The Venator's superiority vs any and all ISDs

[Impaler]

Lastly I think your analysis on the inevitable dominance of carriers is too much a mirroring of modern wet navies and fails to take into account many important aspects of StarWars technology and settings which I think prevent it. The key distinction is hyperspace and the ability of one warship to apear (from the defenders perspective) 'instantly' and with no possibility of warning or prior detection within main gunfire range (or practically ramming distance for that matter). This happens so many times in StarWars battles that surpize short range contact should be considered the norm rather then the exception. Hyperspace capable fighters give the SW carrier the ability to strike without warning at distance against known targets, but they do NOT allow the carrier to kill any incoming threat before it comes within firing range.

This actually has a historical analog in WW2 in the pacific, the exact historical period SW combat is based on. Before modern radars and the 'transparent' environment that the modern carrier enjoys the WW2 carrier was highly vulnorable at night. This was particularly the case for American carriers in the pacific because the Japanese trained for night battles and Americans, initially, had not. This threat along with many other possibilities for a surprize contact with Japanese surface warships (something as simple as clouds preventing airial recon) ment that carriers were kept under CONSTANT escort, often by battleships.

This fact has been largely forgoten and distorted to imply battleships were used ONLY to defend the Carriers from air attack, largely due to the huge role they played in holding off the Kamikazie attacks late in the war. By that point the Japanese surface navy was obliterated and the battleships did infact only provide air defence because their no longer WAS any surface vessel threat because their were no enemy surface vessels left. But early in the war thouse escorts were essential because a single accidental surprise contact with even a middling japanese cruiser would have easily sunk a carrier.

So in a universe where that kind surprize contact is always possible it really should come as no surprize that a pure carrier never really evolves in StarWars other then as a auxillary support vessel always under the defensive umbrella of true capitol ships. The largest capitol ships always retain the shielding and firepower to engage in a broadside exchange. The Venator employment at Corrusant wasn't so much an act of desperation, as it was the inevitable kind of battle that StarWars tech dictates, so the Republic gave the Venator the guns it would need in that kind of battle. When a knife fight could happen at any time you carry a knife, and learn to use it and inevitable get into knife fights with it.

[Mamatried]

[Impaler]

Mamatried did you miss the two postings I made at the bottom of the last page, I seperated my posts by topic and the 3rd post went to a 3rd page.

I still do not think your are fully appresiating my last post. My point was that a MOBILE threat moving towards the Venators location can not be stopped or intercepted untill it arrives in the same system. Hyperspace is not an ocean that can be searched by recon craft or scanned by any senor the Venator possesed. This makes everyone vulnorable to a surprize attack and the Venator or any other carrier can find itself in a knife fight at any moment. It can NOT do what a modern carreir dose of simply obliterating any incoming ship while it is still hundreds of miles away.

Also you seem fixated on viewing the ISD as ONLY a victim, sitting idle, unaware and alone, while the Venator seems to have full knowlege and initiative. This is a grossly unfair comparison, in any kind of reasonable comparison we give both ships equal information and equally competent commanders. Neither the ISD nor Venator commander will not simple sit idle but keep moving for both offensive and defensive advantage.

That an ISD can be destroyed by a surprize attack by a sufficient number of hyperspace capable bombers has never been in doubt by anyone (the Rebels take out 2 ISD's with far less on Scariff, and other SW media is replete with even more impressive feats). So a long distance strike dose not establish the Venators superiourity, it just shows that single tactics superiority, and it is a tactic EQUALLY available to the ISD because of it's IDENTICAL carrying capacity.

The equal fighter capacity is a point which I feel you seriously need to engage with, do you dispute it, accept it or think it is moot for some reason? I'm certainly willing to dive into the minutia of how I generated that equal size conclusion and have it picked apart, a more conservative approtch could see a different result, but I feel I atleast evaluated the both the Venator and ISD using the same standard.

[Mamatried]

[Impaler]