The part about Clone Wars era ships actually being designed for war reminded me of that one Stargate quote- "this is a weapon of terror, it is meant to intimidate the enemy. THIS is a weapon of WAR - it is meant to KILL your enemy."
Jaffa blaststaff causes surface damage and burn marks on a hanging, thick stump of wood. To be honest, I thought it would've done more damage. Think SG-1 was demonstrating the P90 on full auto mode which tore apart the same stump.
@@entilzha1283 That was always rather absurd; staff blasts can and do demonstrate energy values in VAST excess of what modern firearms, nevermind a fucking P90, can ever hope to generate. They aren't practical weapons, no, and the point of the scene does stand and make sense, but the demonstration is nonsensical.
Unfortunately it is false statement. Most CIS ships were designed as cargo ships. Because of that they did not fallow Ruusan Reform limitations. And by extend were way larger and more advanced then most Defense Fleets, when corporations start arming them for self-defense. It is why install attacks of CIS was such shock. BUT Kuat used loophole in law to start construction of military Dreadnoughts, by not installing hyperdrive in them. This meant that only they have proper military tech when war started. Palpatine intentionally pushed only light Assault Ships like Acclimtaors and Venator class intended more for support. Holding more capable units in design. So after Order 66 he could easily sweep both CIS remnant and the Jedi. The issue with Imperial Class was that literally! Canonically! It WAS a Battleship! Or specifically it was modification of Tactor class Battlecruiser. Intended basically to overpower and hunt down Venators. But Tactor needed to have escort provided by Gladiator class as it didn't have a hangar. But war ended before there was actually need of using Tactor and Empire needed more Assault Ships instead. Then someone make interesting decision to put hangar in the Tactor, creating ISD. Even if it created massive venerability in the operations. Because ship was not designed with that in mind. Anyway, Empire did learn the lesson utilizing Quasar Fire Cruiser-Carriers in place of Gladiator. But it was simply too little too late.
@@TheRezro CIS ships were not larger nor more 'advanced' (whatever that even means), no, and in actual fact CIS ships, by dint of mostly being converted civilian ships, were hot garbage, meant to be spammed en-masse. Nor were ISDs introduced after Tectors; they were both introduced around the same time, nor did the hanger create any major vulnerabilities (well, beyond that presented by ANY hanger inherently).
Today my dumb ass realised it's called a star destroyer because it's supposed to be a destroyer in the stars; not a ship capable of destroying a star. I feel dumb.
My head canon is that much like how the IRL destroyer was a shortening of "Torpedo Boat Destroyer" the term Star Destroyer was the shortening of something else like "Star Cruiser Destroyer". In other words it's what we on Earth would call a battlecruiser, although in Star Wars a battlecruiser is an even larger vessel between an star destroyer and super star destroyer (dreadnought). Meanwhile a star cruiser is basically a fast battleship. If we imagine what would have happened if battleship designs on Earth continued a star cruiser is like an Iowa-class battleship compared to all previous battleships and a star destroyer is a surface combatant designed to defeat an Iowa-class.
It's been a long time since I read it, so I don't remember where is was written. One thing, originally were only two Star Destroyers. The basic one and the Super Star Destroyer. Now, the name came from the capability to devastate (i.e. destroy) an entire planet. But 'Planet Destroyer' was not epic and scary enough for the people in charge, so they changed it to 'Star Destroyer'. The Star Destroyer was never meant to be a 'Destroyer Class' ship. It was always a battleship. It was meant to be just as much a symbol of terror as it was. So you were right about the Star Destroyer being capable to destroy a 'star' (i.e. planet) It's similar the way it was with the 'Omega Destroyer' in Babylon 5. It also isn't a destroyer, but also a battleship, but it was sold as the last ship the humans would ever need (the Omega) that can destroy everything. Of course in case of the Omega Destroyer that was a bit stupid, as they already knew that superior technology existed and would be developed in the future Spacedock had a good video about misnaming ships. Case in point in the Star Wars Expanded Universe the New Republic needed a new ship with the capabilities of a new type Star Destroyer. However, building a Star Destroyer would have brought a lot of down the public opinion. So they named the new ship, that would be superior to the old Star Destroyer, 'Star Defender'. Or take the HMS Dreadnought, a ship that for a short time was aptly named. Then it became the name for a class of ships, which was downgraded to the old class 'Battleship' when that type of ship became the new standard and had it's vulnerabilities discovered.
@@Dragone38CM Was about to say, the Tie Fighter was hot garbage, the Tie Defender would have changed the nature of dogfighting during the Galctic Civil War. Just having shields and not throwing away your pilots against superior air craft like the A and X wing would have made a massive difference. Though, the Empire sucked so glad they adapted slowly.
In a polity where even generals are in rebellion you want to give power to individual pilots. You will have magana carta on your ass before you can say k*ll th**r ch*ldr*n. Did you know x wing was actually developed by an imperial corporation (technically republican but they now owed their loyalty to empire).
That isn't completely accurate. Thrawn did not advicate for the Tie Fighter / Defender to be the backbone of the Imperial Navy. He advocated for a traditional navy. We don't really get to see much of this in media (and it sucks) but using the cannon books as reference points, Thrawn believed the Death Star was a complete and total waste of time, resources, and attention. He encouraged the Emperor to consider a more traditional navy, believing they needed to start by cycling out the Tie-Fighter with a new model more capable of engaging advanced fighters like the X-Wing and A-Wing. This is when he proposed the Tie-Defender. Which he was given permission to work on on Lothal. Based on the given context and the timeline, Thrawn's project was being worked on in tangent with the construction of the Death Star. We see an Episode in Rebels where Tarken informs Thrawn that Director Krinic was making headway with project Stardust. If I remember the episode right, this was right after a rebel mission caused a delay in the Tie-Defender production line that nearly got his project shut down. Anyway, point is, had Thrawn fully succeeded with the Tie-Defender, it would have eventually replaced the Tie-Fighter as the main line starfighter. From there, Thrawn could propose additional fleet adjustment projects and continue fleshing out the Imperial Navy. Based on the given and context info from given information, I think it is a good assumption that had Thrawn had more time, he would have seen to the complete overhaul of the Imperial Navy and maybe even could have prevented the defeat the Empire suffered in Return of the Jedi. Of course that is all in theory on the later portion but the main point still stands, the Tie Fighter was never intended to be a backbone to the Imperial Navy. Thrawn was just given permission to develop an upgraded fighter variant that would solve some of the navy's problems.
I actually don't find that too disconcerting from a real world perspective since dreadnaught isnt a ship classification but the name of a single british ship that got used several times over the centuries. From a star wars perspective though it makes no sense since dreadnaughts are a ship class...
There were in fact Dreadnought cruisers in the real world. In real navies, "Dreadnought type" means "a ship with it's primary battery made up of a single size of gun and all or mostly all mounted along the centreline in turrets, and with turbine-based engines." It does *not* mean a battleship. And the engines part is very important. HMS Dreadnought herself, of course, was indeed a battleship, but as soon as the RN proved the idea worked on the *big* ships everyone started using it on the medium ships as well. All of the ships built to the new thinking were called "Dreadnoughts," which did lead to some confusion. If you read the debates in the Canadian Parliament of 1909 as they try to decide if we're going to cut the British a cheque for a battleship or build our own navy - and if the latter, what that will look like - you can see the various proposals include both a Dreadnought battle cruiser and a pair of Dreadnought Heavy Cruisers, and at least one MP clearly can't tell the difference between a Dreadnought Battleship and a Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser. Today we mostly associate the word with battleships, and thanks to things like Franz Joseph Designs "Star Fleet Technical Manual" and some other works, sci-fi tends to use the word in *place* of "battleship." But in 1910, a Boadicea-class cruiser was often referred to as a Dreadnought cruiser. So even if we want to demand that our space fantasy user real-world naval terminology, "dreadnought cruiser" has real-world precedent.
The empire always loose because that's how its written. In reality the empire would win due to shear nu,bers and resources. The Thrawn books show imperial forces being very effective.1
The Sherman was not the M3, that was its predecessor the Lee/Grant. The Sherman was the M4, and it was absolutely meant to be a proper tank and not an assault gun. It's just that the Army liked its 75mm gun because it could fire a really good HE round.
The detail about the high explosive shell is a misconception. The main reason we picked the 75mm M3 gun was, in 1941 when the tank was being designed the M3 gun was quite formidable by comparison to most other tank guns, and the powerful HE shell was considered a side benefit.
@@savag3l3m0ns8 On the Commonwealth side, the bulk of Shermans retained the 75mm because the HE round was used much more than the AP, and the 17-pounder's HE wasn't any better. So it just wasn't worth converting more than one tank per troop to Ic/Vc configuration.
@@Zach476 I suppose that depends on how you define "assault gun," but the usual definition is that it's an armoured vehicle with a limited traverse weapon optimised for low-velocity high-explosive rounds, and by that definition the Sherman is not an assault gun.
The old quote in the U.S. Military is, "No plan survives First contact Intact". Meaning: always make contingency plans. then make contingencies for those.
I have a theory that the plan to take over the republic was made by dark Plaguis (and his master) and executed by Palpatine. That is why Palpatine plans were so bad after he got into power.
Partly true. Though the Darth Plagueis novel establishes that Palpatine contributed many ideas to the Grand Plan (Dooku's and Anakin's corruption, the proxy clone war, etc.).
my headcanon mental gymnastics is that like modern destroyers are named from "torpedo boat destroyer", Star Destroyers had/have a full name like "Starship Destroyer", or "Capital-starship Destroyer" and it was just shortened to Star Destroyer. It was designed to destroy enemy capital ships and cruisers in a big fleet, not really go up against small fighters or raiding cruisers/frigates and not meant to operate by itself. But after the clone war ended and it assumed more of a spread out peacekeeping/intimidation role that it was not meant for.
This. I'm super-duper pedenatic my own self but people who can't accept that some fictional settings have different meanings than the real world for common labels or jargon just get on my tits. The solution isn't to complain "a destroyer is supposed to be a small ship!" The solution is to go "okay, this is how it works, let's come up with a good reason for why."
I think the old lore of why 'star destroyer' was 'ships of this class were so powerful they could destroy solar systems on their own,' and thus the term 'star destroyer' was used on ships like the imperial class.
@@davidwooster2076 Yeah, but like a lot of the "old lore" - basically, shit that WEG made up - it really doesn't make any sense. Heck, just Han's line about how the entire fleet couldn't destroy an entire planet puts paid to that one.
@@davydatwood3158 Which is why I put them in quote marks, around the lore bit, but also at that time line the Imperial class was also 'newest and greatest' warship built, with Han's quote being on older designs. As older lore goes, the Imperial was a post clone wars design, with newer year putting it either mid or late clone wars, but never got numbers built until post clone wars. But in general, I do agree with stuff not making any or much sense.
