theory about capital ship shields being semi-permeable to fighter attacks, then a larger ship would be proportionally more vulnerable than a smaller one, and able to be more easily destroyed by a smaller expenditure of resources.

The two major heavy vessels we have seen in the current canon, Malvolence and Executor, were both lost to fighter attacks after all. It would explain why there are so few larger vessels, that they are just too vulnerable in that sense to be effective. While they are sufficiently heavily armed with AAA that fighter attacks are extremely costly, they are still cheaper than trying to do the job with your own capital ships.

I reject the notion that the Executor was lost to 'fighter attack' since on screen dialogue and onscreen visuals show the Rebel fleet enveloping the ship with orders to focus all fire on her. Now the Malvolence, you have a point. Although, they just knocked out the main weapon, and IIRC, the hyperdrive and it took a Jedi pilot to do that.

In all fairness, the Executor was taken down via a Kamikaze attack to the command bridge from an A-wing.

[Knife]

That's silly. The Imperial officers stated the shields were down prior to the A wing crashing into the bridge uncontrollably. It wasn't a Kamakazi, it was happenstance. With the shields down, it well could have been a turbolaser shot from anywhere.

[Captain Seafort]

I reject the notion that the Executor was lost to 'fighter attack' since on screen dialogue and onscreen visuals show the Rebel fleet enveloping the ship with orders to focus all fire on her. Now the Malvolence, you have a point. Although, they just knocked out the main weapon, and IIRC, the hyperdrive and it took a Jedi pilot to do that.

You've also got Lando's explicit statement that "if we knock out [the capships'] shields our fighters might stand a chance against them". My emphasis. Brian's theory is on shaky ground to start with, because it's based on extrapolating from a weakness that's designed into Droideka shields to improve their mobility. His insistence that it must apply to all shields, despite explicit or implicit evidence to the contrary is a touch irritating, especially when looks at the Falcon using FTL to penetrate Starkiller's shields and claims it as proof of his theory that low-velocity objects can fly through shields.

[fractalsponge1]

In all fairness, the Executor was taken down via a Kamikaze attack to the command bridge from an A-wing.

In open space, even the loss of the bridge would've been fine. Endor had plenty of very special circumstances. As much as I think Executor was likely proportionately underpowered for fleet action due to her carrier functions (tradeoff of protected hangar volume vs power generation volume), I do think it took maximum effort at point-blank range from a fleet that included at least 2 Star Cruisers and dozens of destroyers, in the absence of efficient counter-fire and maneuvering, to even breach a sectional shield.

Sea Skimmer points to the basic logic of heavy ships in this setting - irrespective of the effect of massive bolts vs many small ones (range, shield penetration, rate of fire), larger ships can push enough power out quickly enough to overwhelm smaller ones while only taking shield damage against similar firepower. I don't think there is good evidence for large weapons ignoring shields being common enough to equalize this imbalance (no equivalent of torpedo attacks by small craft in real life). Furthermore, escape of a damaged combatant seems relatively straightforward via hyperspace compared to real life ships having to outrun gunfire. Given all of that, consensual combat seems attritional, and that heavily favors larger and larger warships that can a) take damage without being mission killed, b) batter targets past shielding threshold and kill things quicker, and c) kill targets so fast they can't escape. If heavy ships can maintain similar power-to-weight to an aggregate of smaller ships, I think the math heavily favors bigger ships. Add gravity well projectors to the situation (and siege warfare is naturally in a gravity well), and all pressures for increasing power concentration go up, at least for a fleet action.

As much as the metalworking of the Empire seems functionally limitless, I think trained and politically reliable crew are a much more limited commodity. To take a real world land analogy, the really limited specialist staff and technical personnel are more strained when duplicated across many battalions vs concentrated at corps level. Given that I think large ships are more survivable, this is a another driver in that direction.

Intermediate and small ships I think are built for coverage; there are a lot of planets that need covering. A stray MC-80 is not going to need a Bellator or Wrath to chase down, but a Compellor can do the job for less cost, even if per ton it isn't as efficient in some situations as the bigger ships. Against a relatively weak foe like the Alliance, the Empire would maintain large ships as a central force, and very few of them would see action in the types of scenarios that occur in the OT. In general galactic warfare against a near-peer opponent, I think large ships would proliferate relative to things like destroyers and cruisers.

[Weedle McHairybug]

That's silly. The Imperial officers stated the shields were down prior to the A wing crashing into the bridge uncontrollably. It wasn't a Kamakazi, it was happenstance. With the shields down, it well could have been a turbolaser shot from anywhere.

