Star Trek's Star Destroyers 

Yeah I'd say that the ISD was built to master the Clone Wars, but like many ships built for the last war, it wasn't as suited to the next war. The introduction of the X-Wing as a revolutionary new multi-role fighter kinda signed the death warrant for the ISD, which otherwise only really needed lasers and disposable tie fighters for countering confederate droid fighters.

Or, indeed to me it looks like a giant Hammer coming to crush what ever is facing it

You could also say its design could make it look less of a threat and underestimated. Underestimating an enemy could be your downfall especially after it fires its main weapons.

Most Cardassian designs remind me of the horseshoe crab, a completely harmless animal. The Hutet is a little different, but still seems like a strange mutation of all the other horseshoe crab ships.

But hammerheads are tasty! How is tasty food scary?

For me, from front it look like a water spider, but from side, like a mace.

@@Tyr666Thor yeah it's the only honestly fair way to compare universes. And to its credit star wars does have a fairly substantial naval doctrine In the clone wars

@@venomgeekmedia9886 ISD make sense if we realize that they were an Assault Ships. What were vastly mishandled by Empire as Battleships (which in EU they also did have). In this context closest equivalent would be Klingon design of Assault Ships, what also tend to have a lot of weapons. Federation at least in Beta has doctrine closer to realistic. ISD absolutely was not a equivalent of actual Destroyer! And for reminder Trek did have Destroyers in Beta. With Saber and NX Refit being examples.

Romulans would have loved Tarkin Doctrine. It fits them well.

The numbers game is silly when you consider that SW ships only have a speed advantage if they have hyperlanes mapped out, and can't fight at superluminal speeds anyway. Whereas Trek ships have insanely accurate targeting capabilities across distance and at insane velocity. Dating back to TOS, Trek ships fought at FTL often and could bull-s eye a target at 100K +. SW relies on gunners and their ships maneuver like trash at sublight. They'd get sniped and/or strafed to death by Trek ships without contest, regardless how strong their shields or plot-driven turbolasers are.

@@The_Lucent_Archangel Yeh, people notoriously ignore that comparable tech exist in both universes. Star Wars Technological level is mostly comparable to pre-NX era tech. Where they still did use a lot of nukes (proton weapon), plasma (blasters) and early shields (and SW barely has shields).

I would consider warbirds to be SSBNs so the Los Angeles class is closer.

Iowa class..

Your thinking of the Ohio Class or the upcoming Columbia Class Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBN), the Los Angeles Class, Seawolf Class, and Virginia Class are the Attack Submarines (SSN).

Have you seen the new flight of Arleigh Burkes? They're more Excelsiors in the fact that we're never going to be rid of them

​@@quentinking4351The Arleigh Burke and the BUFF are forever.

The intended mission of a Super Star Destroyer, or rather a Star Dreadnought (Dreadnought for short) is to wipe out an enemy fleet from distance while they make a futile and desperate charge at it and gets annihilated by its salvoes, with the stragglers (assuming there are) being picked apart by the escorts. That's why they're that big, because they have to take on vast fleets. And the lore shows just how devastating they can be in what kind of insanity is needed to defeat them without a few thousand ISD-sized ships or another dreadnought: 1)Executor (Battle of Endor): the Return of the Jedi novelization mentions that the Rebels brought fire ships - that is, ships filled with explosives to throw at the enemy. Ever wondered what the Rebel transports were doing at Endor? They were kamikaze'd in the Executor until the shields were low enough that the fighters could bring down the bridge's deflector. 2)Eclipse (SW Legends): Palpatine's out-of-control Force Storm. 3)Eclipse II (SW Legends): Rammed into a superweapon capable of blowing up planets from the other side of the galaxy. IT SURVIVED, but lost the engines and crashed on the planet they were orbiting, at which point the reactors blew up ship and planet. 4)Ravager (Battle of Jakku): It was casually decimating the New Republic fleet, with the escorts keeping away those pesky fire ships, when a Star Hawk-class battlecruiser got through... And used its immense tractor beam to drag both ships down to the surface. The ship remained mostly intact, but the crew died in the crash. The New Republic later picked it apart and took away anything useful. 5)Lusankya (SW Legends): After years of battles and with little spare parts to fix her, she had all her weapons taken away and then was used to ram a Yuuzhan Vong worldship - that is, an equally large if not larger ship.

