NR Fleets

[PainRack]

Is there any infomation available on how the New Republic organise her fleets in the NJO era, before the YV invaded?

[CmdrWilkens]

Is there any infomation available on how the New Republic organise her fleets in the NJO era, before the YV invaded?

Best reference would be the Black Fleet Crisis.

The NR is stated to have just expanded to 5 Patrol Fleets (I think this excludes those which are static defense units). Anyway each fleet is composed of 5 taskforces centered on either a Star Destroyer or Fleet Carrier as a flagship. All told each taskforce is suppossed to contain 21 major combatants for a total of 105 ships per fleet and a grand total of 525 Major combatants.

Personally I think the numebrs are lowball unless one assumes that these are in addition to static defense fleets stationed at key locations throughout the NR. There is at least some merit for this idea from the trilogy in the existence of the NRI taskforce huning the Teljkon vagabond.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Best reference would be the Black Fleet Crisis.

The NR is stated to have just expanded to 5 Patrol Fleets (I think this excludes those which are static defense units). Anyway each fleet is composed of 5 taskforces centered on either a Star Destroyer or Fleet Carrier as a flagship. All told each taskforce is suppossed to contain 21 major combatants for a total of 105 ships per fleet and a grand total of 525 Major combatants.

Personally I think the numebrs are lowball unless one assumes that these are in addition to static defense fleets stationed at key locations throughout the NR. There is at least some merit for this idea from the trilogy in the existence of the NRI taskforce huning the Teljkon vagabond.

I wouldn't call all of those "major" combatants. In the Imperial era, a "major" combatant is about an ISD, of which there are at least 25000. The 525 ships count per NR fleet includes Gunships!

And if you see Tyrant's Test, you'd see that 1/3rd of those 21 must be tankers.

In a Task Force, there's the flagship (1,) two heavy cruisers, two assault carriers - that makes five ships at or over 700m long class. Four escort frigates and 5 gunships. There's actually only FOURTEEN combatant vessels. I suppose the other ones must be tenders of some categorization (tanker, food ship, repair ship...)

Pitifully small, even if they ARE patrol fleets.

[PainRack]

Best reference would be the Black Fleet Crisis.

The NR is stated to have just expanded to 5 Patrol Fleets (I think this excludes those which are static defense units). Anyway each fleet is composed of 5 taskforces centered on either a Star Destroyer or Fleet Carrier as a flagship. All told each taskforce is suppossed to contain 21 major combatants for a total of 105 ships per fleet and a grand total of 525 Major combatants.

Personally I think the numebrs are lowball unless one assumes that these are in addition to static defense fleets stationed at key locations throughout the NR. There is at least some merit for this idea from the trilogy in the existence of the NRI taskforce huning the Teljkon vagabond.

Wasn't the Fifth fleet supposed to contain over 200 ships? At least, that was what I recall the quote as from Before the Storm.

[PainRack]

Also, is there any more tangible infomation? Like maybe an OOB, relevent sectors, chain of command, stuff like that.

[phongn]

Information on the NRDF is painfully thin, unfortunately. We know that in times of low-intensity conflict or 'peacetime' operations they keep only a small standing fleet. Individual governments have taken over local defense instead of having something like the Imperial Starfleet patrol everywhere.

In wartime the NR can buildup her fleet strength to levels only limited by trained manpower, but it takes time to get the yards built up and converted to military production.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Member governments had their own militaries even during the Imperial era. The Sector Groups sent to every Sector are a permanent occupation force, not a patrol force--the members in each Sector could more than handle that with their own militaries, and did so once they joined the New Republic.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Best reference would be the Black Fleet Crisis.

The NR is stated to have just expanded to 5 Patrol Fleets (I think this excludes those which are static defense units). Anyway each fleet is composed of 5 taskforces centered on either a Star Destroyer or Fleet Carrier as a flagship. All told each taskforce is suppossed to contain 21 major combatants for a total of 105 ships per fleet and a grand total of 525 Major combatants.

Personally I think the numebrs are lowball unless one assumes that these are in addition to static defense fleets stationed at key locations throughout the NR. There is at least some merit for this idea from the trilogy in the existence of the NRI taskforce huning the Teljkon vagabond.

I wouldn't call all of those "major" combatants. In the Imperial era, a "major" combatant is about an ISD, of which there are at least 25000. The 525 ships count per NR fleet includes Gunships!

And if you see Tyrant's Test, you'd see that 1/3rd of those 21 must be tankers.

In a Task Force, there's the flagship (1,) two heavy cruisers, two assault carriers - that makes five ships at or over 700m long class. Four escort frigates and 5 gunships. There's actually only FOURTEEN combatant vessels. I suppose the other ones must be tenders of some categorization (tanker, food ship, repair ship...)

