Fleet Profiles, Doctrines, and designs: The Galactic Empire

So considering this group seems to need a kick in the ass to start talking about cool shit again I have decided to launch this little project that is intended to be a weekly affair in which I talk about a Scifi navy. Primary focuses of this series are the history and development of a factions navy from an in universe perspective, explaining fleet doctrines and organizational structure, a factions strengths and weaknesses. Thus I decided to kick things off with one of the more popular scifi factions, the Galactic Empire from Star Wars. To clarify I will be using Legends continuity for the main thrust of this but I will note the changes that have been made in the new Canon.

History and development:
One thousand years before the events of the prequel films and the original trilogy the galaxy was just emerging from one of the most harrowing experinces it had ever faced. For the better part of almost three thousand years the galaxy had been ravaged by on again off again conflicts with the Sith, devestating plagues, and painfull regression in technology. After the seventh battle of Ruusan the new supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Tarsus Valorum, set in motion a plan to reorganize the Republic and heal a devastated galaxy. Among these reforms was the dramatic down scaling of the Republic military reducing it down to the Republic Judicial Forces.

The Judicial forces were intended as a peace keeping force, equipped to handle pirates and raiders as well as to inspect local military forces to ensure they were conforming with arms limitation treaties. These treaties notably limited the number of ships a single planet could have in its navy as well as limiting the size of ships that could be equipped with class five hyper drives or better along with advanced navigational systems that could plot jumps beyond a local star system. Exceptions would be made for experimental ship designs and non-combat ships such as bulk transports. For the more developed worlds this worked out fine as they could easily buy up old Republic Navy ships and build massive ships for their own local defense. The worlds of the Outter Rim however had little such luck lacking the funds and industrial capacity leaving them vulnerable to pirates and raiders. The Judicial forces were themselves hampered by the Republic's increasingly bloated beauracry. At the time however most people in the galaxy felt that any future situations would be small local skirmishes that Judicial's would be more than equipped to handle if diplomatic and economic pressure failed.

What no one knew however was that the Sith had survived the seventh battle of Ruusan and began plotting to destroy their sworn enemies the Jedi and rule the galaxy. The Sith would spend the next thousand years slowly weakening the Republic and the Jedi, building their power base for the day they would reveal themselves. Corruption would prove to be one of their greatest weapons assisting powerful allies such as the Trade Federation, Techno Union, Commerce Guild, and Intergalactic Banking clan to build their own powerful armies in secrecy. At the same time the Sith laid out plans to drive the Republic into war and to that end they hijacked a plan by Jedi Knight Sifo Diyas to build a secret clone army for the Republic.

When the Clone Wars finally began the Republic took the Confederacy of Independent Systems or the Seperatists Alliance as it was sometimes known, by surprise when it deployed a powerful army and fleet that had been built in total secrecy. All of this however was well within the plans of the Sith who, under the Leadership of Darth Sidious otherwise known as Sheev Palpatine, had control of both sides of the conflict and used the war to cripple the Jedi before at last annihilating them with Order 66. Palpatine then reformed the victorious Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire.

The early Imperial navy made use of ships left over from the Clone Wars, such as the famous Venator-class Star Destroyer and the Acclamator-class Assault ship. Other ships in service included the Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser, Carrack-class Light Cruiser, Arquitens-class Light Cruiser, Pelta-class Frigate, and Consular-class Cruiser. Late in the Clone Wars however a new line ships had begun to come out of the Kuat shipyards in the form of the Victory I-class Star Destroyer and the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. The organized Imperial fleet began to rapidly expand and its doctrine rapidly shifted to favor the new Imperial I-class Star Destroyer and its derivatives.

The Imperial Navy had learned the value of large heavy capital ships during the Clone Wars and thus determined to dominate this field. Almost all major shipyards capable of building capital ships that could challenge a Star Destroyer were ceased by the Empire which also established dozens of new Ship building facilities.

Star Fighters were deemphazied by the Imperial Navy. The Imperial Navy used cheap and expendable TIE series fighters that could be mass produced and would be launched in large swarms to overwhelm enemies. That said the Empire would continue to develop new and improved fighters such as the TIE Phantom and TIE Defender.

The Empire began the production of many large capital ships such as the Executor-class Super Star Destroyer or Star Dreadnought. Alongside these however where new Interdictor ships such as the Immoblizer 418 Cruiser and the Interdictor-class Star Destroyer. Interdictor ships make use of Gravity well generators to prevent starships from jumping to Hyperspace which was invaluable in crushing rebel cells and disrupting pirate activity.

Perhaps the most recognizable symbol of the Imperial military of this time was the Death Star, a massive battle station armed with a super laser capable of destroying an entire planet with a single shot. The Death Star was one of many Super weapons built by the Galactic Empire though I will not be discussing the rest of them here.