Don't forget the different weapon power in different universes

@@lordMartiya, The issue _I_ have with your "mission profile" for SSDs is, the dimensions of SSDs make it very difficult for them to destroy enemy fleets, as enemy fleets can maneuver around them in such a way to limit their exposure to the SSDs' weapons. Swarming SSDs is the best way to lose a battle, I'm sure there is at least one Grand Admiral out there who will shoot any subordinate who does that, assuming said subordinate survived to report the loss of the fleet Grand Admiral Thrawn by such brainless tactic. You defeat such a ship by leading it into carefully laid traps, or have a portion of the fleet exit hyperspace in its rear, and maneuver in such a way to prevent it from shielding it's engines from attack. Once it can't maneuver, you carefully move around it blasting all of its weapons apart. During the Bacta War campaign, Wedge Antilles attempted to use both of those strategies against the Lusyanka with some success (it did surrender to 2 ISDs, an Obsolescent Alderaan Frigate, and several dozen Armed Merchant "Cruisers"). There are several problems with Star Wars... and one of those is scale. What _threat_ is the ISDs meant to take out? What possible justification can be made to _justify_ using all those materials to build such a ship, the personnel needed to crew it, and the supplies it goes through a month? The Empire could build dozens of ISDs for the cost of a single SSD and, collectively, the ISDs would have similar firepower to the SSD. From the internet, the Executor class ships had 5000 Turbolaser Batteries, 2000 Heavy Turbolasers, 250 Heavy Ion Cannons, 500 Point Defense Lasers, and 250 Heavy Concussion Missile Batteries. From the internet, the ISD-I class ships had 60 turbolasers and 60 ion cannons. From the internet the ISD-II class ships had 50 Heavy turbolaser batteries, 50 Heavy turbolaser cannons, 26 Additional turbolaser batteries, 20 Heavy ion cannons, and 8 Octuple barbette turbolasers. From the internet, the dimensions of the Executor class is 19,000 meters by 4,750 meters, by 1,270 meters. The dimensions of the ISD class ships are 1,600 meters by 450 meters, by 300 meters (a bit more than that due to the “command tower”). Assuming both ships are rectangular prisms, the SSD has a volume of 1.14 x10^11 meters cubed and the ISD has a volume of 2.16 x10^8 meters cubed. A ratio of 500 to 1. Okay, let’s not do 3d, it’s hard to accurately portray the ships. How about a 2d representation? As both ships are wedge shaped at their widest point, we can treat that portion of the ships as triangles. The widest portion of the SSD is about three-quarters down its length, so, the base would be about 14,250 meters with the height being 4750 meters. The widest point of the ISD is almost exactly at the 1,600 meter point, so we’ll just assume the 1,600 meters is the base to simplify the math and its height is still 450 meters. The area of a triangle is one-half base times height. The SSD’s area is 33,843,750 meters squared. The ISD’s area is 360,000 meters squared. The ratio is now about 94 to 1. Since the depth of the SSD is 3 to 4 times that of the ISD, we can conclude that the materials used to construct the SSD is enough for a minimum of 200 ISDs, irrespective of the portion of the ship not used in the above calculations. The 200 ISD-Is can be in more places than the SSD and carry 3 times as many weapons (8,000 by the SSD compared to their 24,000). As for 200 ISD-IIs, they carry more than 3 times as many weapons than the SSD (26,800 weapons vs 8,000) including a greater number of heaviest weapons. The other thing is, building and repairing times? How long does it take to build an SSD? How long does it take to build an ISD? ISDs should only take 3 to 4 years to construct, but the SSD, much longer than that. How long does it take to repair an SSD if it took “50 ISD’s” worth of damage? If the damage the SSD took forces it to be in the repair yard for several years, it’s just as good as being destroyed. Especially if the opposition is able to replace the fleet it lost faster than the SSD can be repaired. In the context of Star Wars universe, the SSD is too large to be truly an effective combat platform. If someone introduces capital ship size anti-ship torpedoes/missiles then the SSD is really going to have a rough time of it as it will be the primary, nearly immobile, target. The lack of anti-ship missile armed ships is the second issue with Star Wars... In the context of WWII combat in space, the SSDs are not best used to "destroy enemy fleets" but to destroy the heaviest fortifications built, which would otherwise destroy the normal battleships of their era (ISD-I's/-II's) in large numbers. If it’s possible to build a battleship 1,600 meters long, then there is nothing stopping anyone from making fortifications 3,000 meters long by 3,000 meters wide by 2,000 meters high, with the heaviest anti-ship weapons protected with the thickest armour available all under multiple layers of heavy shields... That’s exactly what John Ringo did in his trilogy, Live Free or Die (I think, I never read the first novel), Citadel (or was it Troy?), and Hot Gate (this title I am sure of). The Assault Vector’s are smaller sized Eclipse-class SSDs. Their entire purpose is to enter the heaviest defended systems and use their spinal laser to eviscerate the fortifications, so that the _battleships_ could enter the system without being annihilated by the forts. Under this idea, the SSDs become specialty ships instead of Fleet Flagships, meant to be protected so that they can serve their intended goal. But, that’s Star Wars for us... we fans, and other writers, need to create post hoc reasons for the design decisions of others. :/

