Versus Series: Ship Combat in Star Wars

[Rhadamantus]

New thread, same rules as before.


1 MANDATOR-IV CLASS SIEGE DREADNOUGHT
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mandator ... readnought

VS.

1 BELLATOR CLASS BATTLECRUISER

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bellator ... readnought

Can the Siege Pizza beat the war machine?

[Q99]

It comes down to those big guns- if they can take out the Bellator, easy win. If the Bellator's shields can take it, their fighters and firepower seems like it'd stand a good chance of not giving a second shot, Mandator's defenses aren't great.


Basically on one side, you have a fairly standard Star Destroyer all-arounder flagship type, and on the other side you have siege artillery with a heck of a knockout blow but far more specialized and not great at defending itself.

[The Romulan Republic]

Do we have any hard numbers on those guns vs. the Bellator's shields?

Beyond that, I'm inclined to agree with Q99, with the caveat that the Mandator did seem to have a fairly sizeable Tie compliment of its own, which might be able to blunt the effectiveness of a bombing attack from the Bellator.

[JI_Joe84]

Problem with the "pizza wedge" is that its not a anti cap ship type of ship. Its a show up to resistance base, like yavin 4, and shoot big giant space canon at the space hippies.
Because of that it does not appear designed for cap ship vs. cap ship fights. What I mean is it appears that it needed its target to be under and slightly in front for its cannons to target it.
If the Mandator's description says it was a battle cruiser, lots of big engine's for running and gunning. Purpose being it could whip any thing smaller with its big gun and could out maneuver battle cruisers.
If it can punch through the armor it will kill the pizza wedge ship, but only with a competent commander and crew. If they are stupid then they will be cought in those tractor beams and become target practice.

[Q99]

Beyond that, I'm inclined to agree with Q99, with the caveat that the Mandator did seem to have a fairly sizeable Tie compliment of its own, which might be able to blunt the effectiveness of a bombing attack from the Bellator.

A lot of those fighters were from the three Resurgent class SDs with it, and those have sizable loads. So it's got some, but probably not a lot, it proportionally has much smaller hangers and it's supposed to be deployed with support.

[The Romulan Republic]

Beyond that, I'm inclined to agree with Q99, with the caveat that the Mandator did seem to have a fairly sizeable Tie compliment of its own, which might be able to blunt the effectiveness of a bombing attack from the Bellator.

A lot of those fighters were from the three Resurgent class SDs with it, and those have sizable loads. So it's got some, but probably not a lot, it proportionally has much smaller hangers and it's supposed to be deployed with support.

Fair enough. So yeah, in that case, I'm inclined to favor the Bellator in this match.

[NecronLord]

Problem with the "pizza wedge" is that its not a anti cap ship type of ship. Its a show up to resistance base, like yavin 4, and shoot big giant space canon at the space hippies.
Because of that it does not appear designed for cap ship vs. cap ship fights. What I mean is it appears that it needed its target to be under and slightly in front for its cannons to target it.
If the Mandator's description says it was a battle cruiser, lots of big engine's for running and gunning. Purpose being it could whip any thing smaller with its big gun and could out maneuver battle cruisers.
If it can punch through the armor it will kill the pizza wedge ship, but only with a competent commander and crew. If they are stupid then they will be cought in those tractor beams and become target practice.

The 'Fleet Killer' is not an anti-capship vessel?

[tezunegari]

Problem with the "pizza wedge" is that its not a anti cap ship type of ship. Its a show up to resistance base, like yavin 4, and shoot big giant space canon at the space hippies.
Because of that it does not appear designed for cap ship vs. cap ship fights. What I mean is it appears that it needed its target to be under and slightly in front for its cannons to target it.
If the Mandator's description says it was a battle cruiser, lots of big engine's for running and gunning. Purpose being it could whip any thing smaller with its big gun and could out maneuver battle cruisers.
If it can punch through the armor it will kill the pizza wedge ship, but only with a competent commander and crew. If they are stupid then they will be cought in those tractor beams and become target practice.

The 'Fleet Killer' is not an anti-capship vessel?

It's not designed to fight directly in battles but if you can place the Mandator at the edge of the battle and keep a protective fighter/battleship screen around it, it could be used to snipe enemy capital ships.

