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So... their (Star Wars') biggest ships aren't necessarily warships, but transports?

I don't believe so. The Executor class is about the same length but higher and wider.

Well Death Star I and II probably outclassed most conventional vessels, including supply craft. But the largest oil tankers greatly outlcass modern warships of the largest class (nuclear-powered aircraft carrier vessels).

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Well Death Star I and II probably outclassed most conventional vessels, including supply craft. But the largest oil tankers greatly outlcass modern warships of the largest class (nuclear-powered aircraft carrier vessels).

While by and large I agree that transports SHOULD come bigger than warships even in Wars, the largest vessels we actually SEE are, indeed, warships. To my knowledge, at least.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Well Death Star I and II probably outclassed most conventional vessels, including supply craft. But the largest oil tankers greatly outlcass modern warships of the largest class (nuclear-powered aircraft carrier vessels).

That is a consequence of the density of oil. In the SWU where hypermatter reactors are amazingly compact for their power, not to mention fusion reactors and fuel for starfighters, this may not be the case.

PainRack wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Well Death Star I and II probably outclassed most conventional vessels, including supply craft. But the largest oil tankers greatly outlcass modern warships of the largest class (nuclear-powered aircraft carrier vessels).

That is a consequence of the density of oil.

No it isn't. It's a consequence of tankers being cheaper ton-by-ton than warships and them generating money rather than costing it. Besides, there's CONTAINER ships significantly larger than CVNs, too.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:

Connor MacLeod wrote:regarding larger troop ship capabilities:

WOTC Revised core rulebook fro the SW RPG, page 234 wrote: The success of the vessel (acclamator) in the early days of the Clone Wars prompted the Republic to order a thousand more from RHE, which by that time had begun designing bigger and better variations, along the lines of battleships and destroyers.

The implication there seems to be that Rothana began building much bigger troop transports (multi-mile ones, possibly.)

I wonder if they ever got round as KDY took full absolute control after all that flurry of orders. Then we had the Venator and that was the principle warship used for transporting of troops as we noted in the movies.

Or off screen...

The Venators and Acclamators were used when they wanted to land on-planet it seems, bigger ships (ISD ro Executor sized) assault ships wouldn't be able to and would presumably be used in other situations.

PainRack wrote:

Connor MacLeod wrote:regarding larger troop ship capabilities:

WOTC Revised core rulebook fro the SW RPG, page 234 wrote: The success of the vessel (acclamator) in the early days of the Clone Wars prompted the Republic to order a thousand more from RHE, which by that time had begun designing bigger and better variations, along the lines of battleships and destroyers.

The implication there seems to be that Rothana began building much bigger troop transports (multi-mile ones, possibly.)

That's odd..... I always viewed that quote as meaning Rothana built larger Accalamators as dedicated battleships and destroyers......

Looks like I need a paradigm shift

They're building variations of the Acclamator, along the lines of bigger ships (Destroyers and battleships). They still seem to be heavily armed transports, though. (But, like the Acclamator, they cna probably be converted to warship designs.) The bigger ships would not only carry more troops and vehicles, but they would also be better armed/protecteD (better able to punch through blockades, provide better orbital supporrt, etc.)

Batman wrote: No it isn't. It's a consequence of tankers being cheaper ton-by-ton than warships and them generating money rather than costing it. Besides, there's CONTAINER ships significantly larger than CVNs, too.

So, which container ships are larger than supercarriers?

As for tankers, you miss the point. In our universe, tankers are huge because they NEED to be in order to transport any load equivalent to meeting supply for a country. In the SWU where the energy required for an entire planet may be contained in a small transport, that's not neccesarily true. By building smaller transports, you can have more ships to service more planets, thus increasing profits.

But yoiu are still going to want to have a large ship to service a place like Coruscant. To make a viable profit from a place like that you need a ship for comeing and a ship for going. Heck load up the leaving ship with garbage or something. Have 2 - 3 big ships for there and them a huge fleet of smaller ship for elsewhere.

PainRack wrote:

Batman wrote: No it isn't. It's a consequence of tankers being cheaper ton-by-ton than warships and them generating money rather than costing it. Besides, there's CONTAINER ships significantly larger than CVNs, too.

So, which container ships are larger than supercarriers?

The container-ship "ColomboExpress" is with a lenght of 335 meters as long as a Nimitz-class-carrier and has 104,000 tons. For a short time it was the largest container-ship of the world, but this honor goes now to the "EmmaMaersk", which is almost 400 meters long, IIRC.

FTeik wrote:

PainRack wrote:

Batman wrote: No it isn't. It's a consequence of tankers being cheaper ton-by-ton than warships and them generating money rather than costing it. Besides, there's CONTAINER ships significantly larger than CVNs, too.