Pitifully small, even if they ARE patrol fleets.

No suprise, K-Mac is an imbecile which cannot comprehend the scale of the SW galaxy. He had an essay proclaiming how Coruscant "couldn't" be a city-planet.

[CmdrWilkens]

I wouldn't call all of those "major" combatants. In the Imperial era, a "major" combatant is about an ISD, of which there are at least 25000. The 525 ships count per NR fleet includes Gunships!

And if you see Tyrant's Test, you'd see that 1/3rd of those 21 must be tankers.

In a Task Force, there's the flagship (1,) two heavy cruisers, two assault carriers - that makes five ships at or over 700m long class. Four escort frigates and 5 gunships. There's actually only FOURTEEN combatant vessels. I suppose the other ones must be tenders of some categorization (tanker, food ship, repair ship...)

Pitifully small, even if they ARE patrol fleets.

No suprise, K-Mac is an imbecile which cannot comprehend the scale of the SW galaxy. He had an essay proclaiming how Coruscant "couldn't" be a city-planet.

Yet he still wrote some of the best fleet combat sequences out of all the novels. Furthermore if we except the Luke and Lando sub-plots the character development was some of the best in all of the EU. He actually allwoed the characters to be DIFFERENT which is rather amazing. DOn't hate the man just because you don't like the scale he operates on.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yet he still wrote some of the best fleet combat sequences out of all the novels.

And his model for space combat wasn't really correct for the SW universe.

Furthermore if we except the Luke and Lando sub-plots the character development was some of the best in all of the EU.

Leia's character developed?

He actually allwoed the characters to be DIFFERENT which is rather amazing. DOn't hate the man just because you don't like the scale he operates on.

I found his trilogy rather boring, personally.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

[And his model for space combat wasn't really correct for the SW universe.

How do you make it correct, in your opinion.

[Illuminatus Primus]

It was based on carrier group naval tactics and such.

Watching the movies shows that is not how SW combat is run.

And when your most powerful vessel is 1040 meter pocket SD, and the enemy ship-of-the-line is a 1600 meter leviathan, I call that stupid writing.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

The NR is always portrayed as a Fighter-reliant force, with crack fighter pilots in shielded fighters, going against the Imperials relying on huge ships with unshielded fighters - and winning, just mirroring carriers versus battleships in our world.

That doctrinal shift towards emphasis in carriers has been around for a long time. I don't think old Kubie could just order a one-eighty turn even if he wanted to. He just formally announced the NR has switched to carrier-centered forces with his explicit stated OOB for a task force.

The task force OOB could ALSO be a battle line for low scale engagements. We have a battleship, two support carriers to provide air cover (even if you are a pro-BB type, fighter cover is becoming a necessity both in WWII and in Star Wars,) two heavy, four light cruisers and 5 destroyers. Sounds like a feasible light surface action task force to me too.

As for small ships versus big ships, again, that's just mirroring a trend that no single author could buck. They are always trying to portray the NR as pacifistic and militarily weak, yet SOMEHOW, somehow able to use ingenuity versus resources to win - even though in full scale engagements, resource disparities of such a degree should be rapidly exposed once the "one-time tricks" and "brilliant stratagems" are revealed and taken effect.

At least the Vong are kicking the NR's butt (for awhile anyway,) proving to them to folly of their ideas. Serves them right!

[Illuminatus Primus]

The NR is always portrayed as a Fighter-reliant force, with crack fighter pilots in shielded fighters, going against the Imperials relying on huge ships with unshielded fighters - and winning, just mirroring carriers versus battleships in our world.

Actually, this is a leap-in-logic (brain bug), courtesy of the EU. Battle of Endor shows the mature Rebellion fighting Star Destroyers ship to ship.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

I'm just saying it is universal in the EU, and no longer within the power of Kube alone to correct.

Brutal rationalization: Perhaps it could even BE a consequence of Endor. True, they won it, but IIRC official accounts also say they lost a substantial part of their fleet and had most of the rest badly damaged. If that's so, they might have looked at the loss bill and the correlation of forces, and realized that they really can't continue that way. In any case, for awhile, they couldn't because they don't have that many major ships that don't need repair. That places further increased emphasis on starfighters, and this time they work on better antiship tactics and getting better antiship weapons, thus making their starfighters a true threat to starships.

The approach works great (as can be seen in X-Wing novels,) so the NR gets more and more "fighter-centric."

[Illuminatus Primus]

But fighters aren't normally that affective against capital ships. Only Rogue Squadron has that much luck usually.

