SW: Venator vs. Lucrehulk

[pendell]

That is, The Venator (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Venator-class_Star_Destroyer) class star destroyer (seen in Episode III) and the Lucrehulk (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucrehulk-class_battleship) class trade federation battleship, first seen in Ep. I.

Unlike many of the vs. battles fought here, these two are in the same universe. I'm bringing it up because IMO this match hasn't really been explored well, outside of a few frames seen in the opening scenes of EP III.

On paper, it seems like the Lucrehulk is a far superior spacecraft, as even the wookiepedia article states



Battleships fighting in the Clone Wars had less trouble with weak spots, as they were augmented with gun batteries.[9] Each ship was now as powerful as a whole flotilla of Republic Venator-class Star Destroyers.[10]


Don't have it available this moment, but the SW RPG supplement "starships of the galaxy" puts the shield, armor, and laser ratings for the Lucrehulk at roughly twice those of the Venator. Which seems odd, given that the Venator is a later ship and may have been specifically designed to counter the threat of Lucrehulk ships.

So the question is not 'Who would win'. The question is, 'why is this a matchup?'

A related question is: How would these two ships fight each other? As veterans of the X-wing computer game know, an ISD is more than a match for a Calamari cruiser in a slugging match, but that's never an issue because the CRS will never allow itself to go toe-to-toe with an ISD. Instead, it will use it's starfighters to destroy the ISD at a distance, since the X-wing and Y-wing dominate TIEs by an ample margin.

So maybe the reason the Venator is successful is because of the way it's used, which is not necessarily as a gun platform, to engage Lucrehulks directly ship-to-ship.

Or if it is a gun platform, maybe it's partly the shape ... perhaps the Venator can bring all its guns to bear on a point directly in front of it, while the saucer-shaped ship can only use a portion of it's armament in any direction.

So: Four scenarios:

1) Lucrehulk vs. Venator. Ship to ship, open space. No other factors.
2) Same as above, but this time including their starfighter components (1500 Vulture fighters on the Lucrehulk vs. 384 V-wings and Eta-2s + 36 ARC-170 on the Venator).
3) With escorts, each a centerpiece of a 'typical' task force (whatever that would be). In other words, these vehicles would rarely fight each other 1v1. Instead, each would be used in accordance with the owning sides' tactical doctrine. I.e. If Venators hunt in packs, a 1v1 matchup doesn't make sense. It'd be like matching up a tiger vs. a single dog, when a tiger would almost always encounter a pack in the wild).

4) The final matchup -- scenario 1 or 2 featuring either the Venator or the Lucrehulk against an Imperial-class Star Destroyer of the Rebellion era.

The thing that's bothering me from a wargaming perspective is that these don't really seem well thought out. On paper, it seems like the Lucrehulk should handily win against either, and the ISD doesn't seem like much of an improvement over the Venator Star Destroyer.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Hum.. on the aspect of Wargaming, you'd need Hyperdrive capabilities to really take into consideration the power of long-strike fighters.

The ISD, when you think of it, is meant to fight Here and Now. It's a mobile combat platform that brings a contingent of powerful batteries. While the MC80 is more designed as a Raiding-center, from which you can strike quickly with fighters. The MC80 also has good shield capabilities to be able to evade overwhelming attacks. It's not supposed to be standing on it's own. It's the perfect Rebel Ship (although I hope they have refitted it when they made the republic, since it's pretty useless for a standing military)

People also forget the manoeuvering factor, and the punch-trough capabilities of weapons. If you are looking straight into a dual battles, you'd need more of a starship combat simulator game than a Wargame. But then again, you are right. A true realist wargame is what should be used. What's the point of superior firepower if your ennemies keep evading you, and simply use Fabian tactics with Starfighters?

Sadly, there isn't ennough true realist wargames :smallfrown:

[13_CBS]

I don't know much about naval hardware, but aren't a lot of Lucrehulks designed for trade, commerce, storage, and luxury than for combat? I don't know how well a heavily modified transport would match up against a ship designed specifically for warfare.

As for the individual situations...

1) As I said above, I don't know how well a modified trade ship will fare against a combat ship. Sure, you could slap armor and more turbolasers onto it, but ships designed for holding lots of cargo might not have the hull required to maximize, say, turbolaser coverage or efficient power systems designed to withstand the stress of heavy combat. You could give a strong, healthy businessman a M16, strap him into some body armor and tell him to fight and he could fight quite well. But I would take a professional soldier over such a business man anyday.