Star Blazers had a lot of battleships. The Gamilons and Comet Empire had both Battleships and fleet Carriers. During the first season of Star Blazers, Earth only had one battleship left. So they turned it into a Battleship class Carrier.
The thing I hate the most about the ISD is the same of pretty much every other fleet in Star Wars. The ship may be designed to fill a goal well but the navy it exists in and how it is used don't match.
Yeah they have 60 turbo lasers and shoot 3. Just have people actually man the guns they don’t even have to aim. You can vaporize anything in the general vicinity. Not to mention the 60 ion cannons which could aim themselves and disable anything around them. I guess the targeting system sucks. Just set them to target what the 10 tractor beams hit. You don’t even have to aim those, they just work.
SDs are actually far more akin to a pumped up version of a Marine Amphibious Assault Ship. Able to field air, ground, artillery and support units and be able to operate essentially independently for short durations. That's an LHA/R.
I think discussion gets to wrapped up in the "destroyer" part of "Star Destroyer". "Star Destroyer" just sounds more intimidating and cooler then "battleship", also why it's always capitalized. Star Wars often follows the "Rule of Cool". Plus plenty of militaries throughout history have made the same mistakes, it's often said generals make plans to refight the last war not fight the next one. I think Star Destroyers fit that saying pretty well. Still, great video, love the channel! P.S.-Would love to see a video about the old Carrack-class light cruiser, love that old workhorse of a ship.
It's not even a mistake, it just doesn't adhere to modern English-language naval conventions. 150 years ago, no one would have known what the hell a dreadnought was supposed to be, before that, they wouldn't even know what a battleship was and they'd be rating it as a ship of the line with different classes based on how many gun decks it had.
The ISD isn't a battleship, its an space going amphibious assault ship. Its designed to deliver a division sized ground force to the battlefield and provide orbital fire support. and yes IRL some anphibs did have gun batteries, the US used to mount 5" guns on some of theirs for naval gunfire missions.
@@kennethferland5579 Well there are gators that have the flight decks and hangar space of a light carrier IRL so that isn't unusual. But yes there was never anything bigger than a 5" on a US anphib so nothing close to a battleship main battery; although there was a program to develop a 8" gun turret that could fit in the space of a Mk 42 5" mount. Never went beyond a single destroyer but in theory there could have been an anphib light carrier type ship with a heavy gun armament if it was ever felt necessary. Although I don't think a ISD actually fills the role of battleship (in that it is the largest combatant and not some specific combination of size, armor, and armament) in the Imperial Starfleet as there are mainline combatants larger than an ISD in the fleet.
It's like that US project that makes modernized the Iowa battleship to be a half-aircraft carrier or missile platform. But the problem is that the ship doesn't have enough planes to deploy and removing the big naval gun contradicts the use of battleships. So it's basically the Star Destroyer is the equivalent of that failed project.
@@warhammer8867 Problem with IRL hybrid ships is, you can't afford to get your carrier into gun range. SW ships have shields and does not require flightdeck. It allows to a bit safer way to put all eggs into single basket. ISD is designed for multi year independent operations, capable of gun fight, fighter deplyment, planetary landing, orbital bombardment, chasing blocade runners. It's your by the book (star) cruiser. :D
I would argue that the ISD is a Jack of all trades warship. When used correctly, it had devastating firepower. It was equally good at just about everything. It did have some weaknesses, but so did every other type of ship in Star Wars. Name one type of combat vehicle in Star Wars that didn’t have some weakness! And in terms of drama, the point of the ISDs, SSDs, and Death Stars was to have the heroes overcome incredible odds! This video, while interesting, is wrong!
My favorite aesthetic is the little gunboats that just had one full sized battleship turret from the late 1800s. Absolutely ridiculous but very economical.
My Dad's friend in the navy used to run a little social bar on the monitor M33 in Portsmouth harbour drydock. Me and my sister would shun child labour laws and go on there and pour beer for the sailors quite often.
As stated in another segment, "it's about the brand". "Star Destroyer" is a vessel capable of unleashing overwhelming fire, i.e. metaphorically, the ability to (at least) subjugate or (at worse) burn a system to a cinder. An ISD is an oversized one trick pony siege weapon, not a force multiplier. An Imperial fleet make up would be different it Admiral Ar'alani of the Chiss put one together. That would be a tougher nut to crack.
Grew up on the original trilogy and always hated the ISD design and fell in love with the Venator in the prequel trilogy. And in the recent decade, I have found a love and appreciation for this monstrosity of durasteel and imperial spite. Legends star destroyers like the Pelleon and the old republics Harrower dreadnoughts are my personal favorites. The only sequel trilogy ship I like is the Resurgent. The only star destroyer made to actually work the way they were supposed to. Sadly, imperial incompetence is hereditary
Having learned a lot about ship class names, particularly in the British/Uk and US navies, Corvette Class Light Frigate makes as much sense as many historical examples.
Corvette class light frigate sounds like someone made an oversized corvette yet undersized light frigate and called it a day sent the plans to manufacturing for some poor captain go: "Dafuq I get stuck with the unstealthy stealth vessel".
A Star Destroyer is called a Star Destroyer because its main purpose is to bombard planets from orbit. The reason the Star Destroyer is the main ship is because it's supposed to be a jack of all trades. Some fighter/bomber capability, command and control and the ability to go for long voyages with little resupply. There were tons of escorts for Star Destroyers in battles where it made sense to have escorts. They just don't show up as much in the movies. Plus, most of the time, they were busy. A Star Destroyer during a planned battle might have a lot of escorts but during regular patrols and missions it might have 1 or none. The only real drawback is the very small size of the turbolasers. It doesn't really make sense why both sides use tiny guns. Bigger gun, bigger power supply, bigger boom. A Star Destroyer should be able to one-shot any ship below its weight class. All capital ships in Star Wars have this problem. Mon Calamari capital ships have tiny guns. The Millenium Falcon shouldn't be able to get hit by a Star Destroyer and survive. All capital ships have point defense guns but Star Destroyers seem to be all point defense with no big guns. They often rely on a small amount of very poor fighters to do their job instead of just using their small starships for recon and specific missions. This kind of ship would probably have a small number of fighters, a few bombers and loads and loads of transport aircraft to land troops or insert special forces teams for missions on planets. Space battles allow for huge lines of sight, so you would get blasted from millions of km away by giant turbolasers if you ever tried to fight a more realistic Star Destroyer. Torpedoes exist in Star Wars. They're called turbolasers. Proton torpedoes are dangerous, but there is no below the water in space. If you can be shot by a torpedo, you can be shot by a turbolaser.
Star Destroyer has almost no point defense on top and 0 PDs on the bottom. The plot demanded that ISD's shields go down with 2 or 3 small missiles but mon cal ships are basically immune to fighters. ISD's foults have nothing to do with it being a battleship and everything to do with stupid designed and incompetent commanders plus plot armor.
True enough but one doesn't waste ANYTHING significant on a freighter or way Lighter ship UNLESS they're SUPER pissed off at whom is leading that ship an know for sure they are whom they look like. It's way too overkill for the situation in most cases.
@@Morri987the design isn’t even stupid, there are 60 turbo lasers and 60 ion cannons. Anything that is in the general vicinity of it is not existent. Moncals mc90 is even more heavily equipped. If there was a single ISD and a single MC90 within firing range of each other whatever is between the 2 ships will be completely flooded by laser beams. Those lasers would turn the ships into gas and the wall of lasers would continue until they burn out. Anything they come across? Evaporated as well.
@@holiday7068 What's better? A single volley of turbolasers which has the potential to cripple a MonCal or a giant extended firing battle of attrition? You can't convince me that the SD has the ability to destroy any big ships in a reasonable time frame. In every single book, comic, show, movie, the SD can fire on ships for minutes WELL below its weight class. Battleships had a lot of smaller guns which did anti aircraft dut but could also hit smaller boats, destroyers, etc. The ISD is like if you decided to make a ship just based on those guns. It's like a battleship with light cruiser level guns. In 40k once the shields are down a single broadside from even a cruiser will completely destroy a frigate or destroyer. You can be in a frigate and then get hit instantly by a lance weapon from huge distances whih cuts through your shields and cuts your ship in half. That's for cruisers. A true battleship could massively damage a cruiser in a single broadside with its level of firepower. Obviously you don't want to be in a space battle where your battleship is firing for a long time at an enemy. You want to focus on other things. Also, having guns in a huge area all over means ammunition or power supply is everywhere. It's better for battleships to have a few good guns because you need to protect the power supply/ammo. That's going to be one of the most heavily armoured/shielded parts of the ship. You can't have super armour everywhere. Let's also recognize the ISD real command center would be in the center of the ship and not on the obvious weakspot tower.
@@holiday7068 note that MC ships have firing arc issues so even MC90 is outgunned from the front not to mention MC80 that was more common and the only ones we see on screen? ISD outguns MC80 3:1, frontal showdown even worse due to firing arcs, ISD outguns even MC90 from the front lol
does destroyer speak to the class or the purpose? it's not like the Death Star was a star. but the name scared the force outta the yokels... Palps knew his PR
Ironically, the biggest main force naval ships when the Star Wars movies were made were cruisers, whereas now the biggest and most powerful warships are actually are actually Destroyers
well, tonnage creep has reached the point that the next generation of destroyers (at least from the UK and Japan) will have displacements in the same range as the first few designs of Dreadnought-era battleships/battlecruisers
Ehhh As of today, the Biggest and most Powerful ship on a Fleet would be the Carrier. The list would be like this: 1) Super Carrier: Nimitz, Ford, Charles de Gaul, Queen Elizabeth, and Fuijan 2) Aircraft Carrier: Kutznetsov, Liaoning, Shandong, Vikramaditia, Vikrant 3) Anphibious Assault Ship | Helicopter Destroyer | Strategic Projection Ship | Helicopter Carrier: Wasp, America, Huyga, Izumo, Juan Carlos I, Type 75, Mistral 4) Cruiser: Ticonderoga, Zumwalt -that thing is bigger than the Tico, it doesn't matter USA calls them Destroyer, they're Cruisers-, Kirov, Slava, Type 055 -Call Destroyer really a Cruiser-, Sejong the Great -Call Destroyer really a Cruiser- 5) Destroyer/Frigate (Not really any distinction between the classes in modern Navies): Arleigh Bruke, Daring, Horizon, Alvaro de Bazán Then we have LCS, Corvettes, Patrol Ships, missile boats, etc
10:46 I never thought I would see the Battleship NJ in a Star Wars video. They're about to take the ship to the Philadelphia Naval Yard in March for renovations
3:18 if I remember correctly, the quote itself is from moltkey the elder, a Prussian field marshal from around the time of German unification (late 1800s)
The Star Destroyers were super effective against planetary defense forces, and could neutralize ground defenses effectively with their orbital bombardment capabilities. Sure some were taken out in fleet combat, but until you get the MonCal MC90 nothing could go one on one with a Star Destroyer. To take out an ISD was a major accomplishment for the Alliance, and there were 25,000 of them, so the examples of them getting destroyed are a fraction of a percent of the ones in service. The advantage of the Alliance were their hit and run tactics that were able to catch Imperial forces in compromising situations. Anytime they faced ISD in direct fleet combat they were butchered. The ISD were effective at what they were designed to do, completely subjugate a planet with minimal presence, one was usually enough to take over all but the best defended planets.