Yeah, last I checked, Cryvel was clearly seen steering his A-Wing toward the bridge, which fits the definition of a kamikaze.

Good point on the bit about bigger ships needing more limited manpower, Ansel, BTW.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's silly. The Imperial officers stated the shields were down prior to the A wing crashing into the bridge uncontrollably. It wasn't a Kamakazi, it was happenstance. With the shields down, it well could have been a turbolaser shot from anywhere.

Yeah, last I checked, Cryvel was clearly seen steering his A-Wing toward the bridge, which fits the definition of a kamikaze.

Good point on the bit about bigger ships needing more limited manpower, Ansel, BTW.

I would argue that that's an already doomed pilot trying to take his enemy with him, not one who specifically set out on a suicide run, which would IMO best fit the kamikaze definition..

[Weedle McHairybug]

That's silly. The Imperial officers stated the shields were down prior to the A wing crashing into the bridge uncontrollably. It wasn't a Kamakazi, it was happenstance. With the shields down, it well could have been a turbolaser shot from anywhere.

Yeah, last I checked, Cryvel was clearly seen steering his A-Wing toward the bridge, which fits the definition of a kamikaze.

Good point on the bit about bigger ships needing more limited manpower, Ansel, BTW.

I would argue that that's an already doomed pilot trying to take his enemy with him, not one who specifically set out on a suicide run, which would IMO best fit the kamikaze definition..

That's what Wookieepedia listed it as, so I'm using that term as Wookieepedia stated it to be.

[Knife]

That's silly. The Imperial officers stated the shields were down prior to the A wing crashing into the bridge uncontrollably. It wasn't a Kamakazi, it was happenstance. With the shields down, it well could have been a turbolaser shot from anywhere.

Yeah, last I checked, Cryvel was clearly seen steering his A-Wing toward the bridge, which fits the definition of a kamikaze.

Good point on the bit about bigger ships needing more limited manpower, Ansel, BTW.

The Novelization actually doesn't have that scene, but something close to it on an earlier run on a bog standard stardestroyer. There actually is that scene in the movie where Green Wing Y wing got hit and rode it out into the Stardestroyer, but doesn't say explicitly he 'Kamakaizied'. As of 'Cryvel' that's legends and I don't care about legends. On screen he was straffing the superstructure of the SSD, got nicked and spun out of control to the bridge.

FYI, the novel keeps saying the fighters are after 'power trees' and 'power stations' during the fight.

[Crazedwraith]

You've also got Lando's explicit statement that "if we knock out [the capships'] shields our fighters might stand a chance against them". My emphasis..

Just check the space battles scenes. He doesn't say that in RotJ as far as I can tell? He mentions the Death Stars shields. He orders the attack on the Imperial fleet on the ground that 'We'll last longer [against them] than will against that Death Star. And we might just take a few of them with us.' But that's talking about the fleet as a whole.

Interesting though that Wedge's first comment about incoming ties is expressing concern for them attacking the cruisers.

And that the Ackbar's 'concentrate firepower' is immediately followed by the A-Wing blowing off a bridge globe. There's no cut to another scene, no implication of a massive bombardment from the fleet following that order. It had to happened in missing time in that cut, or it had to have happened before Ackbar ordered it.

The only real reason to assume it exists is to argue fighters can't hurt cap ships.

[fractalsponge1]

You've also got Lando's explicit statement that "if we knock out [the capships'] shields our fighters might stand a chance against them". My emphasis..

Just check the space battles scenes. He doesn't say that in RotJ as far as I can tell? He mentions the Death Stars shields. He orders the attack on the Imperial fleet on the ground that 'We'll last longer [against them] than will against that Death Star. And we might just take a few of them with us.' But that's talking about the fleet as a whole.

Interesting though that Wedge's first comment about incoming ties is expressing concern for them attacking the cruisers.

And that the Ackbar's 'concentrate firepower' is immediately followed by the A-Wing blowing off a bridge globe. There's no cut to another scene, no implication of a massive bombardment from the fleet following that order. It had to happened in missing time in that cut, or it had to have happened before Ackbar ordered it.

The only real reason to assume it exists is to argue fighters can't hurt cap ships.

It's not like the battle is totally uncut throughout the movie, so quite likely to be missing time. Otherwise, one could also argue along this line of reasoning that concentrated fleet firepower from the entire Alliance fleet is... basically nothing, since you don't see much in the way of turbolaser bolts immediately following Ackbar's order.