2) For fighter battles...judging from what I remember from Episode 1, I don't know if Lucrehulks have good anti-fighter point defenses. After all, a handful of Naboo police forces managed to hold out against the Trade Federation Control Ship for quite a while, despite droid fighter coverage. Assuming that the Vulture Droids get Buzz Droid missles, however, I think the Republic fighters may be in trouble. I'm not sure.

3) Can't say much about this, so...

4) Unless the Lucrehulk/Venator lucks out by taking out the (rather vulnerable) shield generators on a STar Destroyer or the bridge, I'm not confident that either Clone-War era ships would be a match for a SD. SDs were practically flying fortresses--one alone could raze an entire planet or defeat an entire fleet of ragtag imperial ships. Plus, the SD is from a later era, when Seinar got lots of funding from the Emperor to design a ship meant for combat and terror. Remember that a single SD was enough to completely besiege, and nearly wipe out, Mon Calamari in a certain EU trilogy.

I don't know about the fighter situation, though. If the Clone War-era ships manage to take out the fighter escort on the SD, their fighters MIGHT have a chance of lucking out and taking out the shield generators and then the bridge. If not...

[SolkaTruesilver]

Wait. In "a certain trilogy", it was 2 SSD, with a 3rd hidden, not a single..

[pendell]

I don't know much about naval hardware, but aren't a lot of Lucrehulks designed for trade, commerce, storage, and luxury than for combat?


Yes.

And In the 21st-century real world, converted merchants have no chance against purpose-built naval vessels.

But the Star Wars universe seems to be much more similar
to our 16th century than to the 21st. In the 16th century,
merchantmen and warships could be converted into each other with
ease and one was not noticeably better than another.

Consider: The Mon Calamari cruisers (http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/moncalamaristarcruiser/), from the most canonical star wars source there is, are described as converted luxury liners.

Converted luxury liners!

That'd be like sticking a couple guns on the Queen Mary and expecting it to fight the Bismarck or the Yamato. Utterly ridiculous in our modern world, less so in the era of the Mary Rose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose).

My point is: Just because the Trade Federation ship is a converted merchant doesn't *necessarily* make it inferior to a purpose-built combat ship. It may still be a matchup if the TF designers are very good (and they *will* be the best money can buy) or the Republic designers are very poor (see: Death Star). Imperial Equipment in the classic Star Wars era tends to have Fatal Flaws that make it possible for even the mightiest ships to be taken down by small bands of adventurers with lots of pluck. It's possible that the earlier Republic-era ships were conceived by the same drug-addled designers.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[13_CBS]

Wait. In "a certain trilogy", it was 2 SSD, with a 3rd hidden, not a single..

It was 2? My bad.

Still, only 2 capital ships almost wiping out an entire planet? That's firepower.

[Fri]

Yes.

Consider: The Mon Calamari cruisers (http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/moncalamaristarcruiser/), from the most canonical star wars source there is, are described as converted luxury liners.

Converted luxury liners!

That'd be like sticking a couple guns on the Queen Mary and expecting it to fight the Bismarck or the Yamato. Utterly ridiculous in our modern world, less so in the era of the Mary Rose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose).


It's good for the morale!

[TheRiov]

The Mon Cal design philosophy was a huge advantage that leveled the playing field to some degree. The MC-line cruisers had inferior hull and firepower but a rediculous amount of backup shielding. Their vessels were also more manuverable than the unwieldy ISD's allowing them to get better positioning.

[Cubey]

My only contribution to this thread is that Lucrehulk is an awful name. It just screams "look at us, we're evil merchants who fight with money!". At least it doesn't have coin launchers instead of turbolasers.

[Da'Shain]

Wait. In "a certain trilogy", it was 2 SSD, with a 3rd hidden, not a single..Very true ... even though the third hidden one didn't exactly get to do much :)

Still, Mon Calamari is one of the more heavily defended planets in the galaxy at that point, being one of the founding planets of the New Republic and a major shipbuilding system. A single ISD is classed as being able to BDZ a normal planet on its own given a few hours, according to EU; I believe there were usually 3 assigned to the task, though, both to expedite the operation and to make sure there were no escapees.