Preach it, new cannon has turned one of the most powerful ships into a joke. I would saw few Imperial knew how to properly use an ISD in battle. Thrawn, Vader, and Pellaeon were the few who effectively used them. The problem was the ISD was meant to hold the line in a fleet battle, not fight small ships.
@@Amoschp524 It's not new cannon, the ISD had flaws, but they were not designed for Alliance tactics and equipment. They were specifically designed to subjugate and destroy planetary defenses. When an ISD appeared in low orbit, you knew your planet was lost. The ship that has probably suffered the most from New Canon is the B-Wing, which in Old Canon was as fast or faster than an X-Wing. The issue with B-Wings were their difficulty to fly, not their speed or agility. There was also maintenance issues with them and the X-wing, but the B-Wing was a beast until they decided to make them slow.
@@badonkeykong7506 What I mean in new cannon they get destroyed to easily and their strength is never shown. The ships seem to mostly be commanded by idiots. Like Rouge One, the two ISDs destroyed by the pushing attack only worked because the ships were far too close to what they were protecting and each other. Yes the Y-wings were effective but because of the positioning it became a disaster. At the end, Vader shows up in one ISD and wipes out most of the capital ships in one barrage that took advantage of the ISD's strengths. I acknowledge the flaws but the ISDs also had a lot of positive points and strengths in their designs. The main one being able to focus most of the fire power into the forward fire arc.
@@Amoschp524 I agree that it was tactical, jot the ship itself that was flawed, but the stupidity of Imperial officers was established at the Battle of Yavin and the Battle of Endor, particularly the Battle of Endor when the Alliance was able to cripple multiple ISD but also neutralize Super Star Destroyers, due to bad tavtics and too tight formations. It's space, there are no reasons for any of these ships to be that close together. But that's just convenient plot devices and a fundamental lack if understanding about space combat by the writers.
8:47 - The Yamato and Musashi were both sunk by aircraft. There were only two occasions in the Pacific when Battleships fought each other and neither of them involved either the Yamato or Iowa classes
The ISD makes some sense if you have a couple of them backing up a force of venators to keep at bay assorted CIS warships so the venators can focus on being carriers. On its own not so much
I love that you were able to tie in Space Battleship Yamato into a vid about Star Wars. I wonder if the Yamato with warp capability would get to a long distance detination faster than an ISD with hyperspace tech.
The U.S. marines dropping tanks is actually part of a move to prepare for future conflict with China, where marines will be placed on small islands near China and use missiles to harass the Chinese navy and such. Tanks are heavy, slow, and require logistical support that would slow down and hinder the marines' missions.
Allen sir, your channel is one of my favorites and I appreciate your professionalism and journalistic prowess. You actually deliver researched information and make great comparisons between science fiction and modern governments which I find very interesting. Your platform can actually prepare people to be able to critically think about how our governments, society, corporations and world leaders operate and manipulate the masses, good vs. evil. Thank you sir
Fun fact the torpedo boat was built long before the torpedo plane. Because the first torpedo was made in 1866 while the airplane was developed in the early 1900's, with the first flight in 1903.
the movies undersold what a SD can do. they DID have laser cannons for long range artillery but only the shorter range turbolasers were shown. in our world a SD is roughly equivalent to a cruiser , with light and heavy variants.
As a WWII fanatic, I thank you for being the first person I’ve seen on UA-cam to use clips of Midway (2019) for aircraft and using greyhound for torpedoes. I love both those movies and it was surprising to see them on this channel of any.
Thank you Alan for making this video. I would always cringe whenever these ships were referred to as "destroyers." Battleship is definitely the proper classification here.
They're kind of battleship, kind of assault carrier, kind of office block. - edit: Meanwhile the Venator was definitely a carrier that unwise leaders USED as a battleship, and the Acclimators were LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank) that kept being used as cruisers.
I somehow never connected the "Destroyer" in "Star Destroyer" with the ship class I thought it was a name to instill fear, nothing to do with it's design lol
ISD shoots at enemy fighters from big turbolasers that are equivalent of irl 200mm< cannons so it's like trying to kill mosquito with a rifle. Cannons can be useful at shooting down aicrafts when they use explosive shrapnel ammo like german Flak 18(88mm)
I love this. I've just watched a video about modern real world naval ships and warfare, that got related back to star wars every now and then to explain the point you're tryna get across. And it really does work, and you learn a lot while watching it
9:25 ok im a naval nerd, but i will go into this. Battleships, while not invulnerable to torps, did have a pretty good defense against them in torpedo bulkheads. Dive bombers on the other hand completly outclassed them. Unless you had inmense area denial, radar guided AA and AAA defenses like Iowa class, surrounded by stupidly anti aircraft dedicated ships like Clevelands and Fletchers, dive bombers where the bane and crux of any navy. The US and japanese navies learned this the hard way at the battle of midway. Hell the IJN started doing combined raid where the torpedo bombers served as distraction while the dive bombers did the real damage. And the US quickly adopted this same strategy. A couple torpedoes could stop a BB but a single well placed armour piercing bomb could cripple a battleship in a single run. The logic is simple really. You have trops that hit the BB in the same direction enemy ships fire their shells, horizontally, so more armor, but enemy AP bombs? Those hut vertically, and you can't have 180° or armor like a tortoise unless you want to have the speed of one. So yeah dive bombers made BBs obsolete, and funnily enouth they themselves became obsolete right after WWII when BBs where no longer the main focus.
Destroyers were originally called "torpedo boat desteoyers" as they were intended to destroy.. torpedo boats. By that logic a Star Destroyer isn't a Destroyer of the star class, but a ship intended (or marketed) to destroy stars.
From what I read on the wiki is that the term Star Destroyer refers to wedge(or dagger)shaped Capital Class ships, such as the ISD, the Venator and the Executor
@@colekimball4945 the Death Star fell very short on that department due to a proton torpedo entering where the sun doesn't shine by the farmboy in an X-Wing.
2:19 thats a Immobilizer 418 Class *Heavy Cruiser* NOT a Interdictor Class Star Destroyer, Interdictor Star Destroyers (such as the Dominator-class) are much larger than the 418. Plus the Immobilizer 418 actually has little to no weakpoints compared to a ISD, like for example it doesnt have 2 big shield generator balls that can easily be targetted.
During WW1 destroyers were designed to protect capital ships form torpedo boats. So torpedo boat destroyers became just destroyers. Used to think Star, IE STAR Destroyer, BattleSTAR, BaseSTAR was used to designate a very large ship. Perhaps STAR is an abrevation for Starship, IE BattleStar(ship) BaseStar(ship). However Star Destroyer is a destroyer capable interstellar travel, ie starship. Rather a starship purpose built to destroy other starships.
9:44 Of course, if your name is Samuel B. Roberts, you don't have to worry because your crew is more than capable of patching up the hull until you get back to drydock. 😂
Its going to be proven sometime soon that guided missiles can be overcome with disabling gps or hacking. It's a good idea to still have some healthy weight ballistic kinetics around.
And here we find one of the elements of fantasy in Star Wars, the idea that a fighter can seriously damage a battleship. I know the out-of-universe context, George was making 'WW2 navies in space', but in real life, a fighter would be facing off against a ship armed with whatever future equivalents of CIWS and anti-fighter missiles that would make approaching close enough to eyeball a target extremely difficult, if not outright suicidal.
2:40 excellent war vehicles that have a line of predecessors from which they evolved for better usage vs. completely new vehicles that have a main purpose in oppressing unarmed civilian populus. YES I LOOK AT YOU TARKIN
4:36 Hey just a SLIGHT correction for ya, there wasn't an M3 Sherman. That was the M4. There were two M3 tanks, the Stuart light tank and the M3 Lee, which.. Uh. Whatever hte hell ya wanna classify that weird contraption as(As per I believe it was the Soviets during the Lend-Lease program? The Coffin For Seven Brothers)
Thing is though, Imperial class destroyer was intially the imperator class introduced towards the very end of the clone wars and was meant to function as a true battle ship alongside venators as carriers and victories as missile platforms in a wholly compact and integrated fleet. It became a massive white elephant when it was turned intro a fleet all on its own and assumed to be able to fulfil all jobs of a fleet which it is simply up to the challenge of.
It just occurred to me, the Venator-class Star Destroyer would have been a better design for the empire, while the Imperial Class Star Destroyer would have been a better design for the republic, what with capital ship battles occurring constantly.
venator was also perfect for the republic. remember, those things shredded enemy ships and kept moving. they had massive carrier-style hangars. i'd take a venator over an ISD any day
Imperial naval doctrine has never made sense when you give even just a little bit of thought to it. That's why the Legend's explanation that Palpatine knew about the impending Yuuzhan Vong invasion makes everything fit together and make sense. Against the Vong, the New Republic quickly found that Imperial naval doctrine was very successful. Heavily armed and armored ships were what was required to stop the strange/esoteric organic technology of the Vong. Suddenly ISD's, Super Star Destroyers, and superlasers make a lot more sense against an enemy that renders ion weapons useless, can strip the shields off of smaller craft like fighters, and arrived in monumental starships literally called Worldships. Even then, if the Vong hadn't experienced their version of a proletariat uprising, the war would have lasted far longer (a war that had already claimed the lives of over 100 trillion people). Of course if things had been left up to Palpatine, he probably would have killed more people than the Vong in the name of asset denial but that's a separate issue lol.
Honestly, the most effective part of Imperial naval doctrine as far as fighting the Yuzzhan Vong is concerned is probably their focus on orbital bombardment. The enemy has no industrial capacity, and to build more they require a planetary surface to build it on. Deny them that, and you've won. It's just a matter of how long it takes, and how much gets destroyed in the process; and for Palpatine, the benefits of an external threat and the vast destruction of total war mean he will be in no hurry to end the threat.
@@samueldimmock694 Exactly right. In a galaxy where Palpatine's Dark Empire had prevailed before the arrival of the Vong, I imagine the outer rim would have a distinct lack of habitable worlds/biomass.