So, which container ships are larger than supercarriers?

The container-ship "ColomboExpress" is with a lenght of 335 meters as long as a Nimitz-class-carrier and has 104,000 tons. For a short time it was the largest container-ship of the world, but this honor goes now to the "EmmaMaersk", which is almost 400 meters long, IIRC.

Plus there's bulk carriers carrying ore and coal that exceed 300,000 ts on top of container ships. Just because the Wars universe's fuel needs can potentially be handled by smaller ships (assuming they need to ship it in in the first place, I very much doubt hypermatter is a naturally occurring resource and where they use fusion, have fun trying to find a star system without hydrogen.). If anything a galactic civilization has a vastly larger demand for massive bulk carriers than modern day Earth does.

PainRack wrote:

Batman wrote: No it isn't. It's a consequence of tankers being cheaper ton-by-ton than warships and them generating money rather than costing it. Besides, there's CONTAINER ships significantly larger than CVNs, too.

So, which container ships are larger than supercarriers?

See Fteik's post.

As for tankers, you miss the point. In our universe, tankers are huge because they NEED to be in order to transport any load equivalent to meeting supply for a country. In the SWU where the energy required for an entire planet may be contained in a small transport, that's not neccesarily true. By building smaller transports, you can have more ships to service more planets, thus increasing profits.

Non sequitur. You're assuming
a)that fuel is the only thing planets will require in large enough quantities to warrant big ships when that isn't even true in the real world, and
b) that using more smaller ships to service more planets is more profitable than using fewer large ones to serve less planets but with larger quantities.

Batman wrote: Non sequitur. You're assuming
a)that fuel is the only thing planets will require in large enough quantities to warrant big ships when that isn't even true in the real world, and

We were discussing about tankers after all..

b) that using more smaller ships to service more planets is more profitable than using fewer large ones to serve less planets but with larger quantities.

Not if said smaller ship can service the energy requirements of planet.

But then again, I acknowledge your points. I didn't consider the energy requirements of city planets as well as refueling for spaceports when I made my statement.

PainRack wrote:

Batman wrote: Non sequitur. You're assuming
a)that fuel is the only thing planets will require in large enough quantities to warrant big ships when that isn't even true in the real world, and

We were discussing about tankers after all..

We were discussing wether freighters should be generally larger than warships.
Which they IRL often are even DISREGARDING tankers.

b) that using more smaller ships to service more planets is more profitable than using fewer large ones to serve less planets but with larger quantities.

Not if said smaller ship can service the energy requirements of planet.

Which is relevant for anything OTHER than tankers how?

Connor MacLeod wrote:The Venators and Acclamators were used when they wanted to land on-planet it seems, bigger ships (ISD ro Executor sized) assault ships wouldn't be able to and would presumably be used in other situations.

The Acclamator, Ill give you. But the Venator seems like it's supposed to be the Jack-of-All-Trades, as it specializes in nothing, combining features of an Assault Ship, a Battleship, and a Carrier.

Batman wrote: We were discussing wether freighters should be generally larger than warships.
Which they IRL often are even DISREGARDING tankers.

Just to nitpick this further, no they aren't. Container ships are generally limited by the size of port and canal facillities, primarily that found at Suez and the Malacca straits. It was only in the last few years that container ships larger than a supercarrier were built.
Even so, they aren't often larger than carriers.

I was unaware of this relatively recent development, that's all. Otherwise, most container ships are 300m or smaller.

As such, I went off on the wrong tangent, extrapolating off older data.

want some real fun? Start plugging the sheer mass of the cargo alone for these ships into equations to get the total powr of the ships. It rapidly shows how the freighters of the "massive organs of commerce" could go toe to toe with dedicated warships. That's on top of the sheer number of them required to move things - its no wonder they were a force to be recconed with.

Tanasinn wrote:Considering the mass slaughter caused by the (admittedly planned) Clone Wars, I could easily see an Imperial military commander, particularly a Clone Wars veteran, trying and succeeding with convincing himself that you have to crack a few eggs to make a galactic omlette. I have a suspicion that the Empire and Old Republic put a lot less value on individual life than we do, too; this isn't surprising, considering their galaxy's massive population. The evidence would seem to support it, as well (the Republic's wishy-washy response to the Naboo incident, the later BDZ strikes during the Clone Wars on both (?) sides, etc.).

True; however, it is also clear that when the Empire (or the Old Republic, for that matter) wanted to do something discreetly and not to cause too much devastation, they were more than able to do so. One such proof exists in Battlefront II in which Naboo revolts against the Imperial rule and even gives a sanctuary to a group of Jedi. Instead of repeating Kashyyyk's assault and conquest, the Empire sent 501st stormtrooper legion to deal with the insurrection and the rebellious Queen. They could have bombarded the city of Theed and every other major population center to oblivion, but decided against it (most likely Palpatine didn't want to gain negative reputation as the man who ordered the slaughter of his homeworld's population).