In a certain duology, three were assigned to mop up the survivors of a battle that included dozens of major planets' personal fleets before moving on to BDZ Bothawui, another of the New Republic's founding planets.


On the main topic, I'd have to look at the books involved, because my assumptions about Lucrehulks are obviously incorrect; still, their circular design means that they have almost no chance of focused firepower, while Venators' dagger-shapes allow it to bring nearly all its guns to bear on a single point. The Venator also obviously outclasses the hulks in speed and maneuverability. So, for the four scenarios:

1) Venator, due to its ability to bring all its guns to bear on a single point while simultaneously presenting a small target for the Lucrehulk's own guns. It would likely take several volleys to bring it down, but the Venator's ridiculously fast acceleration means it can hit and run nearly as well as a fighter.

2) This one I'm not so sure about. I think that droid fighters don't pack nearly the capital-ship destroying punch of the Venator's complement of fighters, but they do outnumber the manned fighters 3 to 1. I'm not sure whether clone fighter pilots were supposed to be that good or not, plus the Lucrehulk has better point-defense guns than the Venator, IIRC. Still, if the Lucrehulk only has Vultures (which only carry lasers and no torpedoes, again IIRC) I'd lean towards the Venator again.

3) Venators do seem to hunt in packs, but I have no idea what the normal MO for Lucrehulks is. It's hard for me to imagine a battle group that wouldn't get picked apart by massed hit and run focus fire, but I'm not big on the different classes of Separatist ships so they could have smaller capships designed to separate and/or disable Venator packs. So I'll refrain from this one.

4) The ISD trounces them both in capship combat and still prevails but with a much harder fight if both sides are given their fighter complements. IIRC, the ISD carries only 144 TIEs, most of which are the unshielded but highly maneuverable TIE fighters. The Lucrehulk's 1500 droid fighters are just as maneuverable if not more so and carry as much firepower as a standard TIE, so the TIEs would hold them off for at best a few minutes before being overwhelmed, but that few minutes would likely be enough time for the ISD to destroy the Lucrehulk and then bring its guns around to spray mass lasers at the Vultures, destroying the bulk of them before they can mass and become a credible threat. The Venator's fighter complement would again overwhelm the TIEs, but how fast depends on how good/lucky the clones are, since the TIEs have a significant speed and maneuverability advantage and could keep them tied up for a while if they tried to remain evasive. And again, the ISD overwhelms the Venator by virtue of having the same dagger design but guns and shields that are far more powerful. The Venator's fighters, with their large payload of torpedoes, present a far greater threat to the ISD and it may have its shields breached, but in the end it will likely prevail.

[hamishspence]

2 Lucrehulks, packed with Episode 1 type Droid Starfighters, + 6 Techno Union Hardcell missile ships, + 7 escort cruisers,

vs 3 cruisers and a few fighters, = destroyed fleet, when the opposing commander is Mitth'raw'nuruodo.

But then, Thrawn was very sneaky, in the novel Outbound Flight.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Don't have it available this moment, but the SW RPG supplement "starships of the galaxy" puts the shield, armor, and laser ratings for the Lucrehulk at roughly twice those of the Venator.

Not in the Saga Edition version of the book it isn't. The Lucrehulk only has 3/4 of the Venator's shields but more hp due to mass. It has more guns but it's bigger overall.

[Estrecca]

1) If we are talking about the late-war Lucrehulk (the version that is actually a battleship and not an armed freighter) is far more powerful and better shielded than the Venator. Lucrehulk wins.

2) If anything, the vastly superior number of droid fighters means that the Lucrehulk's large advantage grows in this match.

3) This one favours the Republic if the taskforces have equal numbers. Recusants are small little ships that need six to one odds to beat a Venator or a Victory, the Munificents are nearly worthless unless they hit you with their super turbolaser of doom (need half an hour to charge, but can one-shot just about any ISD with those) and Providences come the closest, but aren't quite a match for Star Destroyers.

4) Lucrehulk probably wins. Venator certainly loses, because the Victory is comparatively more heavily armed than the Venator and ISDs > Victories.

[pendell]

Responding to several different people.