The Space Battleship Yamato is really the perfect ship, it has strong cannons for close, medium and long range, it has a huge array of point defence/ close quaters combat guns, is has a large stock of attack and interceptor missiles and most of all it has a large fighter wing for defensive and offensive purposes
Everytime I’ve been on a battleship or a destroyer from ww2 I am in awe of how much steel there is. Like there are sections that really make you wonder how anyone could possibly hope to dent it given how thick and dense they are.
Then the Venator Class "Star-Destroyer," which is basically just a relatively well armed carrier. 😅 Unless "Star Destroyer" is just seen as a "Destroyer that travels across the stars" or something... but then again, it still doesn't make sense for the design either
for gods sake, Star destroyer is a KDY Brand name they bribed into the Anaxes war college ship catalog as a size range. it describes a ship between one and two thousand meters long. kdy uses it as a brand name for any capital ship they build. (The Essential Guide to Warfare)
I'm of the opinion, battle carriers are the way to go for main ships of the line. Pretty much Battlestars. The need for an extremely long-range weapons platform that can lunch strike craft for an even longer range of effect. But also closer ranged anti-capital guns for defence and direct knife fighting engagements because the enemy isn't just going to sit pretty and take the beating of your artillery and fighter strikes.
The problem with battle carriers in application is the ability to do two ships jobs in a mediocre fashion instead of one job well. But Star Wars often defies sense, so... (shrug)
Realistically, they should just make pure carriers armed only with point defense weapons, escorted by destroyers with a heavy missile payload and more point defense. Just like how modern navies operate.
Tarkin thought he was being clever. Put cheap conscripts in Clone Armor, and they should still have the same "psychological impact." He believed fear and perceived capability was more important than real capability.
As a Star Wars fan and someone interested in irl naval history and doctrine I have ranted about this very thing many times! So glad I'm not the only person this bugs. This is one of those annoying things where something was named to sound cool and banning sense didn't matter.
Bit of a fun fact, the reason there called Star Destroyers was due to the Old Republic Era. In which they made giant warships with guns and would use them to obliterate planets or even stars. Which gave us the name "Star Destroyer"
You actually are mistaken bismark was big but by no means the biggest the Yamato while sunk by aircraft and torpedos was sunk in the later portion of world war 2 by the us navy who had ditched their biplanes. The British navy went to war with what they had not what they wanted.
Not exactly. It was a Brit Fairey Firefly Bi-plane that launched a torpedo that severely damaged the rudder on the German battleship Bismarck, preventing it from steering. It then became easy prey for the Brit Battleships to catch it and shell it into the depths. Though she was the most dangerous Battleship in the Atlantic, the Bismarck was smaller than the Japanese Yamato, which was sunk by about a few hundred hits from Yank dive-bomber & torpedo bomber aircraft in the Pacific.
when you went from star wars to tanks, i forgot i was watching a star wars video, and then when i saw star ships i was like "wtf am i even watching?" and then i remembered.
I'm just glad that they weren't painted tan or brown on the bottom, red and yellow on top with the turrets being the red. When Alan said wedge shaped, I immediately thought Doom Pizza...
Would you send out a battleship in ww2 without screens? Hell no. It would get torpedoed by Subs or sneaky destroyers very quickly, if not bombed into oblivion.
To be fair, ISDs had fighter screens, and the TIE fighter was designed as a dedicated space superiority fighter. It wasn't good enough against a technologically equivalent military force, but at least they tried.
It is worth mentioning, if you look at the Legends material from before the prequel trilogy. The Imperial -class Star Destroyer WAS the best starfighter carrier available . Easily carrying more fighters than anything else imagined at that time.
The ISD is a perfect ship for the Tarkin Doctrine. You come in heavy handed, annihilate your enemy, save for a couple of survivors to tell the tale, and move on. This will scare the galaxy into conformity. Add the DS1, the work then does itself.
One thing that I just thought of. Most battleships were sunk by aircraft. So it kinda makes sense the Redial Anince could destroy those massive star destroyers.
The Victory is still better - it requires, depending on what classes you're comparing, as little as 10% of the crew to under a quarter of the crew while carrying more than 50% of the amount of TIEs and it only takes 3 to overwhelm a single ISD. Plus it's better at orbital bombardments to support its ground forces by being able to enter atmosphere for more accurate strikes.
It's a BattleStar. Like Galactica. It carries a wing of fighters and scouts and bombers. It can even deploy 2 active garrisons. But, unlike Galactica, it lacks enough fighters because of it's layout. It is a balance, what it lacks in bays for fighters, it trades for armor and FTL, and weapons.
I love this channel, I click for star wars and get real war and history mixed in. It also really helps me craft my own sci fi story, So ican give it reasonable battleships etc
Nice vid, I hope you can explain why there isn't more non line of sight weapons on star wars...besides the usual Lucas based it on WW2 dog fighting. Is there an in universe reason for it?
The thing I love best about the Imperial Star Destroyer is the thought of it getting vaped by a bunch of snub fighters, or a couple of heavily armed light freighters.
The IMPs didn't lose because of the ISD. the IMPs lost because of building 2 Death Stars, having a sub=par officer core, and the deeds of 2 1/2 Jedis (Luke, Kannan, & Ezra).
This is what I've been thinking for years! They technically count as carriers, so they can provide that role, but the Imperial light-craft range is so small that they can do very little. Bombs, torpedoes, fighter craft sure, but at least in the OT the range of engagement is something even we have far surpassed in terms of fighter combat. Also love to see the older USS Texas. Ugly bucket, but beauty comes in appreciating all eras, even with some mishaps. The ISD also belongs to this category of mine which I title "Ships that shouldn't be in space". Space Battleship Yamato is slightly better, but there are still massive gaps in the angles the main battery can fire at. Now, the ISD actually follows a historical trend exemplified by Admiral Jackie Fisher (who invented the battlecruiser, to a degree), of having every main gun facing forward.. Because certainly, no British ship would ever run away from a fight, right? Just because it makes sense within a setting doesn't mean it's smart, lol.
i wonder if they came up with the name star destroyer without thinking of the whole destroyer/frigate/cruiser thing..maybe someone was just thinking along the lines of "destroyer of stars" which would have been a fanciful title that no one would take literally since no one even thought a planet destroyer was possible.
I remember a story. About the woman who designed the isd . ( wyla blissixs ) she did the venator as well , she based it on her father's work with the victory class . He defected to the rebels and she tried to get him back to fix the isd ( she was married to a moff)
"rommel liked to say no plan survives contact with the enemy" And no german tank crew survives being commanded by Rommel to overextend and run out of supplies lol. Bye bye fuel Not sure if he's the best guy to rely on for military advice
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The part about Clone Wars era ships actually being designed for war reminded me of that one Stargate quote- "this is a weapon of terror, it is meant to intimidate the enemy. THIS is a weapon of WAR - it is meant to KILL your enemy."
Words of a wise joke making Colonel (I think that was his rank at the time)
Jaffa blaststaff causes surface damage and burn marks on a hanging, thick stump of wood. To be honest, I thought it would've done more damage. Think SG-1 was demonstrating the P90 on full auto mode which tore apart the same stump.
@@entilzha1283 That was always rather absurd; staff blasts can and do demonstrate energy values in VAST excess of what modern firearms, nevermind a fucking P90, can ever hope to generate. They aren't practical weapons, no, and the point of the scene does stand and make sense, but the demonstration is nonsensical.
Unfortunately it is false statement. Most CIS ships were designed as cargo ships. Because of that they did not fallow Ruusan Reform limitations. And by extend were way larger and more advanced then most Defense Fleets, when corporations start arming them for self-defense. It is why install attacks of CIS was such shock.
BUT Kuat used loophole in law to start construction of military Dreadnoughts, by not installing hyperdrive in them. This meant that only they have proper military tech when war started. Palpatine intentionally pushed only light Assault Ships like Acclimtaors and Venator class intended more for support. Holding more capable units in design. So after Order 66 he could easily sweep both CIS remnant and the Jedi.
The issue with Imperial Class was that literally! Canonically! It WAS a Battleship! Or specifically it was modification of Tactor class Battlecruiser. Intended basically to overpower and hunt down Venators. But Tactor needed to have escort provided by Gladiator class as it didn't have a hangar.
But war ended before there was actually need of using Tactor and Empire needed more Assault Ships instead. Then someone make interesting decision to put hangar in the Tactor, creating ISD. Even if it created massive venerability in the operations. Because ship was not designed with that in mind. Anyway, Empire did learn the lesson utilizing Quasar Fire Cruiser-Carriers in place of Gladiator. But it was simply too little too late.
@@TheRezro CIS ships were not larger nor more 'advanced' (whatever that even means), no, and in actual fact CIS ships, by dint of mostly being converted civilian ships, were hot garbage, meant to be spammed en-masse.
Nor were ISDs introduced after Tectors; they were both introduced around the same time, nor did the hanger create any major vulnerabilities (well, beyond that presented by ANY hanger inherently).
Today my dumb ass realised it's called a star destroyer because it's supposed to be a destroyer in the stars; not a ship capable of destroying a star. I feel dumb.
Nah. Thats the point. It's more effective when people think it can destroy a star
Same here
My head canon is that much like how the IRL destroyer was a shortening of "Torpedo Boat Destroyer" the term Star Destroyer was the shortening of something else like "Star Cruiser Destroyer".
In other words it's what we on Earth would call a battlecruiser, although in Star Wars a battlecruiser is an even larger vessel between an star destroyer and super star destroyer (dreadnought). Meanwhile a star cruiser is basically a fast battleship.
If we imagine what would have happened if battleship designs on Earth continued a star cruiser is like an Iowa-class battleship compared to all previous battleships and a star destroyer is a surface combatant designed to defeat an Iowa-class.
@@williammagoffin9324That makes much sense I think.
It's been a long time since I read it, so I don't remember where is was written. One thing, originally were only two Star Destroyers. The basic one and the Super Star Destroyer.
Now, the name came from the capability to devastate (i.e. destroy) an entire planet. But 'Planet Destroyer' was not epic and scary enough for the people in charge, so they changed it to 'Star Destroyer'.
The Star Destroyer was never meant to be a 'Destroyer Class' ship. It was always a battleship. It was meant to be just as much a symbol of terror as it was.
So you were right about the Star Destroyer being capable to destroy a 'star' (i.e. planet)
It's similar the way it was with the 'Omega Destroyer' in Babylon 5. It also isn't a destroyer, but also a battleship, but it was sold as the last ship the humans would ever need (the Omega) that can destroy everything. Of course in case of the Omega Destroyer that was a bit stupid, as they already knew that superior technology existed and would be developed in the future
Spacedock had a good video about misnaming ships. Case in point in the Star Wars Expanded Universe the New Republic needed a new ship with the capabilities of a new type Star Destroyer. However, building a Star Destroyer would have brought a lot of down the public opinion. So they named the new ship, that would be superior to the old Star Destroyer, 'Star Defender'.
