Where did all the Star Destroyers go???

[Alyeska]

If the stories and novels between the OT movies are to be taken into account at all it is quite clear that the ISD is the prime commandship of the Empire. It leads taskforces and is capable of annihilating most other ships with ease.

Why do you think that is? It's because the opponents it went up against didn't merit anything more. Why send an Executor to lead a taskforce when a destroyer could easily do the job?

When you consider the far larger classes of warship the Empire had, it is a destroyer.

Oh yes, the far larger ships classes which were built in such stunning numbers I can practicaly count ALL of them on two hands. Then there is the fact that the ISD was built at 25K tops. Given its stature and its numbers the ship filled the role of cruiser.

PS, the Empire loved big ships and tried using them against enemies when possible. Your argument fails because the Empire wasn't using ISDs because they could get away with it. They were using ISDs because those were the biggest ships they could afford to send after the enemies.

[FTeik]

What enemies?

Rebels?
Pirates?
Outer Rim-Worlds?

And if they had at least 25,000 of ISDs, why not a few dozen or hundreds of bigger ships?

5 ISD and one Executor weren´t good enough against the rebel-shield at Hoth. What do you think they use against fully shielded worlds aside from DeathStars?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Problem, the ISD does not fit the destroyer role given its typical use in the role of commandship. It can perform destroyer duties, but with its command capabilities its more then just a destroyer.

The ISD is variably used as a destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, carrier, troopship, and commandship.

Its typical EU use is in the battleship role.

However, in the canon movies, it serves as a destroyer in the first and second films, and a cruiser in the third.

In High Command-sanctioned Imperial fleets, such as the Deep Core Reserve Fleets, Death Squadron, and Giel's Armada, as well as the various personal vessels utilized by Lord Darth Vader, suggests indeed that the Imperial-class Star Destroyer is purchased by the Imperial Navy as a multi-purpose destroyer designed to support and escort larger vessels.

For Lord Vader, Imperial-class ships are seen forming blockades and screening for blockade runners, as well as deploying minor "police role" forces to small worlds. They escort a supercarrier/commandship in deploying a major assault on a relatively small base and also form pursuit and blockade duties. For Giel, a large Imperial battleship/commandship and several cruisers and carriers are escorted by many dozens of Imperial-class ships, again, as destroyers. At Byss they serve as customs vessels, screening in coming shipping, and escorting larger craft. At Mon Calamari, they act as support and escort vessels for the much larger World Devestators and Allegiance-class ships as cruisers at best, and still, easily destroyers.

I think this fits in perfectly with the Navy/Starfleet dichotomy theorized by Marina. The Imperial-class, originally designed and marketed as a destroyer for the Navy's large scale-type fleets also has a repitoire of other mission capabilities.

Sectorial Moff Governors purchased the Imperial-class for their own Starfleets, making them the ship-of-the-line for the Imperial Sector Groups. However, the needs of these local permanent occupation and anti-rebel forces did not require massive, seventeen-kilometer commandships, eight-kilometer battleships, tweleve-kilometer battlecruisers; rather, the multi-role ISD could fill the roles of fast battleship and light carrier/troopship in most situations a Sector Group would encounter, and thus centered their forces around this excellent spacecraft, filling the remainder of their orders-of-battle with cheaper small-scale support and picket craft such as the Nebulon-B as a frigate or destroyer, the Victory-class as a battlecruiser, the CR90 as a Corvette, and the Dreadnought as a cruiser and the Lancers and Carracks as destroyers and picket ships, and even the small Escort Carrier as a tiny picket carrier vessel.

Quite simply, the ISD was intended and sold to the central government as a destroyer, but circumstance and convienence ended up utilizing it often other ways (particularly against the absurdly small NR ships).

I also think you have some confusion about the destroyer role, which Ender can explain in depth.

And 1 billion Imperial ships is absurd. The biggest estimates for the NR was 30,000 ships and Thrawn had 25% of the Empire at his point. He didn't have even 1% of the fleet size you indicate.

Where do we get 30,000 ships for the Empire when Thrawn was around? And you neglect that the Emperor recalled nearly the entire Imperial Navy and much of the local Starfleets to the Deep Core, faciliating his massive blitzkrieg known as Operation SHADOWHAND a year later.