The Mandator is definitely not meant as a direct combat ship, as the name implies its primary purpose is Siege combat most likely with shielded planetary bases in mind.

The autocannons require about 100 seconds to recharge between firing at full charge with 4 shots total.
If they can be fired independently or two shots per barrel... two shot every 50 seconds.
And if you can release only a single shot you could fire them every 25 seconds.

I think the autocannons can only fire at full charge of four shots, otherwise, Captain Canady would have ordered an immediate firing instead of waiting.

As for the firepower, the resulting explosions in an atmosphere are visible from space. Unfortunately, there are no points of reference that might help with a size estimate of the explosions.

[JI_Joe84]

Problem with the "pizza wedge" is that its not a anti cap ship type of ship. Its a show up to resistance base, like yavin 4, and shoot big giant space canon at the space hippies.
Because of that it does not appear designed for cap ship vs. cap ship fights. What I mean is it appears that it needed its target to be under and slightly in front for its cannons to target it.
If the Mandator's description says it was a battle cruiser, lots of big engine's for running and gunning. Purpose being it could whip any thing smaller with its big gun and could out maneuver battle cruisers.
If it can punch through the armor it will kill the pizza wedge ship, but only with a competent commander and crew. If they are stupid then they will be cought in those tractor beams and become target practice.

The 'Fleet Killer' is not an anti-capship vessel?

Look at the placement of the guns and their fireing arks, they would have a hell of a time tracking a enemy cap ship with out the ship using its own thrusters to keep its bow on a target.
This was the first order equivalent of the empires superlaser equipped stardestroyers.
It's for cracking theater shields with power and dignity. You apparently can't be seen as a strong empire if you have to send in their equivalent of space marines every time a rebellion gets its own theater shield.
At least that is how it appears to me.

[NecronLord]

The 'Fleet Killer' is not an anti-capship vessel?

It's not designed to fight directly in battles but if you can place the Mandator at the edge of the battle and keep a protective fighter/battleship screen around it, it could be used to snipe enemy capital ships.

The Mandator is definitely not meant as a direct combat ship, as the name implies its primary purpose is Siege combat most likely with shielded planetary bases in mind.

The autocannons require about 100 seconds to recharge between firing at full charge with 4 shots total.
If they can be fired independently or two shots per barrel... two shot every 50 seconds.
And if you can release only a single shot you could fire them every 25 seconds.

I think the autocannons can only fire at full charge of four shots, otherwise, Captain Canady would have ordered an immediate firing instead of waiting.

As for the firepower, the resulting explosions in an atmosphere are visible from space. Unfortunately, there are no points of reference that might help with a size estimate of the explosions.

And most Star Wars ship to ship battles involve more than two minutes of ships pounding each other.

Behold!

The Malevolence took a long time to build up power for an attack and it was still a literal fleet killer. Like so.

Look at the placement of the guns and their fireing arks, they would have a hell of a time tracking a enemy cap ship with out the ship using its own thrusters to keep its bow on a target.
This was the first order equivalent of the empires superlaser equipped stardestroyers.
It's for cracking theater shields with power and dignity. You apparently can't be seen as a strong empire if you have to send in their equivalent of space marines every time a rebellion gets its own theater shield.
At least that is how it appears to me.

It's space. Two turreted guns on the ventral are exactly as limited in firing arc as a battery of turreted guns in the dorsal side.

Canady shot the base first because...

I have my orders from Supreme Leader Snoke himself. This is where we snuff out
the Resistance once and for all. Tell Captain Canady to prime his dreadnought.

Incinerate their base, destroy their transports and obliterate their fleet.

That was (stupidly, because Hux is stupid) the order he was given to do that in. We see later that the guns absolutely can target enemy starships and work just fine in that role.

The 'main battery on the ventral side' on turrets is a thing that other navies in the setting have used for ship to ship combat vessels without proven disadvantage.

[tezunegari]

The 'Fleet Killer' is not an anti-capship vessel?

It's not designed to fight directly in battles but if you can place the Mandator at the edge of the battle and keep a protective fighter/battleship screen around it, it could be used to snipe enemy capital ships.

The Mandator is definitely not meant as a direct combat ship, as the name implies its primary purpose is Siege combat most likely with shielded planetary bases in mind.