Or take the HMS Dreadnought, a ship that for a short time was aptly named. Then it became the name for a class of ships, which was downgraded to the old class 'Battleship' when that type of ship became the new standard and had it's vulnerabilities discovered.
Kuat Drive Yard, “My Lord. How many pizza shaped ships did you ordered again?”
Sidious, “Yes!”
25,000
Thrawn tried to explain the tie fighter should be the back bone.
Do you mean tie defender?
Well I’m pretty sure the new mantra of the imperial navy is Thrawn was right.
@@Dragone38CM Was about to say, the Tie Fighter was hot garbage, the Tie Defender would have changed the nature of dogfighting during the Galctic Civil War. Just having shields and not throwing away your pilots against superior air craft like the A and X wing would have made a massive difference. Though, the Empire sucked so glad they adapted slowly.
In a polity where even generals are in rebellion you want to give power to individual pilots. You will have magana carta on your ass before you can say k*ll th**r ch*ldr*n. Did you know x wing was actually developed by an imperial corporation (technically republican but they now owed their loyalty to empire).
That isn't completely accurate. Thrawn did not advicate for the Tie Fighter / Defender to be the backbone of the Imperial Navy. He advocated for a traditional navy.
We don't really get to see much of this in media (and it sucks) but using the cannon books as reference points, Thrawn believed the Death Star was a complete and total waste of time, resources, and attention. He encouraged the Emperor to consider a more traditional navy, believing they needed to start by cycling out the Tie-Fighter with a new model more capable of engaging advanced fighters like the X-Wing and A-Wing. This is when he proposed the Tie-Defender. Which he was given permission to work on on Lothal.
Based on the given context and the timeline, Thrawn's project was being worked on in tangent with the construction of the Death Star. We see an Episode in Rebels where Tarken informs Thrawn that Director Krinic was making headway with project Stardust. If I remember the episode right, this was right after a rebel mission caused a delay in the Tie-Defender production line that nearly got his project shut down.
Anyway, point is, had Thrawn fully succeeded with the Tie-Defender, it would have eventually replaced the Tie-Fighter as the main line starfighter. From there, Thrawn could propose additional fleet adjustment projects and continue fleshing out the Imperial Navy. Based on the given and context info from given information, I think it is a good assumption that had Thrawn had more time, he would have seen to the complete overhaul of the Imperial Navy and maybe even could have prevented the defeat the Empire suffered in Return of the Jedi. Of course that is all in theory on the later portion but the main point still stands, the Tie Fighter was never intended to be a backbone to the Imperial Navy. Thrawn was just given permission to develop an upgraded fighter variant that would solve some of the navy's problems.
Being called a Star Destroyer is better than calling it a dorito ship.
I love a big spice chip.
Being a navigator on a big spice chip was my dad's dream job while he was alive.
Didn't Anakin kill all the experts during Order 66?
Didn't Anakin eat all the spice during order 66?
Space chip...Umm, I meant ship.
Star Wars has issues with ship classes.
Exhibit A, being the Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser.
Lol that ship is basically destroyer sized, named a dreadnought, and classed as a cruiser
@@PlasmaNode and used as a frigate
I actually don't find that too disconcerting from a real world perspective since dreadnaught isnt a ship classification but the name of a single british ship that got used several times over the centuries. From a star wars perspective though it makes no sense since dreadnaughts are a ship class...
Well their ships are made for space. So that already meshes with any classification
There were in fact Dreadnought cruisers in the real world. In real navies, "Dreadnought type" means "a ship with it's primary battery made up of a single size of gun and all or mostly all mounted along the centreline in turrets, and with turbine-based engines." It does *not* mean a battleship. And the engines part is very important.
HMS Dreadnought herself, of course, was indeed a battleship, but as soon as the RN proved the idea worked on the *big* ships everyone started using it on the medium ships as well. All of the ships built to the new thinking were called "Dreadnoughts," which did lead to some confusion. If you read the debates in the Canadian Parliament of 1909 as they try to decide if we're going to cut the British a cheque for a battleship or build our own navy - and if the latter, what that will look like - you can see the various proposals include both a Dreadnought battle cruiser and a pair of Dreadnought Heavy Cruisers, and at least one MP clearly can't tell the difference between a Dreadnought Battleship and a Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser.
Today we mostly associate the word with battleships, and thanks to things like Franz Joseph Designs "Star Fleet Technical Manual" and some other works, sci-fi tends to use the word in *place* of "battleship." But in 1910, a Boadicea-class cruiser was often referred to as a Dreadnought cruiser. So even if we want to demand that our space fantasy user real-world naval terminology, "dreadnought cruiser" has real-world precedent.
The Star Destroyer had one huge flaw that doomed it. NO PLOT ARMOR!
The empire always loose because that's how its written. In reality the empire would win due to shear nu,bers and resources. The Thrawn books show imperial forces being very effective.1
@@mattmanix5104 Thrawn was explicitly the exception, not the rule, everyone else was so inept it made their soldiers want to kill them themselves
The Sherman was not the M3, that was its predecessor the Lee/Grant. The Sherman was the M4, and it was absolutely meant to be a proper tank and not an assault gun. It's just that the Army liked its 75mm gun because it could fire a really good HE round.
A significant number of tanks also kept shorter guns due to their improved usability in street fighting.
the M4 Sherman was meant to be both a proper tank and an assault gun.
The detail about the high explosive shell is a misconception. The main reason we picked the 75mm M3 gun was, in 1941 when the tank was being designed the M3 gun was quite formidable by comparison to most other tank guns, and the powerful HE shell was considered a side benefit.
@@savag3l3m0ns8 On the Commonwealth side, the bulk of Shermans retained the 75mm because the HE round was used much more than the AP, and the 17-pounder's HE wasn't any better. So it just wasn't worth converting more than one tank per troop to Ic/Vc configuration.
@@Zach476 I suppose that depends on how you define "assault gun," but the usual definition is that it's an armoured vehicle with a limited traverse weapon optimised for low-velocity high-explosive rounds, and by that definition the Sherman is not an assault gun.
The old quote in the U.S. Military is, "No plan survives First contact Intact". Meaning: always make contingency plans. then make contingencies for those.
P.A.C.E.
Primary
Alternate
Contingency
Emergency
Moltke und Clausewitz approves.
You gotta have backups for your backups for your backups.
I have a theory that the plan to take over the republic was made by dark Plaguis (and his master) and executed by Palpatine.
That is why Palpatine plans were so bad after he got into power.
That's a good point.
That's not just a theory. It's fact. It says so in the novel "Darth Plagueis"
Partly true. Though the Darth Plagueis novel establishes that Palpatine contributed many ideas to the Grand Plan (Dooku's and Anakin's corruption, the proxy clone war, etc.).
my headcanon mental gymnastics is that like modern destroyers are named from "torpedo boat destroyer", Star Destroyers had/have a full name like "Starship Destroyer", or "Capital-starship Destroyer" and it was just shortened to Star Destroyer. It was designed to destroy enemy capital ships and cruisers in a big fleet, not really go up against small fighters or raiding cruisers/frigates and not meant to operate by itself. But after the clone war ended and it assumed more of a spread out peacekeeping/intimidation role that it was not meant for.
This. I'm super-duper pedenatic my own self but people who can't accept that some fictional settings have different meanings than the real world for common labels or jargon just get on my tits. The solution isn't to complain "a destroyer is supposed to be a small ship!" The solution is to go "okay, this is how it works, let's come up with a good reason for why."
I think the old lore of why 'star destroyer' was 'ships of this class were so powerful they could destroy solar systems on their own,' and thus the term 'star destroyer' was used on ships like the imperial class.
@@davidwooster2076 Yeah, but like a lot of the "old lore" - basically, shit that WEG made up - it really doesn't make any sense. Heck, just Han's line about how the entire fleet couldn't destroy an entire planet puts paid to that one.
@@davydatwood3158 Which is why I put them in quote marks, around the lore bit, but also at that time line the Imperial class was also 'newest and greatest' warship built, with Han's quote being on older designs. As older lore goes, the Imperial was a post clone wars design, with newer year putting it either mid or late clone wars, but never got numbers built until post clone wars. But in general, I do agree with stuff not making any or much sense.
The Space Battleship Yamato is why I am such a ship Nerd, it's such a dumb but fun idea that got to me at a young age.
STAR BLAZERS
Star Blazers had a lot of battleships. The Gamilons and Comet Empire had both Battleships and fleet Carriers.
During the first season of Star Blazers, Earth only had one battleship left. So they turned it into a Battleship class Carrier.
@@AMan-sp4op Uchū Senkan Yamato
I suggest videos on:
X-WING advantages
Reconfigurable blasters
Medical technology
E-11 blaster
Blastech
Proton Torpedos
Concussion missiles
Z-6 Rotary blaster
Eeyup, maybe do a compilation of republic vs imperial vehicles and weapons
Half that list has already been done
Especially those munitions
@@PickleRick65bro really thinks nobody made a video about xwings yet
I personally expect an hour long PowerPoint on economics of galactic warfare.
This channel is really something else always making the most interesting Star Wars videos out there, keep it up.
M4 Sherman not m3 that would be the lee or grant model stop gaps
@@halo129830?
The thing I hate the most about the ISD is the same of pretty much every other fleet in Star Wars. The ship may be designed to fill a goal well but the navy it exists in and how it is used don't match.
Yeah they have 60 turbo lasers and shoot 3. Just have people actually man the guns they don’t even have to aim. You can vaporize anything in the general vicinity.
Not to mention the 60 ion cannons which could aim themselves and disable anything around them. I guess the targeting system sucks. Just set them to target what the 10 tractor beams hit. You don’t even have to aim those, they just work.
It’s pretty much jsut a set piece in modern Star wars
Until thrawn was the last one standing and knew how to use them. Mostly
Sort of but "Thrawn made it work" is pretty pointless. He made plenty of obsolete equipment obsolete.@@RAWDEAL064
naw, it makes perfect sense, you just have wrong ideas from dumb youtube influencers who read wookiepedia and regurgitate it for views
SDs are actually far more akin to a pumped up version of a Marine Amphibious Assault Ship.
Able to field air, ground, artillery and support units and be able to operate essentially independently for short durations. That's an LHA/R.