A dramatic shift in the Imperial Navy would come after their defeat at the Battle of Endor and the death of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. This began the slow collapse of the Empire into various Warlord territories while the New Republic rapidly gained strength. The Empire would be reformed into the Imperial Remnant by Admiral Natasia Daala and Admiral Gilad Pellaeon but by the time this occured the Empire was on deaths door. Its massive fleet had been whittled down to a shadow of its former power with only one major shipyard supplying the bulk of their ships and struggling to keep the existing fleet in action. Pellaeon recognized that Empire could not defeat the New Republic and thus signed the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty, fifteen years after the Battle of Endor.

While there is more to the Legends continuity this is where I choose to leave it as the Imperial Remnant went through many more developments that may as well be an entirely different faction.

In the Canon much is the same with Palpatine orchestrating the Sith Grand plan to exterminate the Jedi and take over the Galaxy. The new canon has curtailed the Imperial Navy somewhat, with number of Imperial Star Destroyers being offical listed as 25,000 which is not far from the legends number. Note that this is just Star Destroyers not other ships such as cruisers, patrol ships, and Interdictors meaning the Imperial navy is likely to be much larger. However the Number of Super Star Destroyers has been curtailed to around a dozen.

Among the new ships that have been added are the Raider-class Corvette and the Grozanti-class Crusier. I would hesitate to call the Grozanti a cruiser as it is more along the lines of a heavy transport with only two laser cannons for point defense and the ability to dock four standard TIE fighters to it's hull.

In the new Canon after the defeat at Endor the Empire was scrambling to recover and regroup. The Rebel Alliance took advantage of the chaos to offically declare itself the New Republic and hounded the Imperial Fleet. Critical to this was the capture or destruction of all of the Empires Super Star Destroyers.

A year after Endor, the bulk of the Imperial fleet regrouped at Jakku around the last known Super Star Destroyer to remain in service, the Ravager. The New Republic attacked Jakku and pinned the Imperial Fleet up against the planets gravity well. The Imperial fleet was cut to pieces and the Ravager crashed onto the planets surface. With this defeat the bulk of Imperial forces offically surrendered. Some however fled to the unknown regions to form the First Order.

Fleet Doctrine and Organizational Structure:
The Overall Imperial Doctrine was known as the Tarkin Doctrine which called for rule through fear of force rather than actual force. What this means is that Imperial Navy was supposed to be very threatening and appear extremely ruthless while using the miminal amount of actual force to acomplish its objectives. The Tarkin Doctrine this favor large capital ships and the development of super weapons such as the Death Star that made the Empire appear invincible.

The Imperial Navy was built around the Star Destroyers. These massive capital ships could overpower just about any other ship in existence with little difficulty. The navy was thus split into two fleet components known as Superiority and Escort which would operate under an overall sector fleet command.

The Superiority fleets were the offensive component centered around the Star Destroyers. A Superiority fleet would be composed of twenty four Star Destroyers each with a supporting battle squadron of around eighteen ships of other classifications. Typically the Star Destroyers would be deployed independently or in small groups of two or three usually with only two or three escorts a peices running with each star destroyer to allow for greater mobility. When attacking an Industrialized would a force of around six star destroyers and their escorts would coverge on the system. If you are doing the math a single superiority fleet would have four hundred fifty six ships at full muster.

Escort fleets were typically composed of smaller vessels and used for anti-piracy, system garrison, and system patrol. While these ships would be spread out and considerably less powerful than a superiority fleet they made up for it in numbers. An Escort fleet would be made of hundreds if not thousands of ships typically numbering around three thousand ships in strength.

Star Fighters were a secondary concern of the Imperial Navy which had little regard for the individual lives of its pilots. Most Imperial fighters lacked Hyper drives and shields, many having only minimal life support. What they did have however was extreme speed, manuverability, and excellent fire power. The main guns on a Standard Imperial TIE were exceptionally powerful, while they lacked a high rate of fire they could easily punch through Civilian market grade sheilding and hull plating with a few bursts.

The Galactic Empire also made use of various orbital and ground based defense systems such as Golan Defense Platforms, planetary shields, and Hyper Velocity Guns.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

Strengths-
- The Empire has massive logistical support with an entire galaxies resources at its disposal.
- Hyperdrives are some of the fastest FTL drives in Science Fiction with cross galaxy trips taking at worst a few weeks and a best a few hours depending on the Hyperdrive system and navigational systems onboard.
- Star Destroyers are the epitomy of the Mighty Glacier in local system combat which very powerful sheilds, thick armor, and tons of guns. Just two of them can easily hold of dozens of smaller ships.
- TIE fighters freaking everywhere.

Weaknesses:
- While Star Destroyers are powerful their escorts leave something to be desired often lacking the durability and fire power of their larger cousins.
- Hyperdrives require precise calculations to plot and typically need to follow established Hyperspace routes for safety reasons. Plotting new routes is time consuming and extremely dangerous.
- Due to its rapid expantion post clone wars the Imperial Militaries enlisted personal often recieved rushed training. Creativity and individual initiative are considered dangerous traits as the Imperial Navy is a very political organzitation. Failure is not taken lightly, thus most officers will stick to established doctrines and stratagems.
- Over emphasis on Super Weapons frequently hampers Imperial resources.

