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Imperial Heavies at the Battle of Endor:

DeathStar (900km)
Executor (19km)
Comm-Ship (3-6km)
Unidentified SD/SC (1.6km?)

+ 40 ISDs

that should have been enough, but the ships were badly distributed, limiting their fields of fire and unable to concentrate the weapons of several vessels on single rebel-ships.

The Imperial fleet was spread out trying to find the rebel fleet to make Palpy's ruse more believable. The fleet was being seen. If a large chunk of the Imperial fleet or even the local sector fleet was 'missing' the trip to Endor would have reeked like a trap.

You don't think that rebel assets would have been in place, perhaps the famed Bothan spynet, to watch the heavies? The Death Squadron could get away with it since it's Vadars personal fleet and he zips about in it to find the rebels. Nobody knowing where the Executor is, isn't that uncommon (I'm guessing).

So the Imperials, or the Emperor himself, took a couple ships from here and there, plus the Death Squadron, and that was the fleet for Endor. It was enough to hold the Rebels at Endor as a picket line, while the DS picked them off. Hell, it was sufficient to defeat the rebel fleet without the DS.

It was only the combination of the death of the Emperor, the Imperial fleet taking some licks while the DS was picking off the rebels and the Imperial Fleet was under orders not to destroy them, and the rebels using desperate tactics that saved the rebels.

There is the line when leaving Tattoine when Han calls a pair of ISD's Imperial Cruisers. "looks like a pair of Imperial Cruisers. Our passangers must be hotter than I thought"

This coming from Han a former Imperial who may know true uses of the ships. the monicker of Destroyer may be there to keep its true cost from the senate and it just stuck.

It might also be, that the ISD is at the upper end of the destroyer-range/lower cruiser-range and that at the time of Han being at the academy the ISD WAS fullfilling the role of cruiser. After all we can safely say, that the ships described as "Star Dreadnought" increased two-to-three times from the Mandators of the clone-wars to the Executor of the later imperial era.

Yeah, I get the impression the Imperator class is the biggest and most versatile of the known Star Destroyers. Like a borderline destroyer/cruiser.

Imperial Fleet was under orders not to destroy them

Wasn't that only before they engaged at point blank range?

VT-16 wrote:Yeah, I get the impression the Imperator class is the biggest and most versatile of the known Star Destroyers. Like a borderline destroyer/cruiser.

Imperial Fleet was under orders not to destroy them

Wasn't that only before they engaged at point blank range?

Yes, but the rebel fleet wasn't under any such orders as they closed with the Imperial fleet.

Yes, but didn't the Imperial ships OPEN FIRE WHEN ENGAGED AT POINT BLANK RANGE? =S

VT-16 wrote:Yes, but didn't the Imperial ships OPEN FIRE WHEN ENGAGED AT POINT BLANK RANGE? =S

What's your point? We both know they did, my position was that the rebels got some licks in before then.

Ok. It just sounded like the Imps did absolutely nothing at any point in the film. (Sorry, my mistake.)

VT-16 wrote:Ok. It just sounded like the Imps did absolutely nothing at any point in the film. (Sorry, my mistake.)

Taken in context, rebels get licks in, Emperor dies, etc....

joeblakk wrote:What exactly is the force disposition of a sector fleet? Maybe it's just me, but I just don't buy that the only ships the Imperials would have on hand, in any fleet (excluding singular destroyer squadrons or flotillas) would be DD equivalents and just one dreadnought. People, particularly military planners, just don't structure fleets in that manner. Even the Rebel TF makeup seemed to be formed around classical lines, with cruisers and friggates as support/escort ships. Hell, at one point, one of their friggates trades broadsides with an ISD (which in itself should be suicide for the friggate captain).

The inclusion of heavier ships might or might not have helped. The question for me is why their fleet at Endor was structured as it was. It if it was the local sector fleet, why wouldn't they have had heavier combatants as a matter of course. As I've said before, even if the argument is that the Empire uses these ships to maintain order in the core worlds, why use all or even most of them in that way? What I'm getting at is that it seems that the IN seems to have some kind of weird doctrine that doens't allow them to mix and match their sqadron and TGs, and instead leads to what many might call overspeacialization of one ship type.