I think discussion gets to wrapped up in the "destroyer" part of "Star Destroyer". "Star Destroyer" just sounds more intimidating and cooler then "battleship", also why it's always capitalized. Star Wars often follows the "Rule of Cool". Plus plenty of militaries throughout history have made the same mistakes, it's often said generals make plans to refight the last war not fight the next one. I think Star Destroyers fit that saying pretty well. Still, great video, love the channel!
P.S.-Would love to see a video about the old Carrack-class light cruiser, love that old workhorse of a ship.
It's not even a mistake, it just doesn't adhere to modern English-language naval conventions. 150 years ago, no one would have known what the hell a dreadnought was supposed to be, before that, they wouldn't even know what a battleship was and they'd be rating it as a ship of the line with different classes based on how many gun decks it had.
The ISD isn't a battleship, its an space going amphibious assault ship. Its designed to deliver a division sized ground force to the battlefield and provide orbital fire support.
and yes IRL some anphibs did have gun batteries, the US used to mount 5" guns on some of theirs for naval gunfire missions.
More accuratly, is an Amphibious assault ship + Light Carrier + Battleship, it performs all the mission sets of thouse ships.
@@kennethferland5579 Well there are gators that have the flight decks and hangar space of a light carrier IRL so that isn't unusual. But yes there was never anything bigger than a 5" on a US anphib so nothing close to a battleship main battery; although there was a program to develop a 8" gun turret that could fit in the space of a Mk 42 5" mount. Never went beyond a single destroyer but in theory there could have been an anphib light carrier type ship with a heavy gun armament if it was ever felt necessary.
Although I don't think a ISD actually fills the role of battleship (in that it is the largest combatant and not some specific combination of size, armor, and armament) in the Imperial Starfleet as there are mainline combatants larger than an ISD in the fleet.
It's like that US project that makes modernized the Iowa battleship to be a half-aircraft carrier or missile platform. But the problem is that the ship doesn't have enough planes to deploy and removing the big naval gun contradicts the use of battleships. So it's basically the Star Destroyer is the equivalent of that failed project.
@@warhammer8867 Problem with IRL hybrid ships is, you can't afford to get your carrier into gun range. SW ships have shields and does not require flightdeck. It allows to a bit safer way to put all eggs into single basket.
ISD is designed for multi year independent operations, capable of gun fight, fighter deplyment, planetary landing, orbital bombardment, chasing blocade runners. It's your by the book (star) cruiser. :D
I would argue that the ISD is a Jack of all trades warship.
When used correctly, it had devastating firepower. It was equally good at just about everything.
It did have some weaknesses, but so did every other type of ship in Star Wars.
Name one type of combat vehicle in Star Wars that didn’t have some weakness!
And in terms of drama, the point of the ISDs, SSDs, and Death Stars was to have the heroes overcome incredible odds!
This video, while interesting, is wrong!
My favorite aesthetic is the little gunboats that just had one full sized battleship turret from the late 1800s. Absolutely ridiculous but very economical.
Monitors, basically mini battleships designed for defending ports and estuaries, maybe the occasional foray out into the littorals
@@mrvwbug4423 They are intended for Shore bombardment actually.
My Dad's friend in the navy used to run a little social bar on the monitor M33 in Portsmouth harbour drydock. Me and my sister would shun child labour laws and go on there and pour beer for the sailors quite often.
As stated in another segment, "it's about the brand". "Star Destroyer" is a vessel capable of unleashing overwhelming fire, i.e. metaphorically, the ability to (at least) subjugate or (at worse) burn a system to a cinder. An ISD is an oversized one trick pony siege weapon, not a force multiplier. An Imperial fleet make up would be different it Admiral Ar'alani of the Chiss put one together. That would be a tougher nut to crack.
God I fucking hate what UA-cam and the Internet has done to modern fandom's.
@papapalps2415 God we don't care. No one asked.
@@NeiasaurusCreations Yes, I'm aware. That is the issue.
@@papapalps2415 Good glad we are in agreement a lack of care about your opinion.
@@NeiasaurusCreations Holy fuck you are assblasted, lul. Run away, little random. Go, shoo.
Am I the only one who caught the Sherman getting called the M3 Sherman?? Not the M4 Sherman🤣🤣small detail but pretty funny
I had to roll it back - it almost sounds like he's saying "N3"... Hard to tell.
And him saying the M10 was accepted because of the war in Ukraine, despite the program starting in 2018 😂
Grew up on the original trilogy and always hated the ISD design and fell in love with the Venator in the prequel trilogy. And in the recent decade, I have found a love and appreciation for this monstrosity of durasteel and imperial spite.
Legends star destroyers like the Pelleon and the old republics Harrower dreadnoughts are my personal favorites. The only sequel trilogy ship I like is the Resurgent. The only star destroyer made to actually work the way they were supposed to. Sadly, imperial incompetence is hereditary
I grew up like you expectung the Empire to attack someone They really needed to Lean into The invasion angle and never did in anything
Better than calling it a corvette class light frigate
Having learned a lot about ship class names, particularly in the British/Uk and US navies, Corvette Class Light Frigate makes as much sense as many historical examples.
@@MonkeyJedi99 You did get the reference, right?
@@appo9357 Indeed.
Corvette class light frigate sounds like someone made an oversized corvette yet undersized light frigate and called it a day sent the plans to manufacturing for some poor captain go: "Dafuq I get stuck with the unstealthy stealth vessel".
@@xyreniaofcthrayn1195 The longer you bounce a design between admiralty, engineers and politicians, the stranger things will get.
A Star Destroyer is called a Star Destroyer because its main purpose is to bombard planets from orbit. The reason the Star Destroyer is the main ship is because it's supposed to be a jack of all trades. Some fighter/bomber capability, command and control and the ability to go for long voyages with little resupply.
There were tons of escorts for Star Destroyers in battles where it made sense to have escorts. They just don't show up as much in the movies. Plus, most of the time, they were busy. A Star Destroyer during a planned battle might have a lot of escorts but during regular patrols and missions it might have 1 or none.
The only real drawback is the very small size of the turbolasers. It doesn't really make sense why both sides use tiny guns. Bigger gun, bigger power supply, bigger boom. A Star Destroyer should be able to one-shot any ship below its weight class.
All capital ships in Star Wars have this problem. Mon Calamari capital ships have tiny guns.
The Millenium Falcon shouldn't be able to get hit by a Star Destroyer and survive. All capital ships have point defense guns but Star Destroyers seem to be all point defense with no big guns. They often rely on a small amount of very poor fighters to do their job instead of just using their small starships for recon and specific missions. This kind of ship would probably have a small number of fighters, a few bombers and loads and loads of transport aircraft to land troops or insert special forces teams for missions on planets.
Space battles allow for huge lines of sight, so you would get blasted from millions of km away by giant turbolasers if you ever tried to fight a more realistic Star Destroyer.
Torpedoes exist in Star Wars. They're called turbolasers. Proton torpedoes are dangerous, but there is no below the water in space. If you can be shot by a torpedo, you can be shot by a turbolaser.
Star Destroyer has almost no point defense on top and 0 PDs on the bottom. The plot demanded that ISD's shields go down with 2 or 3 small missiles but mon cal ships are basically immune to fighters. ISD's foults have nothing to do with it being a battleship and everything to do with stupid designed and incompetent commanders plus plot armor.
True enough but one doesn't waste ANYTHING significant on a freighter or way Lighter ship UNLESS they're SUPER pissed off at whom is leading that ship an know for sure they are whom they look like. It's way too overkill for the situation in most cases.
@@Morri987the design isn’t even stupid, there are 60 turbo lasers and 60 ion cannons. Anything that is in the general vicinity of it is not existent. Moncals mc90 is even more heavily equipped. If there was a single ISD and a single MC90 within firing range of each other whatever is between the 2 ships will be completely flooded by laser beams. Those lasers would turn the ships into gas and the wall of lasers would continue until they burn out. Anything they come across? Evaporated as well.
@@holiday7068 What's better? A single volley of turbolasers which has the potential to cripple a MonCal or a giant extended firing battle of attrition?
You can't convince me that the SD has the ability to destroy any big ships in a reasonable time frame.
In every single book, comic, show, movie, the SD can fire on ships for minutes WELL below its weight class.
Battleships had a lot of smaller guns which did anti aircraft dut but could also hit smaller boats, destroyers, etc.
The ISD is like if you decided to make a ship just based on those guns. It's like a battleship with light cruiser level guns.
In 40k once the shields are down a single broadside from even a cruiser will completely destroy a frigate or destroyer. You can be in a frigate and then get hit instantly by a lance weapon from huge distances whih cuts through your shields and cuts your ship in half.
That's for cruisers. A true battleship could massively damage a cruiser in a single broadside with its level of firepower.
Obviously you don't want to be in a space battle where your battleship is firing for a long time at an enemy. You want to focus on other things. Also, having guns in a huge area all over means ammunition or power supply is everywhere. It's better for battleships to have a few good guns because you need to protect the power supply/ammo. That's going to be one of the most heavily armoured/shielded parts of the ship. You can't have super armour everywhere.
Let's also recognize the ISD real command center would be in the center of the ship and not on the obvious weakspot tower.
@@holiday7068 note that MC ships have firing arc issues so even MC90 is outgunned from the front not to mention MC80 that was more common and the only ones we see on screen? ISD outguns MC80 3:1, frontal showdown even worse due to firing arcs, ISD outguns even MC90 from the front lol
"Bristling with violent solutions". Well said young man. USN retired here. That made my morning!
That last 20 seconds turned this video from a nerdy scifi video into a contemporary opinion piece. Nicely done.
does destroyer speak to the class or the purpose?
it's not like the Death Star was a star.
but the name scared the force outta the yokels...
Palps knew his PR
Ironically, the biggest main force naval ships when the Star Wars movies were made were cruisers, whereas now the biggest and most powerful warships are actually are actually Destroyers
well, tonnage creep has reached the point that the next generation of destroyers (at least from the UK and Japan) will have displacements in the same range as the first few designs of Dreadnought-era battleships/battlecruisers
Ehhh As of today, the Biggest and most Powerful ship on a Fleet would be the Carrier. The list would be like this:
1) Super Carrier: Nimitz, Ford, Charles de Gaul, Queen Elizabeth, and Fuijan
2) Aircraft Carrier: Kutznetsov, Liaoning, Shandong, Vikramaditia, Vikrant
3) Anphibious Assault Ship | Helicopter Destroyer | Strategic Projection Ship | Helicopter Carrier: Wasp, America, Huyga, Izumo, Juan Carlos I, Type 75, Mistral
4) Cruiser: Ticonderoga, Zumwalt -that thing is bigger than the Tico, it doesn't matter USA calls them Destroyer, they're Cruisers-, Kirov, Slava, Type 055 -Call Destroyer really a Cruiser-, Sejong the Great -Call Destroyer really a Cruiser-
5) Destroyer/Frigate (Not really any distinction between the classes in modern Navies): Arleigh Bruke, Daring, Horizon, Alvaro de Bazán
Then we have LCS, Corvettes, Patrol Ships, missile boats, etc
@@franciscoramirez8588
Don't forget Submarines, some of which have a greater displacement than Cruisers.