The Navy/Starfleet dichotomy fixes the scale and WEG number contradictions while relying on canon implication and WEG information to reach that conclusion.

Oh yes, the far larger ships classes which were built in such stunning numbers I can practicaly count ALL of them on two hands. Then there is the fact that the ISD was built at 25K tops. Given its stature and its numbers the ship filled the role of cruiser.

Really? All of the High Command-sanctioned fleet commands were of the "Saxtonian" large-scale, with ISDs as destroyers. The Byss Reserve Fleet easily had a 1000+ of the larger craft.

PS, the Empire loved big ships and tried using them against enemies when possible. Your argument fails because the Empire wasn't using ISDs because they could get away with it. They were using ISDs because those were the biggest ships they could afford to send after the enemies.

Bullshit. The mere existance of the Death Stars proves the Empire was actually quite minimalistic and undermilitarized. Their military forces were usually quite appropriate for their targets. (ie., the Death Squadron detachment at Hoth VI was quite small compared to the force the Navy could've fielded when compared with commands at Endor and Giel's command; merely a textbook Imperial Sourcebook-style assault as called for on any industrialized world, substituting one ISD for the Executor).

You also ignore that the ISD is not really a large ship. The Trade Federation easily fielded tens of thousands of much larger fleet carriers (don't use the weak "converted freighter" cop-out; they were still military vessels and each had to be powerfully modified and refitted, not to mention having thousands upon thousands of war droids, armored vehicles, fighters, and nearly 50 TL turrets of ISD I-scale).

[The Kernel]

I don't think that we can slap a designation on an ISD as simply as all that. Let's look at the ISD's capabilities shall we?

1) Deep space combat: The ISD mounts an impressive array of TL's and Heavy TL's along with heavy shielding and armor.

2) Carrier: Seven squadrons of fighters that can be deployed for varying missions including deep space combat, bombing, recon and defense. It also carries an array of shuttles and transport craft.

3) Command Ship: It has been used in this role on numerous occassions by both Lord Vader and Grand Admiral Thrawn as well as other Imperial warlords.

4) Planetary Bombardment: The ISD is capable of executing BDZ's solo, without any support from other ships (Vision of the Future).

5) Planetary Subjugation: The typical ISD carries 20 AT-AT's and 40 AT-ST's as well as a standard compliment of several thousand Stormtroopers and a variety of speeders, assault craft, landing platforms and fully functional garrisons. Although not necessarily enough to subjugate a large world, several can be combined for larger scale operations.

It is pretty clear from all this that the ISD is truly a multi-fuction craft that can be used in a variety of roles. It can't simply be classified as a destroyer/cruiser because it is obvious from the design specifications that it was built to fill a variety of roles within the Imperial Fleet. There is nothing in the real world military that truly compares as the ISD mounts both the biggest guns and heaviest shields/armor, but is also designed for a multitude of support roles.

This seems to indicate that the Imperial Fleet abandoned the idea of specialized classes of ships above a certain size (although even the Nebulon-B isn't strictly a frigate with its fighter compliment) and decided to give their ships a broad range of capabilities. This may be due to the space required to mount a reactor for such a large array of weapons necessitated a large hull, but the weapons themselves were relatively small and could be mounted externally for the most part, not requiring a great deal of internal space. Thus the remaining volume of the ship needed to be taken up by something which could be used for fighter bays, troop compliments and the like. It just doesn't make sense that the ISD would be such a powerful design for space combat, yet so much of its internal space is taken up by things that could be accomplished by more specialized craft.

[His Divine Shadow]

Problem, the ISD does not fit the destroyer role given its typical use in the role of commandship. It can perform destroyer duties, but with its command capabilities its more then just a destroyer.

It's an ever patrolling jack of all trades ship, not built in large numbers I would gather due to that, cost-efficiency ratios and all that.

The biggest estimates for the NR was 30,000 ships and Thrawn had 25% of the Empire at his point. He didn't have even 1% of the fleet size you indicate.

I've never heard of anything like that, I've heard that figure as an estimate for the Yuuzhan Vong fleet attacking Coruscant in SbS.

Figures for the Imperial fleet however are quite solid and official, between 10 to 22 million capital vessels of various classes during it's height.