As has been pointed out by everyone there was at least one cruiser at Endor.
A sector fleet is made up of at least 24 ISDs and over 1500 smaller warships. The heavies are a part of the Imperial starfleet and organized into oversector fleets.
Obviously you haven't seen very many force charts for real-life battles, because there are plenty of times when there's only been a battleship and its escorting destroyers. The British and German battle fleets during Jutland were mostly dreadnoughts and destroyers with a few cruisers attached to lead DD flotillas and scout, most of the cruisers and battlecruisers were part of the scouting fleet which was attached to the battle fleet during Jutland. In fact, in the British and German fleets dreadnoughts and destroyers were the most common ships with battlecruisers being very rare and only light cruisers approaching the numbers of dreadnoughts and destroyers. Also, a modern carrier battlegroup is made up of one capital ship(the CVN) and several screening destroyers, with cruisers and frigates being attached optionally.

Actually frigates don't serve in battle fleets, a frigates job is to act as escort for convoys and second-line ships like troop transports and escort carriers, and in a pinch are used for destroyer roles if there aren't any destroyers on hand which seems to be the role the Rebel frigates were fulfilling.
If the Imperial Navy is anything like a real world navy and if their ships carry out roles at all similar to the roles thier real life counterparts do, then what we see of the INs organization is exactly what I would expect. Capital ships and their screening destroyers make up the bulk of the battlefleet. With cruisers and BCs primarily operating alone or in small groups on extended mission and patrols, and only being attached to the battle fleet when needed. Destroyers and smaller acting as local patrol, escort, and enforcement ships (essentially coast guard duties) also jives with RL navies.

Isolder74 wrote:There is the line when leaving Tattoine when Han calls a pair of ISD's Imperial Cruisers. "looks like a pair of Imperial Cruisers. Our passangers must be hotter than I thought"

This coming from Han a former Imperial who may know true uses of the ships. the monicker of Destroyer may be there to keep its true cost from the senate and it just stuck.

Isen't it possible that the ISD's where Cruisers when Han was a Imperial, but they got dumped down to Destroyers once the Executor project was underway?

Or, shit, he got it wrong? Or he was looking at a non-visual readout (which he was) and he misread the signature? Or the jamming disrupted the Falcons ability to identify the ship?

Or maybe he was just using slang or informal language? The way some people in real life might refer to any warship as "battleship?"

Jim Raynor wrote:Or maybe he was just using slang or informal language? The way some people in real life might refer to any warship as "battleship?"

I've already brought up the possibility that 'Cruisers' meant more of a fast ship, rather than a combat ship or specific type of ship.

Isn't it more than reasonable to say that the term "Star Destroyer," like the term "Death Star," is more flowery than it is descriptive? Just like the Executor was a "Super Star Destroyer," but is clearly not a destroyer of any class. If it is, I shudder to think of what a Battleship would be!

From the StarWars.com site, "The triangular silhouette of an Imperial cruiser has come a long way since its Republic-inspired design. While vessels of the Jedi order were met with feelings of pride and relief as they came soaring to solve galactic strife, the Imperial Star Destroyer's gargantuan size cleary inspires both awe and terror."

Here they are called cruisers. Further, "In the script for A New Hope, the term 'Imperial Cruiser' was largely synonymous with Star Destroyer, which is never said aloud until The Empire Strikes Back."

Clearly, these are Cruiser hulls within the vast majority of canon sources, and it's only in more recent EU materials that we begin to see a prominence placed on making the "Star" a prefix for a military weight designation. Just as a "Death Star" isn't a star, I'm given to believe Star Destroyers are cruisers--or, more accurately, vessels of their own type altogether, being a hybrid of all the roles of a warship, combining extreme firepower, fast pursuit speed, massive ground force deployment capability and extensive flight bays.

And by "only in more recent EU materials" I am calling into question some of the merit of using them as strict Canon. Just as our Karen Traviss debate and the pictures of the post-trilogy Skywalker dude (with the Vong Sith and hot red Twi'lek stripper jedi) shows, not all of the more recent literature is really of the most reputable stock, and I'm not sure if it's worth counting as more valuable than existing sources.

Covenant wrote:Isn't it more than reasonable to say that the term "Star Destroyer," like the term "Death Star," is more flowery than it is descriptive? Just like the Executor was a "Super Star Destroyer," but is clearly not a destroyer of any class. If it is, I shudder to think of what a Battleship would be!

I'm fairly certain the term "Star Destroyer" has been identified as rebel slang. If anything, its indiscriminate use to refer to ISDs, Executors, and the other ship classes present at Endor and Hoth, identify it as slang.

Not true, the Empire uses the designation as well.