Its the dropping in of anime refrences as historical facts that gets this channel a sub.
10:46 I never thought I would see the Battleship NJ in a Star Wars video. They're about to take the ship to the Philadelphia Naval Yard in March for renovations
Then again a single ISD completely wrecks the remaining rebels at Scarif in minutes when properly commanded.
And as soon as the rebel plot armor is used up.
3:18 if I remember correctly, the quote itself is from moltkey the elder, a Prussian field marshal from around the time of German unification (late 1800s)
The Star Destroyers were super effective against planetary defense forces, and could neutralize ground defenses effectively with their orbital bombardment capabilities. Sure some were taken out in fleet combat, but until you get the MonCal MC90 nothing could go one on one with a Star Destroyer. To take out an ISD was a major accomplishment for the Alliance, and there were 25,000 of them, so the examples of them getting destroyed are a fraction of a percent of the ones in service. The advantage of the Alliance were their hit and run tactics that were able to catch Imperial forces in compromising situations. Anytime they faced ISD in direct fleet combat they were butchered. The ISD were effective at what they were designed to do, completely subjugate a planet with minimal presence, one was usually enough to take over all but the best defended planets.
Preach it, new cannon has turned one of the most powerful ships into a joke. I would saw few Imperial knew how to properly use an ISD in battle. Thrawn, Vader, and Pellaeon were the few who effectively used them. The problem was the ISD was meant to hold the line in a fleet battle, not fight small ships.
@@Amoschp524 It's not new cannon, the ISD had flaws, but they were not designed for Alliance tactics and equipment. They were specifically designed to subjugate and destroy planetary defenses. When an ISD appeared in low orbit, you knew your planet was lost. The ship that has probably suffered the most from New Canon is the B-Wing, which in Old Canon was as fast or faster than an X-Wing. The issue with B-Wings were their difficulty to fly, not their speed or agility. There was also maintenance issues with them and the X-wing, but the B-Wing was a beast until they decided to make them slow.
@@badonkeykong7506 What I mean in new cannon they get destroyed to easily and their strength is never shown. The ships seem to mostly be commanded by idiots. Like Rouge One, the two ISDs destroyed by the pushing attack only worked because the ships were far too close to what they were protecting and each other. Yes the Y-wings were effective but because of the positioning it became a disaster. At the end, Vader shows up in one ISD and wipes out most of the capital ships in one barrage that took advantage of the ISD's strengths. I acknowledge the flaws but the ISDs also had a lot of positive points and strengths in their designs. The main one being able to focus most of the fire power into the forward fire arc.
@@badonkeykong7506 Agree about the B-wing.
@@Amoschp524 I agree that it was tactical, jot the ship itself that was flawed, but the stupidity of Imperial officers was established at the Battle of Yavin and the Battle of Endor, particularly the Battle of Endor when the Alliance was able to cripple multiple ISD but also neutralize Super Star Destroyers, due to bad tavtics and too tight formations. It's space, there are no reasons for any of these ships to be that close together. But that's just convenient plot devices and a fundamental lack if understanding about space combat by the writers.
8:47 - The Yamato and Musashi were both sunk by aircraft. There were only two occasions in the Pacific when Battleships fought each other and neither of them involved either the Yamato or Iowa classes
The ISD makes some sense if you have a couple of them backing up a force of venators to keep at bay assorted CIS warships so the venators can focus on being carriers. On its own not so much
I love that you were able to tie in Space Battleship Yamato into a vid about Star Wars. I wonder if the Yamato with warp capability would get to a long distance detination faster than an ISD with hyperspace tech.
This is why the Acclemator and the Venator class capital ships will always be my favorite. And I like the empire lol
The U.S. marines dropping tanks is actually part of a move to prepare for future conflict with China, where marines will be placed on small islands near China and use missiles to harass the Chinese navy and such. Tanks are heavy, slow, and require logistical support that would slow down and hinder the marines' missions.
Allen sir, your channel is one of my favorites and I appreciate your professionalism and journalistic prowess. You actually deliver researched information and make great comparisons between science fiction and modern governments which I find very interesting. Your platform can actually prepare people to be able to critically think about how our governments, society, corporations and world leaders operate and manipulate the masses, good vs. evil. Thank you sir
Fun fact the torpedo boat was built long before the torpedo plane. Because the first torpedo was made in 1866 while the airplane was developed in the early 1900's, with the first flight in 1903.
the movies undersold what a SD can do. they DID have laser cannons for long range artillery but only the shorter range turbolasers were shown. in our world a SD is roughly equivalent to a cruiser , with light and heavy variants.
As a WWII fanatic, I thank you for being the first person I’ve seen on UA-cam to use clips of Midway (2019) for aircraft and using greyhound for torpedoes. I love both those movies and it was surprising to see them on this channel of any.
Thank you Alan for making this video. I would always cringe whenever these ships were referred to as "destroyers." Battleship is definitely the proper classification here.
They're kind of battleship, kind of assault carrier, kind of office block.
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edit: Meanwhile the Venator was definitely a carrier that unwise leaders USED as a battleship, and the Acclimators were LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank) that kept being used as cruisers.
ISDs aren't battleships in any sense of the word.
I somehow never connected the "Destroyer" in "Star Destroyer" with the ship class
I thought it was a name to instill fear, nothing to do with it's design lol
ISD shoots at enemy fighters from big turbolasers that are equivalent of irl 200mm< cannons so it's like trying to kill mosquito with a rifle.
Cannons can be useful at shooting down aicrafts when they use explosive shrapnel ammo like german Flak 18(88mm)
I love this. I've just watched a video about modern real world naval ships and warfare, that got related back to star wars every now and then to explain the point you're tryna get across. And it really does work, and you learn a lot while watching it
9:25 ok im a naval nerd, but i will go into this. Battleships, while not invulnerable to torps, did have a pretty good defense against them in torpedo bulkheads. Dive bombers on the other hand completly outclassed them. Unless you had inmense area denial, radar guided AA and AAA defenses like Iowa class, surrounded by stupidly anti aircraft dedicated ships like Clevelands and Fletchers, dive bombers where the bane and crux of any navy. The US and japanese navies learned this the hard way at the battle of midway. Hell the IJN started doing combined raid where the torpedo bombers served as distraction while the dive bombers did the real damage. And the US quickly adopted this same strategy. A couple torpedoes could stop a BB but a single well placed armour piercing bomb could cripple a battleship in a single run. The logic is simple really. You have trops that hit the BB in the same direction enemy ships fire their shells, horizontally, so more armor, but enemy AP bombs? Those hut vertically, and you can't have 180° or armor like a tortoise unless you want to have the speed of one. So yeah dive bombers made BBs obsolete, and funnily enouth they themselves became obsolete right after WWII when BBs where no longer the main focus.
I never thought it was classified as a Destroyer, I always read it as the name of the design line.
Destroyers were originally called "torpedo boat desteoyers" as they were intended to destroy.. torpedo boats.
By that logic a Star Destroyer isn't a Destroyer of the star class, but a ship intended (or marketed) to destroy stars.
Which really kills the marketing for the Death Star's capabilities, huh?
I agree, but it was probably a shortened name of "Starship Destroyer" or "Capital Ship Destroyer" that is a starship.
From what I read on the wiki is that the term Star Destroyer refers to wedge(or dagger)shaped Capital Class ships, such as the ISD, the Venator and the Executor
@@colekimball4945 the Death Star fell very short on that department due to a proton torpedo entering where the sun doesn't shine by the farmboy in an X-Wing.
I like to call it the "giant space Dorito of death"!
I love the changes that were made to the formatting. truly excellent.
2:19 thats a Immobilizer 418 Class *Heavy Cruiser* NOT a Interdictor Class Star Destroyer, Interdictor Star Destroyers (such as the Dominator-class) are much larger than the 418. Plus the Immobilizer 418 actually has little to no weakpoints compared to a ISD, like for example it doesnt have 2 big shield generator balls that can easily be targetted.
During WW1 destroyers were designed to protect capital ships form torpedo boats. So torpedo boat destroyers became just destroyers.
Used to think Star, IE STAR Destroyer, BattleSTAR, BaseSTAR was used to designate a very large ship. Perhaps STAR is an abrevation for Starship, IE BattleStar(ship) BaseStar(ship). However Star Destroyer is a destroyer capable interstellar travel, ie starship. Rather a starship purpose built to destroy other starships.
9:44 Of course, if your name is Samuel B. Roberts, you don't have to worry because your crew is more than capable of patching up the hull until you get back to drydock. 😂
Mini Drachinefel epsiode, nice history of naval ships and their associated terms
Its going to be proven sometime soon that guided missiles can be overcome with disabling gps or hacking. It's a good idea to still have some healthy weight ballistic kinetics around.
And here we find one of the elements of fantasy in Star Wars, the idea that a fighter can seriously damage a battleship. I know the out-of-universe context, George was making 'WW2 navies in space', but in real life, a fighter would be facing off against a ship armed with whatever future equivalents of CIWS and anti-fighter missiles that would make approaching close enough to eyeball a target extremely difficult, if not outright suicidal.
2:40 excellent war vehicles that have a line of predecessors from which they evolved for better usage vs. completely new vehicles that have a main purpose in oppressing unarmed civilian populus. YES I LOOK AT YOU TARKIN
4:36 Hey just a SLIGHT correction for ya, there wasn't an M3 Sherman. That was the M4. There were two M3 tanks, the Stuart light tank and the M3 Lee, which.. Uh. Whatever hte hell ya wanna classify that weird contraption as(As per I believe it was the Soviets during the Lend-Lease program? The Coffin For Seven Brothers)
"that would be like replacing all those carriers with copies of the USS New Jersey" on the other hand, Ryan would certainly be happy lol
Thing is though, Imperial class destroyer was intially the imperator class introduced towards the very end of the clone wars and was meant to function as a true battle ship alongside venators as carriers and victories as missile platforms in a wholly compact and integrated fleet. It became a massive white elephant when it was turned intro a fleet all on its own and assumed to be able to fulfil all jobs of a fleet which it is simply up to the challenge of.
