Alyeska wrote:Oh yes, vast sections of the Empire just defected to the Rebellion. This is why the Rebel fleet after Endor was composed almost entirely of ISDs the whole time...
I have no doubt that many of the various Sector Group ISDs and VSDs ended up in the hands of local Sectorial and member governments, just like the Hapan's gains and they were technologically inferior.
Also remember that the NRDF is tightly controlled by a large officer base of Calamarians, and a lot of pork probably went to maintaining and building up the NR's Kuat around Mon Calamari. Additionally, the tempo of keeping the spearhead and central fleets of the New Republic of their own vessels for propoganda reasons explains some of the fatigue that periodically ground NR progress to a halt (Solo Command to mid-Thrawn Trilogy).
Also, the fleets literally are chock-full of the Sector Group's lower class vessels, with many Lancers, Dreadnoughts, Assault Frigates, Carracks, etc.
Alyeska wrote:Gee, how about the fucking fact that Endor was composed of MOST of the Rebellions ships (only 12-24 Mon Cal cruisers). Mon Cal could not produce enough ships to even hope to compete with the Empire and the Rebellion RARELY captured ISDs. Infact they captured so few of them that when they took Couriscant they attacked with a grand total of 7 Mon Cals and 2 ISDs. And these were ISDs captured from Endor, not ships gained from Defections.
Thank you for proving my point Alyeska. Massive defections and NR emphasis on large member fleets is necessitated by the simple fact that how else could the rapidly-expanding New Republic field any defense, even in your vastly-under-scale fleet estimates (and the numbers you cite by HDS refer to low-end figures as of BFC, not the pre-Operation SHADOWHAND NR).
This is further supported by the relative commonplace Star Destroyers as of the New Jedi Order throughout the New Republic and not attached to the central government's numbered Fleets. The NR to my knowledge hasn't been constructing anything but New Class SDs, and most of the galaxy hasn't seen combat with the Empire in order to capture said SDs since Operation SHADOWHAND. I believe this demonstrates that much of the Sector Groups which may've surrendered or defected were cannabilized by local governments and NR members for their own defense, leaving the central fleets (centered about Ackbar's armada) on the offensive. As Zahnites continuously like to state, the bit about the Liberator and Emancipator proves nothing. Captured by Ackbar's armada, and remaining tied to said armada, which the perspective of the EU invariably focuses on, tells us nothing about the composition of the other fleets and local navies.
I believe you have a relatively compact "core" of Calamarian vessels and some prestige vessels like the first two ISDs ever captured, the Emancipator and Liberator. This core forms the early New Republic's offensive fleet. In combat, much of the battles are between local navies and Sector Groups plagued by warlordism, civil war, and revolt. Many of these Sector Groups surrender or defect with their Sector and are cannabilized by the local members and Sectorial defense forces. Also, the largest and hardest to maintain forces like SDs are likely to suffer some of the heaviest and most brutal fighting. Nevertheless, for propoganda reasons the main fleet is centered around the Calamarian forces. Most of the uber-fleets of the Imperial Navy are withdrawn to the Deep Core already, or shot to shit in warlordism and civil war. Ackbar's fleet fights little more than the occasional
Executor or Star Cruiser as a result.
Also, the New Republic's first massive push Coreward didn't start until after at least a year or two of consolidation, militarization, and expansionism, as much of the Outer Rim and Mid Rim defects or is abandoned in the confusion and chaos of large-scale warlordism, massive mutinies, civil war, and Deep Core-withdrawls. Meanwhile, the local and defected navies sweep up local military materiel recovered from the Empire and bolster their own might and defenses while the core fleet is continually reinforced by the exponentially building Calamari.
Alyeska wrote:I think my assumptions and speculation have a little more base in reality then that wild ass guess of a figure at billions to trillions of ships. Especialy because this flies in the face of logic. Oh yes, the Empire had trillions of ships that it managed to piss away in less then half a decade.
Well personally I can't see more than a billion ships Monitor and up. Marina's fleet calcs are a good starting point, and I think 10 x or so should be considered average, and her calc itself pretty low-end.
Alyeska wrote:BTW, past discussions on Rebellion and NR size came to the conclussion that at its height the NR had a 30,000 ship fleet. Thats on THIS board FYI. Of course for the Empire to have 52 trillion ships that means the NR must now suddenly have at least 30 million ships, sounds good, right?
Appeal to Authority. Not only are larger figures correct to scale and extrapolated from canon, but also the figures you refer to were, IIRC, calc-ed on the post-SHADOWHAND NR, likely of the BFC, and as such, is irrelevent to this discussion.
Sounds highly conservative vs. the size of the civilization we're talking about. Nevermind that the NR is going to have much more military might comparitively speaking at the member-level, and no analogue to the Sector Groups because they're unnecessary.