1) If we are talking about the late-war Lucrehulk (the version that is actually a battleship and not an armed freighter) is far more powerful and better shielded than the Venator. Lucrehulk wins.
...
4) Lucrehulk probably wins. Venator certainly loses, because the Victory is comparatively more heavily armed than the Venator and ISDs > Victories.


We are indeed. Makes me curious why they built the Venator or the ISD at all. If Lucrehulk wins, why not build Lucrehulks?




Not in the Saga Edition version of the book it isn't. The Lucrehulk only has 3/4 of the Venator's shields but more hp due to mass. It has more guns but it's bigger overall.


What's the current version?

I'm looking at This book (http://www.amazon.com/Starships-Galaxy-Star-Wars-Roleplaying/dp/078694823X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217290787&sr=8-1).

Spoilered stat blocks (trimmed -- may be removed completely if copyright
infringement occurs)

Hoersche-Kessel Drive Inc. Lucrehulk-class Battleship (CL 18)
Colossal (cruiser) capital ship)
Defense Ref 14 (flat-footed 13) Fort 54, +13 armor.
HP 1800, DR 20, SR 150.

Speed (identical in both)
Ranged: 5 Turbolaser batteries +16 Dmg 5d10x5
5 heavy turbolaser battiers +14 Dmg 8d10x5
5 point-defense quad laser cannons (not considered for ship to ship combat)
Carried craft: 1500 droid fighters (any variant).

...

Venator-class Star Destroyer CL 19
Def Ref 14 Fort 52 +13 armor
HP 1590, DR 20, SR 200 threshold 52.
2 heavy turbolaser batteries +11 dmg 8d10x5
2 medium double turbolaser batteries +5 (6d10x5)
4 point defense laser batteries.
4 proton torpedoes +5 dmg 9d10x2
carried craft 192 V-wing , 192 Eta-2, 36 Arc-170
64 proton torpedoes


So the only advantage the Venator has in this matchup is its proton torpedoes, which I think would be useless against a vessel with computer-controlled point defense lasers. Why have them at all?



The Lucrehulk's 1500 droid fighters are just as maneuverable if not more so and carry as much firepower as a standard TIE, so the TIEs would hold them off for at best a few minutes before being overwhelmed, but that few minutes would likely be enough time for the ISD to destroy the Lucrehulk and then bring its guns around to spray mass lasers at the Vultures, destroying the bulk of them before they can mass and become a credible threat.


Neither droid fighters (any variant) nor TIEs carry shielding. The V-wings are shielded but I suspect not much, the ARC-170s are heavily shielded (I think).

But it's not necessary for the ISD to kill the droid fighters if it can kill the mothership. According to the book, droid starfighters are programmed to self-destruct if they lose contact with their controller ship, which presumably would be the mother ship in this case.

This implies a tactic for clone war-era space combat: Geek the control ships first.




My only contribution to this thread is that Lucrehulk is an awful name. It just screams "look at us, we're evil merchants who fight with money!". At least it doesn't have coin launchers instead of turbolasers.

QFT.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Da'Shain]

After reviewing some of the information on Lucrehulks, I'm going to have to revise my opinion. They're apparently a lot tougher than I remembered; I thought that they were simply refitted haulers that were roughly equal to a standard ship of the line only because of their great capacity for guns and shielding, but it seems as though they're designed with enough firepower to rival battle groups.

So for scenarios 1 and 2, I'll change my answer to the Lucrehulk. The Venator would be able to do some serious damage, again owing to its ability to focus fire much more effectively than the Lucrehulk, but would in the end get taken down by the Lucrehulk's superior firepower and shielding, unless one of the Venator's fighters got lucky and pulled an Anakin. Scenario 3, my answer remains that Venator packs will likely win, because that seems to be how the Clone Wars battles went. And for Scenario 4, I'd still say that the ISD would win, because it packs several times the power of a Venator as well as much better shielding while retaining the Venator's focus fire advantage. The Lucrehulk would likely make a good account of itself, though.


EDIT: I don't think RPG statistics are the most reliable source, because they are, at their core, only game mechanics. Going by game mechanics, Tuskens have cortosis in their gaderfii sticks. The information on refitted, CW-era Lucrehulks places them as carrying firepower rivaling that of a battle group of Venators and massive amounts of shielding, yet the RPG statistics place it as having less shielding than a Venator and a small advantage in firepower and hull strength.