Hell, in the X-Wing books, major battles without the Rogues, like the Battle of Coruscant in orbit: that was all capship-to-capship slugging out.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

But fighters aren't normally that affective against capital ships. Only Rogue Squadron has that much luck usually.

Hell, in the X-Wing books, major battles without the Rogues, like the Battle of Coruscant in orbit: that was all capship-to-capship slugging out.

I know they also have some capship battles. But even if we assume the other squadrons need 10x more fighters to do the same job as Rogue Squadron, it might be worth it.

Look, I'm trying to rationalize here, I know it stinks to have this kind of shit happen at all

[CmdrWilkens]

But fighters aren't normally that affective against capital ships. Only Rogue Squadron has that much luck usually.

Hell, in the X-Wing books, major battles without the Rogues, like the Battle of Coruscant in orbit: that was all capship-to-capship slugging out.

You'll also note that he does have fighters serve as a screening and precision attack force. notably the bombers have extremely heavy loadouts and must be accompanied by fighters which are useless against capships. Tyrant's Test has capships picking off fighters like so many insects (as does Before the Storm but to be fair they were computer controlled).

Kube has it rather clear that the heaviest fighting is borne by capships slugging it out while heavy bombers (essentially racks of bombs with nothing else) are used to help open holes in shielding. Unless you read a completely different novel than i did this is a combination of the tactics of SW with the addition of a heavy bomber which we never saw in the movies.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'll give you that. The K-Wing was what was missing from Stackpole's books to allow them to make sense.

Personally though, I think the New Class project was a failure. They were phasing in a "big capital ship" philosophy by NJO.

[CmdrWilkens]

I actually think the model of CapShip heavy with fragile bomber support is probably the best model for SW space combat. It incorporates the earlier tendency for fighter swarming victories in EU (thus we can at least pretend those fighters were actually using the high powered weapons that the bombers carry even if it makes no sense). That and it gives a reason for having the fighter screen besides interdicting small craft.

[Illuminatus Primus]

That's fine and dandy for KDY-scale destroyers, but what about when you're facing 3 km cruisers? 5 km battlecruisers? 8 km battleships?

Heavy bombers almost certainly have negligible firepower against such vessels (some may have shielding an order of magnitude over an ISD)--you need heavy capship pounders.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

That's fine and dandy for KDY-scale destroyers, but what about when you're facing 3 km cruisers? 5 km battlecruisers? 8 km battleships?

Heavy bombers almost certainly have negligible firepower against such vessels (some may have shielding an order of magnitude over an ISD)--you need heavy capship pounders.

The one time I can remember offhand about this kind of thing was Lusankya. It could be that those freighters were carrying Victory-I class torpedoes or larger, thus allowing them to knock out Lusankya's shields (the fact Lusankya might not be full up may help.)

After all, we saw in Solo Command that 200 fighters attacking (presumably most or all with proton torps and concussion missiles) can't cause critical damage to a SSD (even their twisted 8km version.) They were getting some penetrations, and causing fires, but the shield still seems to be up and there is no evidence of major structural damage.

As for the New Class project, it was probably a mix of NR pacifism and economies. The Yevethan incident no doubt taught them SOMETHING, but the reforms weren't all in place.

In the early part of NJO, the TF was still organized basically the under the old organization (take the Errinic TF versus a Vong fleet in Ord Mantel.) You see one big Mon Cal cruiser, a Star Destroyer as flagship (but that was an IR donation.) And a bunch of smaller frigates and stuff.

[Illuminatus Primus]

What of the Mediators, Stridents, Viscounts, and MC80Bs and MC90s?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

As for the New Class project, it was probably a mix of NR pacifism and economies. The Yevethan incident no doubt taught them SOMETHING, but the reforms weren't all in place.

In the early part of NJO, the TF was still organized basically the under the old organization (take the Errinic TF versus a Vong fleet in Ord Mantel.) You see one big Mon Cal cruiser, a Star Destroyer as flagship (but that was an IR donation.) And a bunch of smaller frigates and stuff.

This part?

Yes, I know about Mediators and Viscounts and MC80Bs and stuff. MC80Bs and MC90 are pre New-class.

I am just trying to say the OOB. I know they are building those Viscounts and Mediators post-BFC, its just that they obviously weren't all in yet by the Battle of Ord Mantel, so the OOB still followed the BFC pattern.

For the MC80B and MC90, at least they had the brains to combine a few together in the Thrawn era. Somewhere between Thrawn and BFC, they lost even that concentration.

Or are you talking about someplace else?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I don't even think the NRDF has an OOB at times.