[fractalsponge1]

Messing about:

I like.

Ever think about doing something a bit off kilter, like three sets of narrowly paired wings? Like this idea driving by completely irrelevant helicopter logic
http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h35 ... 20tilt.jpg

You mean ...3 pairs of struts with wings? Not sure from the photo.

I want to have a gunship-fighter at some point. Short barrel light turbolaser(s) on a heavy fighter chassis - basically a sniper and a transport/corvette killer. I don't think it's doable on a TIE, since TIEs are uniformly freaking tiny, and the panels get in the way a lot. Possibly heavily modified gunboat or missile boat.

[Sea Skimmer]

I was thinking three pairs of wings at closely spaced V angles, so every 120 degrees you have a pair with a common base but then projecting upwards with a say 10-20 degree divergence between each other. It should not be any more clumsy then all TIE designs already are, but it's something different. Then perhaps nestle a nice big cannon into the bottom of each V.

[Crazedwraith]

It's not like the battle is totally uncut throughout the movie, so quite likely to be missing time. Otherwise, one could also argue along this line of reasoning that concentrated fleet firepower from the entire Alliance fleet is... basically nothing, since you don't see much in the way of turbolaser bolts immediately following Ackbar's order.

If there was another scene in between those two bits. Like there is in other bits of the battle, then sure. But it seems to me the chronology of the scene is quite clear. Ackbar's order > mass fighter attack > shields down > (accidental) A-Wing ramming.

We just don't see the cap ships every throwing the broadsides they're 'supposed' to have.

[fractalsponge1]

It's not like the battle is totally uncut throughout the movie, so quite likely to be missing time. Otherwise, one could also argue along this line of reasoning that concentrated fleet firepower from the entire Alliance fleet is... basically nothing, since you don't see much in the way of turbolaser bolts immediately following Ackbar's order.

If there was another scene in between those two bits. Like there is in other bits of the battle, then sure. But it seems to me the chronology of the scene is quite clear. Ackbar's order > mass fighter attack > shields down > (accidental) A-Wing ramming.

We just don't see the cap ships every throwing the broadsides they're 'supposed' to have.

What strains credulity more, A-wings breaching the shields of Executor, or following through for component damage after the Alliance fleet does it? I have no problems with starfighters threatening capitals, but they need to do it in a logical way, or capitals are worthless and that is clearly not regarded to be the case.

And of course cap ships are supposed to have broadsides. Large guns are obvious on the models, and the only energy kills of capital ships in the OT are by other capitals. Broadsides are explicitly shown in the ROTS battle.

Anyway, this is drawing off from the design bits. I'm fairly certain we've been through this before on this board.

[fractalsponge1]

I was thinking three pairs of wings at closely spaced V angles, so every 120 degrees you have a pair with a common base but then projecting upwards with a say 10-20 degree divergence between each other. It should not be any more clumsy then all TIE designs already are, but it's something different. Then perhaps nestle a nice big cannon into the bottom of each V.

So like a more compact TIE Defender wing?

[Captain Seafort]

Just check the space battles scenes. He doesn't say that in RotJ as far as I can tell?

My apologies, you're correct - he doesn't. Ackbar, however, does. It's in the novelisation, paperback page 178.

We just don't see the cap ships every throwing the broadsides they're 'supposed' to have.

We do - I believe it's during the exchange between Home One and the Ex that we see an ISD in the background hit by a heavy TL bolt and explode.

[Crazedwraith]

Just check the space battles scenes. He doesn't say that in RotJ as far as I can tell?

My apologies, you're correct - he doesn't. Ackbar, however, does. It's in the novelisation, paperback page 178.

We just don't see the cap ships every throwing the broadsides they're 'supposed' to have.

We do - I believe it's during the exchange between Home One and the Ex that we see an ISD in the background hit by a heavy TL bolt and explode.

Fair enough about the quote. And the ISD going kablooey. I took another look and it's in the back ground as Ackbar orders concentrated fire on the Executor. They're head to head rather than broadside though. Still if you look at the background in most of the fleet shots there;s the odd explosion and streak of turbolaser fire. There's not massive volleys heading in every direction as if they can fire every gun on the model constantly.

What strains credulity more, A-wings breaching the shields of Executor, or following through for component damage after the Alliance fleet does it? I have no problems with starfighters threatening capitals, but they need to do it in a logical way, or capitals are worthless and that is clearly not regarded to be the case.