That's not to say that all Imperials were misunderstood but good men- Tarkin, for example, was very obviously a bastard (blowing up a planet just for your own jollies or jettisoning a man from an airlock for a snide comment is more than a little insane), but one also notes that Tarkin was a close friend of Palpatine's, perhaps indicating exactly why he was able to get into such a position of power.

Tarkin was called borderline psychopathic in Allegiance by no other than Mara Jade, so very probably Palpatine also had certain views of Tarkin's mental state (to be frank, though, the Emperor's own mental faculties were in the end missing a few components). It is a damning proof about the malicious and uncaring nature of Palpatine that he allowed such a man to wield so tremendous power (although, in the same book Jade almost literally begs her Emperor to spare one Imperial general who happened to serve a corrupt governor so that the general would not face imprisonment and execution, so even the Emperor's Hand was at least partially aware that the Emperor sometimes dispensed justice to everyone around a single invidual or a small group of inviduals, no matter their real allegiance and character).

FTeik wrote:

PainRack wrote:

Batman wrote: No it isn't. It's a consequence of tankers being cheaper ton-by-ton than warships and them generating money rather than costing it. Besides, there's CONTAINER ships significantly larger than CVNs, too.

So, which container ships are larger than supercarriers?

The container-ship "ColomboExpress" is with a lenght of 335 meters as long as a Nimitz-class-carrier and has 104,000 tons. For a short time it was the largest container-ship of the world, but this honor goes now to the "EmmaMaersk", which is almost 400 meters long, IIRC.

Emma Mærsk = 397 meters long - 53 meters wide - 156.907 tons.

(was built 400 meters from where i live )

keep in mind when using that 5.4m^3, that those Soldiers on a C-17 dont live there. They board they, they fly, they get off. So 5.4m^3 works fine if ur making a hyperspace jump of a several hours, with the troops debarking at the end. If you're talking about Days or weeks even months if their attached to that ship, you're going to need berthings, mess decks, cooks for the mess decks, heads, storage for weapons and equipment, etc.

side note you dont hide an army by dispersing it in a city. its ineffective as a fighting force, a millitia maybe, since thats where they live. but not an army, especially if your hiding in enemy territory. which most of the galaxy was for the Rebels. Spy rings, sabotage cells and smuggling rings, all of which are cell oriented should be in the city where one or two ppl can blend. and they dont have huge sums of armor, weapons and manpower sitting around.

Kartr_Kana wrote:keep in mind when using that 5.4m^3, that those Soldiers on a C-17 dont live there. They board they, they fly, they get off. So 5.4m^3 works fine if ur making a hyperspace jump of a several hours, with the troops debarking at the end. If you're talking about Days or weeks even months if their attached to that ship, you're going to need berthings, mess decks, cooks for the mess decks, heads, storage for weapons and equipment, etc.

There is also the fact that going by volume is utterly asinine - it should be by mass of supplies consumed, as
1) The volume it takes up is determined by the mass of supplies
2) The is more likely to remain consistent over time then the volume (most of it will be food and fuel which, by there very nature, are not going to alter)
3) mass is what matters for starship transport, not volume.

Standard rule of thumb is that 1 soldier will consume 100 lbs of supplies per day of active operations. This is broken down into things like food, water, ammo, power, medicine, fuel for transports, etc. Which won't change much.

Kartr_Kana wrote:
side note you dont hide an army by dispersing it in a city. its ineffective as a fighting force, a millitia maybe, since thats where they live. but not an army, especially if your hiding in enemy territory. which most of the galaxy was for the Rebels. Spy rings, sabotage cells and smuggling rings, all of which are cell oriented should be in the city where one or two ppl can blend. and they dont have huge sums of armor, weapons and manpower sitting around.

I don't recall the rebels ever having an army... AFAIK they couldn't stand against a division on board a single ISD let alone an army?

Ender wrote: Standard rule of thumb is that 1 soldier will consume 100 lbs of supplies per day of active operations. This is broken down into things like food, water, ammo, power, medicine, fuel for transports, etc. Which won't change much.

Sidetrack: Won't concentrated rations and advanced batteries reduce this estimate?

Luke was apparently able to pack a huge array of supplies in the X-wing cargo compartment, ranging from a fusion reactor to power R2, a torch, comns and food supplies.

SWs tech would definately reduce the mass of the some of the supplies necessary, but u can only eat concentrated rations so long. With clones its not such a big deal, their raised and bred for that. But with conscripts or volunteers you'd need a real meal from time to time.