[Ubiq]

We are indeed. Makes me curious why they built the Venator or the ISD at all. If Lucrehulk wins, why not build Lucrehulks?


The shipyards that build the Lucrehulk ships would mostly be inside of Confederate territory while the shipyards controlled by loyal companies would prefer to build their own designs. Not just because those designs would have been created so that they could easily be built at the shipyards in question, but because companies like Kuat can pass along the cost of developing designs along with the cost of construction.



So the only advantage the Venator has in this matchup is its proton torpedoes, which I think would be useless against a vessel with computer-controlled point defense lasers. Why have them at all?


Venators seem to be multi-role vessels to a far greater extent that their larger cousins; they're escort carriers, landing craft, and destroyers. In light of that, the protorps are probably for orbital bombardment more than they are for combat against other vessels.

Far as the original concept goes, well, the Navy has Victories as well as Venators with the former being optimized for space combat while the latter are, as said earlier, escort carriers as much as they are destroyers. Despite both of them being fairly new designs though, they were both phased out in favor of Imperators and Tectors within a couple of decades. So when it comes down to it, Venators probably weren't all that effective a ship and the Republican Navy probably would not have won the war if not for the fact that that Darth Sidious and Tyrannus were deliberately waging a losing campaign from the start.

Adding in the vast disparity of the size of the two vessels, a single Venator is likely to get shredded in combat with any competently commanded Lucrehulk. Meanwhile, an Imperator will probably fare much better against a Lucrehulk, but it's still a great deal smaller and with fewer guns. A Venator, on the other hand, will lose to its newer cousin, which is about a third again as long, far more massive, and with many more weapons.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Never forget that numbers on a sheet also never really reveal the true combat potential. There are often small tweaks and elements that may give an edge, specific combat tactics that will make a weakness go nil, etc...

My first taste of humility was in ST: Bridge Commander (but then, I was young). Until then, I did not understood why Klingons kept building small Birds of Prey..

Until said Bird of Prey kicked Romulan Warbird's asses. (yhea, I know the game seriously underpowered Warbirds, but still. The point about manoeuvrability, quick weapon recharge, etc.. Vs A LOTTA BIG GUNS was made in my mind)

You say that Venator Vs Lucrehulk may get ugly for the Venator. Fine, but I want to know how much it costs the Republic to build one, as opposed how much a Lucrehulk (or even it's Battleship counterpart) costs. Of many of them are deployed, how do they fare in fleet battles. How quickly they can engage/disengage from battle, what kind of support they have from auxiliairy ships (because while the Venator my be a stand-alone ship, I'm sure the Lucrehulk has to be assisted by other frigates, etc..)

And also, let's not forget the crews of these combat vessels. The Admirals commanding them. How adapting to the situation were the Droids-Commanders? How good tactician AND strategists were the Separatists compared to the Republican fleet?

As for the points made about the MC80 vs ISD: They don't share the same role. As said earlier, the MC80 is a perfect self-supplied base to launch raid deep in ennemy territory, and make a run for it when it's intercepted. the MC80 is an horrible classic capital ships, able to stand it's own in battle. That's why they have Assault Frigates :smallbiggrin:. Now, let's compare Assault Frigate Cost/Combat Capacity Vs ISD Cost/Combat Capacity

[hamishspence]

Saga Edition information may differ somewhat from information in other star Wars guidebooks.

Most dramatically, in the case of the Super Star Destroyer, whose size has varied somewhat in books but tends to be around 8 miles long, in the most recent starship guide.

However, Saga Edition Starship book puts that SSD at 19 km long: even longer than the Eclipse.

So, might recommmend checking Saga info against info in other books.

[Philistine]

To be fair, ISDs in the OT were supposed to be 1 mile (1.6 km) long; and the SSD model was scaled out at 11x the size of an ISD. So the 8 mi figure shorted the really canonical source by a significant margin.

It should be just under 18 km, but 19km is much closer to the ship as shown in the movies than 12km ever was!