Seems a little circular. I assume they have massive firepower and massive durability. Therefore there must be a bombardment we didn't see because otherwise it wouldn't make sense fighters killing it. Fighters can be effective and they can still have cap ships. It happens in real life. plane launched torpedoes and missiles can kill ships but we still have them. Endurance, speed, flexibility. Fighters can't carry troops and garrisons etc around.

And to take the discussion full circle. There's always Brian Young's theory on figters. That they can actually fly through ship's shields without needing to batter them down. Sounds a little weird but basically what happens to the DS1 and apparently a few times in clone wars.

And of course cap ships are supposed to have broadsides. Large guns are obvious on the models, and the only energy kills of capital ships in the OT are by other capitals. Broadsides are explicitly shown in the ROTS battle.

Of course they have guns on the models. Do we ever actually see them fire? Like big green bolts from the right part of the ship? (Honest question. I assume Saxton's done analysis on where we see the bolts from and where the model's guns are)

The only broadside battle I noticed in my quick look is one between a Neb-B and an ISD and both survive. The ISD appears to be firing guns in it's side trenchs. Not the superstructure heavies that could obliterate it.

Anyway, this is drawing off from the design bits. I'm fairly certain we've been through this before on this board.

True enough. I don't want to distract from your designs. Which are amazingly detailed and well thought out. I don't think I've ever mentioned this but I do like the way you do the missiles on TIE fighter designs. Do you have any plans to do similar ones for Rebel fighters? Or would they keep internal magazines?

[fractalsponge1]

Fighters can be effective and they can still have cap ships. It happens in real life. plane launched torpedoes and missiles can kill ships but we still have them. Endurance, speed, flexibility. Fighters can't carry troops and garrisons etc around.

Yeah, except ships don't cost millions of times more than fighters, like the cost differential in raw material (if nothing else) between starfighters and Star Destroyers. That's such a ridiculous ratio that if fighters were so dominant in combat over capital defenses, all you'd see are carriers and super cheap transport platforms, not things like Star Destroyers and Dreadnoughts.

In my personal idea for the relative value, I think there are likely teraton-scale fighter warheads, so that hundreds of starfighter bombers attacking in a coordinated way can be equivalent to a regular star destroyer. Once shields are down, fighters are much more effective in attacking important components.

And to take the discussion full circle. There's always Brian Young's theory on figters. That they can actually fly through ship's shields without needing to batter them down. Sounds a little weird but basically what happens to the DS1 and apparently a few times in clone wars.

I dunno about that - seems like shields are basically hull hugging, and certainly the ROTS boarding scene suggests that atmospheric curtains are not permeable to fighters.

Of course they have guns on the models. Do we ever actually see them fire? Like big green bolts from the right part of the ship? (Honest question. I assume Saxton's done analysis on where we see the bolts from and where the model's guns are)

From an ISD, up close? No. From a Venator's flank guns, which are at bigger than an ISDII's? Yep! All evidence points to very large weapons available in flank positions in OT ships, and the existence of weapons in consistent scales and location is validated on screen in ROTS.

As an aside, I would point out arguing about pieces of studio models without context like ICS and blueprints and such, etc. is also vaguely dangerous, because one could then ask why Executor did not release her giant mecha from its dorsal hangar to swat aside A-Wings Godzilla style:

The only broadside battle I noticed in my quick look is one between a Neb-B and an ISD and both survive. The ISD appears to be firing guns in it's side trenchs. Not the superstructure heavies that could obliterate it.

It's actually the trench of the Executor. Which tells you that the fleet was not really shooting to kill, given that destroyer guns so small you couldn't even see them took apart Tantive IV, which is likely a comparable ship to a Neb-B by power generation.

True enough. I don't want to distract from your designs. Which are amazingly detailed and well thought out. I don't think I've ever mentioned this but I do like the way you do the missiles on TIE fighter designs. Do you have any plans to do similar ones for Rebel fighters? Or would they keep internal magazines?

Everything I've seen says the warheads for Rebel fighters are all internal. Rebel fighters actually have a decent amount of space (except, funnily enough, A-Wings). Given what happens to the Executor sensor dome, that tells you something about SW warhead power density (the missile that caused that explosion was probably RPG sized, unless there's a lot of contained energy in that globe and the missile just caused a chain reaction). But most SW fighter warheads are pretty small, generally speaking. Non bomber-TIEs are just small enough and without any visible openings for a warhead launcher that any design solution integrating missiles needed a visually distinct arrangement from the base models.