[Super-Gagme]

Perhaps it is a new designation in the Star Wars galaxy of its own? Star Destroyer as opposed to Cruiser, Destroyer, Frigate etc. If you notice there are a lot of Star Destroyers of different types but all maintain the same sort of JOAT abilities.

Edit: It also seems to me that people want to call them Destroyers so they can fan wank over the empire claiming it should be X amount bigger.

[Rogue 9]

I confess to not being familiar with the Allegiance class. I don't need an in-depth explanation, but could someone give me a rough size figure so I can know what we're dealing with here?

[Sharp-kun]

I confess to not being familiar with the Allegiance class. I don't need an in-depth explanation, but could someone give me a rough size figure so I can know what we're dealing with here?

Allegiance-class star destroyer.
LENGTH:
2.2 km
MANUFACTURER:
Kuat Drive Yards
SIGHTING:
Escorting the Eclipse at Cyax, year +6 after Palpatine's fall.
These destroyers are ubiquitous in situations involving a heavy fleet presence. They operated in an escort formation with the Eclipse, and participated in the enforcement of the security cordon around the planet Byss. Allegiance, the largest destroyer present at the Battle of Calamari, shares all of the distinctive structural features of this class and is the same size, approximately 2.2km long. For this reason, I provisionally refer to all of these ships as the Allegiance-class star destroyer. (I will replace this label whenever the official KDY classification becomes known.)

The warship is similar in form to the common Imperator-class star destroyer, but with several subtle but crucial distinctions. The stern, thrusters and command module are almost identical to those of the smaller vessel, but the main hull is significantly longer and more sharply pointed. The features surrounding the command tower are smoother than the terraced forms on the dorsal surface of an Imperator, with greater coverage by the flat armour plates and less exposure of inter-plate cortical surfaces. The ventral bulb of this ship is approximately ten times the volume of that on the Imperator. (According to the common assumption that the bulb surrounds part of the power or propulsion systems of a ship, the Allegiance design probably has much superior thrust, firepower and shieldpower.)

Unlike the smaller destroyers, there is a complete lack of any docking bay suitable for accommodating large starships. Any TIE or shuttle hangars must be small and open directly to space. This implies an important functional distinction: the destroyer's design is oriented away from the carrier or mothership role. This seems to be a compromise for reducing points of vulnerability and installing more extensive hull plating. The Allegiance design assumes and is dedicated to large fleet engagements, operating in concert with complimentary warship designs. For starfighter screening in combat, it must depend on the squadrons launched from other vessels such as the huge dedicated carrier ship seen in the fleet of Admiral Giel. In contrast, the Imperator is necessarily less specialised since it is often deployed on patrol in remote regions where it sometimes is the largest ship available

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/comics/de/cyaxdest.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/comics ... giance.jpg

[Ghost Rider]

I confess to not being familiar with the Allegiance class. I don't need an in-depth explanation, but could someone give me a rough size figure so I can know what we're dealing with here?

Allegiance Class

[Rogue 9]

Ah. Thank you. I need to read Dark Empire. *Smacks self.* Off to Warlord Comics with me!

[JME2]

Ok, we all know that there were 25,000 Star Destroyers created by the Empire in its reign (if you didn't know, you do now).

My question is where did they all go? Were they destroyed, captured, drifting in spcae, in the current Empire, or are they in a secret fleet somewhere in the unknown regions?

I NEED TO KNOW!!!!!
DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!

They're probably in the same place as Iraq's 'WMD'.

[YT300000]

Ok, we all know that there were 25,000 Star Destroyers created by the Empire in its reign (if you didn't know, you do now).

My question is where did they all go? Were they destroyed, captured, drifting in spcae, in the current Empire, or are they in a secret fleet somewhere in the unknown regions?

I NEED TO KNOW!!!!!
DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!

They're probably in the same place as Iraq's 'WMD'.

So they'll be discovered a month before the U.S. federal election?

[JME2]

So they'll be discovered a month before the U.S. federal election?

LOL.

[Ender]

Perhaps it is a new designation in the Star Wars galaxy of its own? Star Destroyer as opposed to Cruiser, Destroyer, Frigate etc. If you notice there are a lot of Star Destroyers of different types but all maintain the same sort of JOAT abilities.