It just occurred to me, the Venator-class Star Destroyer would have been a better design for the empire, while the Imperial Class Star Destroyer would have been a better design for the republic, what with capital ship battles occurring constantly.
venator was also perfect for the republic. remember, those things shredded enemy ships and kept moving. they had massive carrier-style hangars. i'd take a venator over an ISD any day
Imperial naval doctrine has never made sense when you give even just a little bit of thought to it. That's why the Legend's explanation that Palpatine knew about the impending Yuuzhan Vong invasion makes everything fit together and make sense. Against the Vong, the New Republic quickly found that Imperial naval doctrine was very successful. Heavily armed and armored ships were what was required to stop the strange/esoteric organic technology of the Vong. Suddenly ISD's, Super Star Destroyers, and superlasers make a lot more sense against an enemy that renders ion weapons useless, can strip the shields off of smaller craft like fighters, and arrived in monumental starships literally called Worldships. Even then, if the Vong hadn't experienced their version of a proletariat uprising, the war would have lasted far longer (a war that had already claimed the lives of over 100 trillion people). Of course if things had been left up to Palpatine, he probably would have killed more people than the Vong in the name of asset denial but that's a separate issue lol.
Honestly, the most effective part of Imperial naval doctrine as far as fighting the Yuzzhan Vong is concerned is probably their focus on orbital bombardment. The enemy has no industrial capacity, and to build more they require a planetary surface to build it on. Deny them that, and you've won. It's just a matter of how long it takes, and how much gets destroyed in the process; and for Palpatine, the benefits of an external threat and the vast destruction of total war mean he will be in no hurry to end the threat.
@@samueldimmock694 Exactly right. In a galaxy where Palpatine's Dark Empire had prevailed before the arrival of the Vong, I imagine the outer rim would have a distinct lack of habitable worlds/biomass.
The Space Battleship Yamato is really the perfect ship, it has strong cannons for close, medium and long range, it has a huge array of point defence/ close quaters combat guns, is has a large stock of attack and interceptor missiles and most of all it has a large fighter wing for defensive and offensive purposes
and a superweapon too for blowing up fleets and or continents in one shot in fact the SBY's wave motion gun inspired the deathstar
Everytime I’ve been on a battleship or a destroyer from ww2 I am in awe of how much steel there is. Like there are sections that really make you wonder how anyone could possibly hope to dent it given how thick and dense they are.
Once again, Alan, you have knocked it out of the park with another history lesson.
Then the Venator Class "Star-Destroyer," which is basically just a relatively well armed carrier. 😅
Unless "Star Destroyer" is just seen as a "Destroyer that travels across the stars" or something... but then again, it still doesn't make sense for the design either
for gods sake, Star destroyer is a KDY Brand name they bribed into the Anaxes war college ship catalog as a size range. it describes a ship between one and two thousand meters long. kdy uses it as a brand name for any capital ship they build. (The Essential Guide to Warfare)
4:40 It's the M4 Sherman, not the M3!
The M3 Grant/Lee was the stopgap tank used _before_ the Sherman.
I'm of the opinion, battle carriers are the way to go for main ships of the line. Pretty much Battlestars. The need for an extremely long-range weapons platform that can lunch strike craft for an even longer range of effect. But also closer ranged anti-capital guns for defence and direct knife fighting engagements because the enemy isn't just going to sit pretty and take the beating of your artillery and fighter strikes.
The problem with battle carriers in application is the ability to do two ships jobs in a mediocre fashion instead of one job well.
But Star Wars often defies sense, so... (shrug)
Realistically, they should just make pure carriers armed only with point defense weapons, escorted by destroyers with a heavy missile payload and more point defense. Just like how modern navies operate.
I’d really like to see ship design evolve in Star Wars going forward but we will probably just get more of the same
All I'm saying is Tarkin had some serious Small D Energy, and I suspect is the same reason he hated the Clones.
Tarkin thought he was being clever. Put cheap conscripts in Clone Armor, and they should still have the same "psychological impact." He believed fear and perceived capability was more important than real capability.
@@drksideofthewal This isn't even vaguely accurate, no.
@@papapalps2415
Your lack of a specific example of what’s wrong I̶s̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶t̶u̶r̶b̶i̶n̶g̶ doesn't exactly lend credibility.
@@drksideofthewal Pot, kettle, black, etc.
@@papapalps2415
Boring troll
As a Star Wars fan and someone interested in irl naval history and doctrine I have ranted about this very thing many times! So glad I'm not the only person this bugs. This is one of those annoying things where something was named to sound cool and banning sense didn't matter.
Bit of a fun fact, the reason there called Star Destroyers was due to the Old Republic Era. In which they made giant warships with guns and would use them to obliterate planets or even stars. Which gave us the name "Star Destroyer"
If I'm not mistaken (and I might be), the biggest battle ship from WWII was defeated by a WWI era airplane with torpedos...
You actually are mistaken bismark was big but by no means the biggest the Yamato while sunk by aircraft and torpedos was sunk in the later portion of world war 2 by the us navy who had ditched their biplanes. The British navy went to war with what they had not what they wanted.
Not exactly. It was a Brit Fairey Firefly Bi-plane that launched a torpedo that severely damaged the rudder on the German battleship Bismarck, preventing it from steering. It then became easy prey for the Brit Battleships to catch it and shell it into the depths. Though she was the most dangerous Battleship in the Atlantic, the Bismarck was smaller than the Japanese Yamato, which was sunk by about a few hundred hits from Yank dive-bomber & torpedo bomber aircraft in the Pacific.
when you went from star wars to tanks, i forgot i was watching a star wars video, and then when i saw star ships i was like "wtf am i even watching?" and then i remembered.
I completely forgot this was about star wars when he started after the bit on the history of destroyers! Talk about whiplash!
All the ISDs were baked into a pizza and then cut out with a giant laser pizza cutter, hence their shape
I'm just glad that they weren't painted tan or brown on the bottom, red and yellow on top with the turrets being the red. When Alan said wedge shaped, I immediately thought Doom Pizza...
Would you send out a battleship in ww2 without screens? Hell no. It would get torpedoed by Subs or sneaky destroyers very quickly, if not bombed into oblivion.
A destroyer screen didn't stop U-331 ruining HMS Barham's day.
To be fair, ISDs had fighter screens, and the TIE fighter was designed as a dedicated space superiority fighter. It wasn't good enough against a technologically equivalent military force, but at least they tried.
ISDs aren't battleships, nor is the scenario in fucking WW2 even vaguely equatable to space combat in SW bar on a purely superficial level.
To be fair that 16" round was shot at that Yamato turret armor from about 100 yard away which is considered point blank for a naval gun
It is worth mentioning, if you look at the Legends material from before the prequel trilogy. The Imperial -class Star Destroyer WAS the best starfighter carrier available . Easily carrying more fighters than anything else imagined at that time.
The ISD is a perfect ship for the Tarkin Doctrine. You come in heavy handed, annihilate your enemy, save for a couple of survivors to tell the tale, and move on. This will scare the galaxy into conformity. Add the DS1, the work then does itself.
One thing that I just thought of. Most battleships were sunk by aircraft. So it kinda makes sense the Redial Anince could destroy those massive star destroyers.
The Victory is still better - it requires, depending on what classes you're comparing, as little as 10% of the crew to under a quarter of the crew while carrying more than 50% of the amount of TIEs and it only takes 3 to overwhelm a single ISD. Plus it's better at orbital bombardments to support its ground forces by being able to enter atmosphere for more accurate strikes.
It's a BattleStar. Like Galactica. It carries a wing of fighters and scouts and bombers. It can even deploy 2 active garrisons. But, unlike Galactica, it lacks enough fighters because of it's layout. It is a balance, what it lacks in bays for fighters, it trades for armor and FTL, and weapons.
I love this channel, I click for star wars and get real war and history mixed in. It also really helps me craft my own sci fi story, So ican give it reasonable battleships etc
Nice vid, I hope you can explain why there isn't more non line of sight weapons on star wars...besides the usual Lucas based it on WW2 dog fighting. Is there an in universe reason for it?
The thing I love best about the Imperial Star Destroyer is the thought of it getting vaped by a bunch of snub fighters, or a couple of heavily armed light freighters.
This has literally never happened, though.
You forgot the ISD Perilous being blown to hell over Ryloth by the Free Ryloth Movement, nearly killing Vader and Palpatine in the bargain.
The IMPs didn't lose because of the ISD. the IMPs lost because of building 2 Death Stars, having a sub=par officer core, and the deeds of 2 1/2 Jedis (Luke, Kannan, & Ezra).
This is what I've been thinking for years! They technically count as carriers, so they can provide that role, but the Imperial light-craft range is so small that they can do very little. Bombs, torpedoes, fighter craft sure, but at least in the OT the range of engagement is something even we have far surpassed in terms of fighter combat.
Also love to see the older USS Texas. Ugly bucket, but beauty comes in appreciating all eras, even with some mishaps.
The ISD also belongs to this category of mine which I title "Ships that shouldn't be in space". Space Battleship Yamato is slightly better, but there are still massive gaps in the angles the main battery can fire at. Now, the ISD actually follows a historical trend exemplified by Admiral Jackie Fisher (who invented the battlecruiser, to a degree), of having every main gun facing forward.. Because certainly, no British ship would ever run away from a fight, right? Just because it makes sense within a setting doesn't mean it's smart, lol.
Awesome stuff as always! Maybe if the Empire used more light cruisers to protect ISD fleets, they would have less trouble with Rebel starfighters.
I just got to see the USS Iowa in Los Angeles. An amazing piece of history, but I hope a crew never has to take her into battle ever again.
I never thought of the word destroyer as a class of vessel ,more like a description of a ship that can destroy stars or planets
I mean… I wondered about that as a kid. “If that’s a destroyer, what’s a battleship?”
Did you never watch TESB, or...?
It's like calling a Cruiser a torpedo boat. (Looking at you Japan)
To be fair, Japan's cruisers WERE torpedo boats. Kitakami had FORTY EIGHT tubes!
@@ShuRugal Torpedo Cruiser be like:
Or Izumo being something like a "helicopter destroyer."
Or Izumo being something like a "helicopter destroyer."
_Aviation_ Destroyer, now.
i wonder if they came up with the name star destroyer without thinking of the whole destroyer/frigate/cruiser thing..maybe someone was just thinking along the lines of "destroyer of stars" which would have been a fanciful title that no one would take literally since no one even thought a planet destroyer was possible.
I remember a story. About the woman who designed the isd . ( wyla blissixs ) she did the venator as well , she based it on her father's work with the victory class . He defected to the rebels and she tried to get him back to fix the isd ( she was married to a moff)
"rommel liked to say no plan survives contact with the enemy"
And no german tank crew survives being commanded by Rommel to overextend and run out of supplies lol. Bye bye fuel
Not sure if he's the best guy to rely on for military advice
Well, Every strategist and tactician followed that quote with great understanding. It's a warning that expect failure and prepares for the worst.