Versus Series: Ship Combat in Star Wars (Revived)

[Batman]

The ISD is the Huey of space warships...Jack of all Trades, Master of none...except thanks to its sheer size it at least manages to be 'good' at a lot of it

[Elheru Aran]

I view the ISD as more or less the result of Clone Wars experience with triangle designs like the Acclamator, Victory and Venator... basically those designs, refined further to optimize performance all around.

Sort of how in WWII the US started out with some really rotten planes, and ended it with some really good planes because they were working on the technology and developing it throughout the war with use and combat data to draw upon.

[Q99]

Star Destroyers can certainly fire at fighters, but they aren't optimized for it, they can just put multi-purpose guns to the task.

Star Destroyers (if you mean the classic ISD, at any rate- there are a lot of types) are not really optimized for anything, are they? They're jack of all trades ships, which can function as troop transports/fighter carriers, escorts for larger warships, or patrol vessels operating alone/in small groups, but aren't really optimized for any of those roles. They're usually good enough to get the job done, because they're bigger and better-armed than most of the local ships and there are a lot of them, but I doubt they'd represent the peak of theoretical capability of Star Wars tech. in any single arena.

Edit: I guess you could say that the ISD is optimized for the multi-purpose duties of patrolling and maintaining order in the Outer Rim. Maybe.

I'd say their best areas are probably ship-to-ship combat and to a secondary extent transports/carriers.


Ships more optimized for direct ship combat tend not to get popular.

[Captain Seafort]

Edit: I guess you could say that the ISD is optimized for the multi-purpose duties of patrolling and maintaining order in the Outer Rim. Maybe.

I would say that description is accurate as far as it goes, but lacks precision. I'd describe them as COIN platforms - specialised rapid-response vehicles with all the capabilities to deal with pockets of rebel activity up to a certain level of threat - which probably falls short of what the Mon Cals are capable of. Their presence in Death Squadron was probably due to the requirement for escorts capable of operating independently against small rebel outposts to gather intelligence, and while the tactical requirements of Endor would point towards Tector and Allegiance-class ships, the strategic requirement to avoid tipping the rebels hand to the trap meant that a major redeployment of strategic assets was impossible, so they had to fall back on forces already present in the outer rim - ergo ImpStars.

[The Romulan Republic]

That almost works, but the thing is, we see them being used outside of that role quite a bit.

They're used as escorts quite repeatedly, as command ships for smaller forces, as VIP transport... In fact, its hard to think of a role for a space warship in Star Wars that the ISD hasn't filled.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The thought occurs that they fit the 16th-18th century frigate role rather well - they carry VIPs, they protect and raid convoys and commerce, they lead smaller forces, they scout, they carry troops and support them.

Basically they do everything except slug it out against dedicated ships of the line. But since virtually no-one else has dedicated ships of the line, they get away with it.