The autocannons require about 100 seconds to recharge between firing at full charge with 4 shots total.
If they can be fired independently or two shots per barrel... two shot every 50 seconds.
And if you can release only a single shot you could fire them every 25 seconds.

I think the autocannons can only fire at full charge of four shots, otherwise, Captain Canady would have ordered an immediate firing instead of waiting.

As for the firepower, the resulting explosions in an atmosphere are visible from space. Unfortunately, there are no points of reference that might help with a size estimate of the explosions.

And most Star Wars ship to ship battles involve more than two minutes of ships pounding each other.

Behold!

The Malevolence took a long time to build up power for an attack and it was still a literal fleet killer. Like so.

Both ships are terrifying opponents.

But I think there's a difference in the approach of the Mandator and the Malevolence to being fleetkillers.

The Malevolence was designed to be one from the beginning, and due to its weapon, it had to be a lone wolf capable of doing everything.
It was meant to go toe-to-toe with Republic fleets alone. Its super-weapon, the dispersing ion-canon could actually disable a fleet in a single shot and then destroy the ships at leisure. It's long charging time might even be a bonus, tricking enemy ships into getting close in an attempt to stop the weapon, but ending up to close to outrun the weapons effective range. (I wonder if the ion-cannon has a limited fire arc, missing ships directly atop / below or in front / behind the ship, or if the ion-cannon effect is fully encompassing.)

The Mandator IV, on the other hand, feels like it was primarily designed with being a siege weapon in mind (to break shielded planets),
but some brilliant officer found out that the weapons are precise and strong enough to kill enemy capital ships with either a single shot or a single volley.

And (assuming a single shot can kill the biggest NR ship) if you watch a ship of your fleet go boom every 25 seconds... and even a dead capital ship every 100 seconds... that's a scary ship sitting on the sidelines, protected by swarms of TIEs and possibly one or two Resurgents solely dedicated to its defense.
And apparently, the armor on the ship is strong enough to withstand a lot of firepower as well unless the enemy hits "that sweet spot".

---

So, in a 1 on 1 fight, the Bellator would have the advantage as long as it can stay outside of the firing ark of the autocannons.

For the Bellator:
Get the Bellator behind and atop the Mandator, the better armed side of the Bellator facing the Mandator.
Bellator's TIEs engage Mandator TIEs and try to destroy the Mandators turrets while all guns fire at the weak spot.
If possible try to use tractor beams to catch the Mandator and keep it in position.

The Mandator, on the other hand, needs to keep distance, the further away it is from the Bellator the better.
Approach the Bellator with the autocannons aimed at it from the beginning.
Start firing as soon as it is in firing range to get as many salvos fired as possible and reverse thrust immediately to expand the time you have until it's to close.

[The Romulan Republic]

If the Bellator's fighter compliment is sufficiently superior, it doesn't have to close- just evade the Mandator's guns until its fighters can overwhelm the Mandator.

[Rhadamantus]

If the Bellator's fighter compliment is sufficiently superior, it doesn't have to close- just evade the Mandator's guns until its fighters can overwhelm the Mandator.

The Bellator isn't really a fighter heavy ship. Their fighters might not be able to overwhelm the Mandator.

[Q99]

If the Bellator's fighter compliment is sufficiently superior, it doesn't have to close- just evade the Mandator's guns until its fighters can overwhelm the Mandator.

The Bellator isn't really a fighter heavy ship. Their fighters might not be able to overwhelm the Mandator.

It's not a fighter specialist ship, but it does have two pretty significantly large hangers: the two black bars

Considering it's raw size, that's enough for a pretty significant number of fighters.

[Elheru Aran]

If the Bellator's fighter compliment is sufficiently superior, it doesn't have to close- just evade the Mandator's guns until its fighters can overwhelm the Mandator.

The Bellator is the pizza-wedge bombardment ship from TLJ, right? Is it really maneuverable enough to evade sustained fire?

[Crazedwraith]

If the Bellator's fighter compliment is sufficiently superior, it doesn't have to close- just evade the Mandator's guns until its fighters can overwhelm the Mandator.

The Bellator is the pizza-wedge bombardment ship from TLJ, right? Is it really maneuverable enough to evade sustained fire?

Other way around. Bellator is fractal's ship. Mandator is from TLJ.