Feel free to give your thoughts below. Also comment below on what factions you want to see covered.

Definitely a fascinating look at the structure of the Imperial Navy, although I still wonder what the official canon reason for the decommissioning of the Venators was given that, with an overhaul to the design, they appear to be superior to their successors in a number of ways.

Also, the 25,000 ISD figure is now canon? I remember when that was being derived from calculations.

And I'm going to play against type and recommend doing the Earth Alliance (Babylon 5) next given the relatively few number of ship classes.

The pros and cons are all with the caveat of ceteris paribus, right?

5996589
Well first off the Imperial-class Star destroyers dramatically out classed the Venator-class in every area except Starfighter transport capacity. Secondly the Venator-class didn't real fit well with new Imperial naval doctrine, while a excellent star fighter carrier new naval doctrines didn't call for a dedicated star fighter carrier. The Venator-class was pulled out of moth balls by various Imperial Remnant Factions but by that time they were twenty to thirty years out of date.

Pros and cons are of course my own opinions based on available evidence.

5996600
Not sure.

5996842
True, the Venator was definitely invested far more of its firepower in star fighters than later ISDs.
Although I do think an opportunity was missed to make a Tector-esque variant for the Venator. Just imagine the firepower and shield strength you could get if you converted those massive hangers into reactors, shield generators, and weapon ports.

Pros and cons are of course my own opinions based on available evidence.

Roger. Definitely going to be interesting going forward then.

5996853
I think that one falls under "to much work and effort for a ship we already have a replacement for."

The Venator was cheaper and required a smaller crew but paid for that in other ways, and ISD has eight times the fire power, more powerful shields and armor, can carry nearly five times more troops as the Venator at the cost of having about one fourth of the support craft capacity, requiring five times the crew, and costing almost three times more.

Both have their advantages but for a Venator to beat an ISD it either has to seriously leverage its fighter compliment or out number the ISD. In war time production terms the Venator is pretty good but the Empire had more than twenty years to build up its stock pile of ISD's with little interruption. Until the Rebellion began to get more aggressive after the destruction of the original Death Star, Star Destroyer loses would have been rare as the Rebellion lacked the heavy capital ships need to challenge them head on and most Separatist holdouts would already be using out dated ship models. So accounting for the massive ship building capacity of the Empire the decision to switch to the ISD made sense in a "peace time" Empire.

Interestingly as the Empires resources diminished after Endor and when the Imperial Remnant reconsolidated they switched their focus towards the somewhat neglected Victory-class star destroyer line producing many "pocket" star destroyers, these were less resource intensive and cheaper to produce while still bringing an impressive amount of fire power to bear. The Victory-class is sort of like what you suggested in a Tector-class variant of the Venator-class, indeed the two classes served alongside one another in the late Clone Wars.

5997661
Right, forgot about the Victory class.

Actually that reminds me of something. I understand how the S-Foils on fighters like the X-Wing are supposed to work; Closed they allow for better power flow to the engines and open they separate the laser cannons for better heat management, but how does that work on the Victory class since I've seen them do the same thing?

5997693
Well, if you are talking about what I think your talking about those aren't S-foils. By which I mean the two massive panels on either side of a Victory class that open up in combat. Those are actually armored housings for massive Concussion missile launchers opening up to allow the missiles to be launched. Eighty of such launchers are located around the ship but the most notable ones are the port and starboard launchers.

5998235
Huh, I've seen them referred to as S-Foils and I've seen a VIctory move faster when they they're closed. So, modders were mistaken after all.

5998259
I've seen it both ways so its honestly a little unclear.

5998358
Yeah, your explanation make s a hell of a lot more sense though.

5998404
It should be noted the Victory I-class was pretty damned for a ship it's size. That might be where the idea came from. The Victory II-class redesign had better engines but lost out on most of those previously mentioned missile launchers which compensated for with new ion cannons.

5999365
I can understand upgrading the engines, but why did they need to remove the missile banks? Couldn't they have fitted the class with both?
Or possibly improved point defense?

5999367
My guess is the missile banks were removed to make space for the more powerful engines, given these were capitol ship grade concussion missiles these things were all probably pretty bulky.

As for improving point defense the Victory-class already had a pretty decent set up on that front and but needed something to make up for the fire power lost in losing its missile banks so they slapped on some proper ion cannons. Those things eat shields and fry computer and electrical systems like its no ones business. On another point the Victory's job was primarily capitol ship fights, mostly cruisers and frigates not anything like an ISD or even a Mon Cal cruiser. It had enough point defense to get by and a fighter compliment of its own so the designers probably figured it would have it's bases pretty well covered.

6000093
Points taken.