[Adam Reynolds]

So to defend Brian's theory, his argument is that it is possible but extremely difficult. Fighters can successfully engage capital ships and inflict disproportionate damage, but only when they are able to survive their attacks runs and deliver ordinance, which are not exactly likely given the threat of both enemy weapons fire and defending starfighters. As we see over the Death Star, only three out of thirty attacking fighters survive, against a target rather poorly defended against fighter attacks. Similarly, the Imperial fighters over Endor are outright slaughtered when they attack without much in the way of support. The Rebel fighters on the other hand operate much more closely with their own heavy ships, which allows them to more successfully make attacks, as it leaves the star destroyers with the problem of needing to deal with both threats at once, which does not give them the same ability to focus their weapons fire as flak.

Malvolence is probably the most stark case of this, in which Anakin is the only pilot who could successfully make the attack run, as the rest of his squadron was being shot down. He ultimately switches targets to the ion canons as a result, because they are less well defended than the bridge.

I should also note that the theory of permeable shields is also based upon the first Death Star, in which the fighters pass through the "magnetic field," which is presumably the outer shield. It is also just plain consistent with the general effectiveness of fighters. While it might be possible that hundreds of them could equal a star destroyer, we never actually see any evidence of massing at this scale. We instead see much smaller squadrons being effective, which requires an explanation. Notably there are also several cases in Clone Wars in which relatively small unsupported fighter attacks can take down Venator class vessels(Cloak of Darkness is the first that comes to mind), which indicates a strong vulnerability to fighters.

My personal theory is that there are two layers of shielding and armor. There is a primary outer shield that defends against enemy heavy turbolasers, as well as an inner shield that defends against enemy fighters and supplements the armor in that purpose, defending things like the bridge and hangers that are otherwise vulnerable and not well protected by armor. This explains why Piet ordered Executor to intensify forward firepower, as he was only worried about fighters given that his outer shields were still active and adequately defending against turbolasers. It also explains why Plo Koon was worried about casualties against Malvolence, as they still needed to penetrate the inner bridge shields. It is similarly what we saw with the Death Star as well, in which the vulnerable exhaust port was shielded.

Also, I don't think the film novelizations are actually canon anymore, given the massive inconsistencies between Clone Wars and the ROTS novelization, which is full of references to the 2002-2005 pre-ROTS EU that almost entirely contradicts Clone Wars, with references to things like Labyrinth of Evil, which contradicts the Sifo-Dyas arc, and with Grevious having never fought Ob-Wan before the film, even though they had fought in the series a half dozen times. The portrayal of clones and Order 66 is also contradicted by the arc in Clone Wars about the use of control chips. While I personally prefer the old EU in these cases, it is not what we have.

[fractalsponge1]

The animated series has a lot of issues for anything related to numbers, I think, similar to the old XW game books. But I still maintain my argument about relative resources, based on screen material if nothing else. The existing material demonstrates that both capitals and fighters are worth investment of resources. The relative balance may be in doubt, but if fighters are so good against capital ships that single normal squadrons can routinely mission kill star destroyers, then capitals, as opposed to monitors, armed transports, and carriers, are really worthless and shouldn't be seen. Courscant certainly would have been over pretty damn quick as thousands of droid fighters start component killing Venators via kamikaze attacks. And you would absolutely not see the doctrinal change from the very heavy fighter-focused Clone Wars Republic designs to Imperial ships of proportionately much less hangar capacity (Venator -> ISD change specifically).

Anyway, someone start a thread in the SW forum, and we can see what the state of the argument is in 2016.

[Knife]

It's not like the battle is totally uncut throughout the movie, so quite likely to be missing time. Otherwise, one could also argue along this line of reasoning that concentrated fleet firepower from the entire Alliance fleet is... basically nothing, since you don't see much in the way of turbolaser bolts immediately following Ackbar's order.

If there was another scene in between those two bits. Like there is in other bits of the battle, then sure. But it seems to me the chronology of the scene is quite clear. Ackbar's order > mass fighter attack > shields down > (accidental) A-Wing ramming.

We just don't see the cap ships every throwing the broadsides they're 'supposed' to have.

We see two portions of the fleet enveloping the SSD, during that maneuver, we see some ISD's go down. After the SSD goes down we clearly see Akbar's portion of the fleet and another flotilla on the other side of the downed SSD. It was more than just a fighter surge.