[Renegade Paladin]

4) Unless the Lucrehulk/Venator lucks out by taking out the (rather vulnerable) shield generators on a STar Destroyer or the bridge, I'm not confident that either Clone-War era ships would be a match for a SD.
What vulnerable shield generators? This brainbug always gets to me; the domes on top of the bridge are canonically not the shield generators; they're sensor towers. The designers of the original X-Wing simulator got it wrong, and then they kept the mistake around in the following games to make it actually feasible for the player to take on a Star Destroyer. Green Squadron was able to nail the Executor's port sensor tower because the bridge shield was down; they did not take the bridge shield down by shooting out a generator that wasn't there. Recall that the dreadnought was under bombardment by the entire Rebel fleet; it was that, not a few fighters, that laid low the Imperial flagship. Arvel Crynyd's out-of-control A-wing just happened to be the killing blow; it would have been a turbolaser shot not too long afterwards if he hadn't crashed into the bridge.

Anyway, do carry on.

[pendell]

To be fair, ISDs in the OT were supposed to be 1 mile (1.6 km) long; and the SSD model was scaled out at 11x the size of an ISD. So the 8 mi figure shorted the really canonical source by a significant margin.

It should be just under 18 km, but 19km is much closer to the ship as shown in the movies than 12km ever was!

Which is ironic, given the RPG stats in the book above make it out to only have about 2x the hitpoints of an ISD. Grrr....

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Ubiq]

Which is ironic, given the RPG stats in the book above make it out to only have about 2x the hitpoints of an ISD. Grrr....

Respectfully,

Brian P.

RPG stats for the Executor have always been ridiculously low, especially back in the West End Games era. A mere 144 fighters for a ship with a hangar larger than a Star Destroyer? Only about four times as many guns on about a hundred times as much surface area?

Of course, the Rebel ships usually went the opposite way; witness the Nebulon-B Frigate, which reputedly held a third as many fighters as an ISD over four times as long and far more massive.

[Renegade Paladin]

And Rebel fighters tend to be larger than TIEs on top of it all. WEG just had no idea what they were talking about, and should never have been allowed to handle the franchise.

[turkishproverb]

And Rebel fighters tend to be larger than TIEs on top of it all. WEG just had no idea what they were talking about, and should never have been allowed to handle the franchise.

actually, ships aside WEG did alot of good work. their stuff was for the longest time considered the most accurate you could get on the unvierse. Several of the sourcebooks were given to Timothy Zahn as a guide when he wrote the Heir To the Empire trilogy.

[Talkkno]

http://www.rebelscum.com/SDCC08/ACME/IMG_7589.JPG

[Renegade Paladin]

actually, ships aside WEG did alot of good work. their stuff was for the longest time considered the most accurate you could get on the unvierse. Several of the sourcebooks were given to Timothy Zahn as a guide when he wrote the Heir To the Empire trilogy.
Yes, because it was the only work done at the time. That they spread the blatant errors around does not make them any less erroneous.

[turkishproverb]

Yes, because it was the only work done at the time. That they spread the blatant errors around does not make them any less erroneous.

sigh. I don't have time to debate this honestly. I'm just saying that Lucasfilm gave a guy those books as a guide. Something they wouldn't do if they didn't endorse them at the time.

[pendell]

And Rebel fighters tend to be larger than TIEs on top of it all. WEG just had no idea what they were talking about, and should never have been allowed to handle the franchise.

Erm.. why is the idea that rebel fighters (such as the X-wing)
are 'bigger' than TIEs a bad idea?

All sources agree that rebel fighters carry all kinds of equipment (shields,
hyperdrive) that TIES simply don't have. Even if the airframe (spaceframe?)
is itself roughly the same length, width and depth, that would still make the rebel
fighters more massive.

Consider: In our own world the WWII F4F (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F4F) and the A6M "Zero" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A6M_Zero)

F4F dimensions:

# Length: 28 ft 9 in (8.76 m)
# Wingspan: 38 ft (11.58 m)
# Height: 11 ft 10 in (3.60 m)
# Loaded weight: 7,000 lb (3,176 kg)

A6M dimensions:
# Length: 9.06 m (29 ft 9 in)
# Wingspan: 12.0 m (39 ft 4 in)
# Height: 3.05 m (10 ft 0 in)
# Loaded weight: 2,410 kg (5,313 lb)

You can see that, although they are almost the exact same physical dimensions, the A6M is almost a full metric ton lighter than the F4F.

That is because the A6M did without things like self-sealing fuel tanks and pilot armor, sacrificing safety and durability to gain greater maneuverability. Much like the TIE, in fact. I'd be surprised if the TIE wasn't based, in part, on the Zero.