Except we have seen other classes of ships with the "star" prefix. Star Cruisers, Star Dreadnaughts, Star Battlecruisers, Star Frigates.

Edit: It also seems to me that people want to call them Destroyers so they can fan wank over the empire claiming it should be X amount bigger.

It seems to me that based off this and the Omega vs HaTak thread you are a subjective idiot. You go by what you think things are rather then bebothered with the evidence. We have plenty of evidence pointing out that Imperial class Star Destroyers are nothing special, and evidence pointing to them actually being small ships compared to what the Empire had in its fleets. Examples include the famous Byss reserve fleet, and all the varios ships from the Marvel comics.

[Connor MacLeod]

ISD's have been canonically cruisers since the first novel and movie. Insofar as I am aware no canon or official sources have called them "destroyers", this waas simply an inference from their names.

[Connor MacLeod]

As for the ISD being a command ship, how does one explain the Executor being described as such and HAn pointing out "There are alot of command ships?"

[Sarevok]

ISDs are not commandships but they can be used in a command role if necessary. For example Darth Vader used an ISD in ANH.

[Ender]

ISD's have been canonically cruisers since the first novel and movie.

Yes, they are called cruisers, but so are corellian corvettes and the Radiant VII

Insofar as I am aware no canon or official sources have called them "destroyers", this waas simply an inference from their names.

It's based of their role primarily, but also the fact that there are larger ships called cruisers, indicating that destroyer is a class designation.

[Ender]

ISDs are not commandships but they can be used in a command role if necessary. For example Darth Vader used an ISD in ANH.

If you think the Devestator was demonstrated beign a command ship there, you need to look up what a command ship is. It isn't just the ship someone very important is on.

[Sarevok]

Sorry. Since Darth Vader was a commanding person in the Empires military I thought whatever vessel he used as his personal ship would be a command ship.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yes, they are called cruisers, but so are corellian corvettes and the Radiant VII

Which disproves my point.. how?

It's based of their role primarily, but also the fact that there are larger ships called cruisers, indicating that destroyer is a class designation.

But you just said that smaller ships are also called cruisers, and what identifies their role, exactly?

[Connor MacLeod]

ISDs are not commandships but they can be used in a command role if necessary. For example Darth Vader used an ISD in ANH.

Maybe because it waas the most convenient ship available ATM, or Vader just happened to be on that ship when the Tantive ran? According to the Radio Drama, the Tantive IV intercepted the data from Ralltiir, which was under Imperial blockade, but was detected by the Devastator and ordered to halt. They ran, and jumped to hyperspace instead. The Devastator pursued them (probably because Vader WAS aboard at the time for one reason or another).

If you really expect Vader to have waited long enough to transfer to a bigger ship before pursuing, you should have your head examined. If he'd waited, what chances might they have had of catching the ship?

[PainRack]

ISD's have been canonically cruisers since the first novel and movie. Insofar as I am aware no canon or official sources have called them "destroyers", this waas simply an inference from their names.

They have never been called "destroyer types", but they have been called destroyers before in promotional material for the movies.




Incidently, I would like to say this about cruisers.


Prior to demise of the Man-o-War, cruisers were used to designate "very fast ships".
The ISD is a "cruiser" because it was capable of maintaining its distance, if not accelerating upon the Millenium Falcon in ANH and TESB. Same for the Republic Cruiser in TPM.

[Sharp-kun]

Prior to demise of the Man-o-War, cruisers were used to designate "very fast ships".
The ISD is a "cruiser" because it was capable of maintaining its distance, if not accelerating upon the Millenium Falcon in ANH and TESB. Same for the Republic Cruiser in TPM.

What do you compare to though? For all we know any Imperial Starship could have done that. The Falcon's fast in Hyperspace, not in Realspace.

[Ender]

Yes, they are called cruisers, but so are corellian corvettes and the Radiant VII

Which disproves my point.. how?

Everything is called a cruiser, so it not a valid way of telling.

It's based of their role primarily, but also the fact that there are larger ships called cruisers, indicating that destroyer is a class designation.

But you just said that smaller ships are also called cruisers, and what identifies their role, exactly?

We see larger ships titled "star Cruisers", not described as such. And thier role is identifed by comparing what they do in the movies and novels with the textbook definitions of the ship classes