ESB Script wrote:INT. VADER'S STAR DESTROYER - BRIDGE - CONTROL DECK
Vader stands in the back control area of his ship's bridge with a
motley group of men and creatures. Admiral Piett and two controllers
stand at the front of the bridge and watch the group with scorn.

PIETT
Bounty hunters. We don't need that scum.

FIRST CONTROLLER
Yes, sir.

PIETT
Those Rebels won't escape us.

A second controller interrupts.

SECOND CONTROLLER
Sir, we have a priority signal from the Star Destroyer Avenger.

PIETT
Right.

Pinning down just exactly what an ISD is (at least by a strict adherence to naval terminolgy, disregaridng the issue of era) has been proven rather difficult on this board over numerous years. (You might as well go with Age of sail "rates" for what its worth )


Edit: Anyhow, ,the fleet at Endor was basically the same s the ground forces: It was all Palpy's doing. He didn't really intend them to fight the Rebels directly (he wanted his DS doing that, hence his orders for them not to engage the Rebels) Even if the admirals wanted to do things differently (and I bet they did), none of them had the balls to stand up to Palpy in this, which is why things screwed up so badly.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Pinning down just exactly what an ISD is (at least by a strict adherence to naval terminolgy, disregaridng the issue of era) has been proven rather difficult on this board over numerous years. (You might as well go with Age of sail "rates" for what its worth )

Trying to slap exact naval terminolgy(describing what amounts to 2d warfare with a 3rd dimension superglued on in the form of fighters) onto an advanced spaceship with a completely different mindset to it's duties always struck me as one of the more stupid things to attempt.

Yeah. While some designations will remain somewhat useful, it's really just an artifical metric. The term 'frigate' has gone through so many different meanings that it's suprising we still use it today, seeing as it doesn't mean anything like it used to. Even modern day warship names are getting blurred as we move away from gunships to missiles and carriers.

There's no reason not to call your fast and nimble missile-laden starship a "Destroyer", but if you should decide to call it a "Starkiller" I don't think people should waste too much time trying to wedge it into a naval term.

Xon wrote:

Connor MacLeod wrote:Pinning down just exactly what an ISD is (at least by a strict adherence to naval terminolgy, disregaridng the issue of era) has been proven rather difficult on this board over numerous years. (You might as well go with Age of sail "rates" for what its worth )

Trying to slap exact naval terminolgy(describing what amounts to 2d warfare with a 3rd dimension superglued on in the form of fighters) onto an advanced spaceship with a completely different mindset to it's duties always struck me as one of the more stupid things to attempt.

I was talking more of the "multi-role" nature.. the ISD seems to serve as both a combat warship (heavy guns), carrier, and assault ship.

And by "only in more recent EU materials" I am calling into question some of the merit of using them as strict Canon. Just as our Karen Traviss debate and the pictures of the post-trilogy Skywalker dude (with the Vong Sith and hot red Twi'lek stripper jedi) shows, not all of the more recent literature is really of the most reputable stock, and I'm not sure if it's worth counting as more valuable than existing sources.

Trying to pin Dorling Kindersley books down with stories near-inspired by fanwank isn't the best tactic to try.

And no source has ever said Star Destroyer (or more exact Super Star Destroyer) was just Rebel slang. That's not what the quote from ITW:OT and SW:CL said, only that it was used by the Rebels in slang, to cover for more exact designations.

Basically, this whole "myth" that only in recent years have we seen terms like "Battlecruiser" and "Battleship" being used for the bigger SDs, is unfounded. Books that added the 'Star'-prefix to these terms, didn't work off of baseless assumptions, there have been plenty of sources already mentioning them. Slave Ship had Kuat manufacturers mentioning both destroyers, cruisers and battlecruisers in their inventory of designs, The Illustrated Star Wars Universe mentions the Empire's largest battleships being built by Kuat, Rendili and Loronar (sp?), Marvel SW showcases many battlecruiser-designs, Children of the Jedi had an early Imperial dreadnought larger than the Executor-class etc.

The only thing DK's line of books did, was slap "Star" infront of these terms.

And like I mentioned in an earlier post, the use of different classification systems, primarily showcased in DK books, explain why the ships get slapped with different terms sometimes.

The lack of Rebel intelligence on this area and others would mean they could probably haul a few hundred ISD's and SSD's to Endor. the problem with that idea is that the empire did'ent have a few hundred ssds so thats impossible to do if they don't have the ships is it not?

SSD covers many different classes of all shapes and sizes. The smallest being Star Cruisers and barely twice the size of ISDs. If they wanted to, they could have added several of them.