So it's not unreasonable to say rebel fighters are bigger than TIEs, if by 'bigger' you mean 'more massive'. There's simply no way you could tack on all the extra equipment and not incur a mass penalty.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Obrysii]

So it's not unreasonable to say rebel fighters are bigger than TIEs, if by 'bigger' you mean 'more massive'. There's simply no way you could tack on all the extra equipment and not incur a mass penalty.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

No, rebel fighters are larger. TIE fighters are 6.3 meters long. X-Wings are 12.5 meters long, and Y-Wings are 16 meters long.

[13_CBS]

What vulnerable shield generators? *snip*


Truly, my Star Wars fu is weak. :smallfrown: Thanks to my shoddy memory of the actual movies and far more extensive experience of the flight simulator games (console X-Wing series and the PC X-Wing Alliance), I guess I thought that the two little orbs at the top were shield generators. I was wondering why Seinar (they make Star Destroyers, right?) made that strange design flaw...

[TheRiov]

And Rebel fighters tend to be larger than TIEs on top of it all. WEG just had no idea what they were talking about, and should never have been allowed to handle the franchise.

Blasphemy. WEG did more for Star Wars and the Expanded Universe than any of the patently absurd Wizards products.

True, WEG made some early mistakes that were fixed in 2nd edition, but on the whole, it was a far far stronger product than even Saga edition.

[Renegade Paladin]

Erm.. why is the idea that rebel fighters (such as the X-wing)
are 'bigger' than TIEs a bad idea?
It isn't. :smalltongue: It just means that you can fit fewer of them into a given space, which makes it make even less sense to have a Nebulon B carry so many.
Truly, my Star Wars fu is weak. :smallfrown: Thanks to my shoddy memory of the actual movies and far more extensive experience of the flight simulator games (console X-Wing series and the PC X-Wing Alliance), I guess I thought that the two little orbs at the top were shield generators. I was wondering why Seinar (they make Star Destroyers, right?) made that strange design flaw...
Kuat Drive Yards builds Star Destroyers, actually. Sienar Fleet Systems makes TIE fighters and other small craft.

[TheRiov]

close. The Imperator & Venator classes were built by KDY. Rendili Star Drives built the Victory's.

[Renegade Paladin]

Well, yes. I went for the easy answer because the unmodified Star Destroyer almost always refers to the Imperator.

[Kane]

My SW knowledge my not be up to scratch, as I've been puttering around some other universes lately, but weren't the lucrehulk and venator different classes of ships? I thought the Reclemator was the Republic Lucrehulke equivalent...

[SolkaTruesilver]

Truly, my Star Wars fu is weak. :smallfrown:

You must unlearn everything you have learned.

[pendell]

My SW knowledge my not be up to scratch, as I've been puttering around some other universes lately, but weren't the lucrehulk and venator different classes of ships? I thought the Reclemator was the Republic Lucrehulke equivalent...


I just did a google search for 'Reclemator' and 'Reclamator'
and could find no information on this vessel. Do you have a link?

My best guess is that you mean the Acclamator (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Acclamator_I-class_assault_ship)
assault ship. This is the Venator's Predecessor. They are the same class of ship, except that the Acclamator was designed specifically for assaulting planets while the Venator and the later ISD are multi-role ships designed for space supremacy, carrier ops, and planetary assault/planetary bombardment.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Renegade Paladin]

The Acclamator class was a troop transport; it was not designed for heavy space combat. It could not fill the role of a Star Destroyer.

[pendell]

Minor quibble, Renegade_Paladin. While the Acclamator is indeed
classed as a transport, that doesn't make it a municipal city bus.

According to the wiki link I posted, it has 12 turbolaser cannons as well
as twice that in point defense weapons. That makes it a 'transport' along the same
lines as the modern BMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-3). It is a fighting vehicle whose duty is to transport combat troops into the LZ and provide support for them once there. It is a combat vessel, although I agree that it is not a star destroyer. Presumably that's why the Venator and the Victory replaced them.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Ubiq]

There was also an Acclamator-II variant that exchanged troop capacity for greater combat capabilities; if I recall correctly, certain sources listed it as a Star Frigate while others called it a Star Destroyer, though that may have only been up until the Venator was introduced.