@@aralornwolf3140 In order... The one time a dreadnought was used by a competent commander without political interference it was as a fleet killer from a safe distance. It wasn't MY mission profile, it was the canon one. Also, the lore says the Republic used dreadnoughts for planetary sieges during the Clone Wars, so I suppose their firepower in the order of a thousand Star Destroyer-sized ships (this from the Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross Section, a Mandator II-class dreadnought is described as able to take on a thousand Recusants) can help against planetary shields. The threat an Imperial Star Destroyer is supposed to take on is one of the MANY types of ships of similar size we've SEEN. Such as the Recusant (adapted from a Mon Cala design that PREDATES the Clone Wars), the Munificent, the Providence, the Lucrehulk. And those are just the ones that appear in the films during the Clone Wars. The RotS: ICS states that, in Legends, Palpatine used the perceived threat of exta-galactic barbarians to justify the fleet expansion, and since nobody knew of the Vong that indicates the Tof that, as it happens, DO have ships larger than a Star Destroyer. You forgot quite a few batteries from both the ISD-I and the ISD-II. Once the prototypes were completed, an ISD could be built in six months and an Executor in one year. The limiting factor on the latter is the small number of shipyards capable of building such a massive vessel (counting Legends we have Kuat, Fondor, Byss, Pammant, a certain secret shipyard in the Deep Core that exhausted their resources in the process, Mon Cala, and Corellia, and we don't know when Mon Cala and Corellia built their slipways), plus of course the material. An Executor also carry LARGER weapons. Or twenty CR-90 would be a match for an ISD, with their much smaller turbolasers. Sure, you can field much more Star Destroyers for the cost and material of a single Executor... But that Executor can destroy them all in battle. THAT is the use of a dreadnought: a large battle where you need ludicrous firepower. That or a symbol of might, like battleships were before World War II (Japan wouldn't have almost crippled their shipbuilding industry to build the Yamatos otherwise) and carriers are now. This is Star Wars, not John Ringo. And we've seen that fleet killing IS the main purpose of a dreadnought, with taking on planetary shield a secondary use that is best served by the specialist vessels that were invented.

@@lordMartiya, I call BS on those numbers. An Executor class ship can be built in a Single Galactic Year?! *Shakes Head* I did mention Star Wars had a scale issue... and that's definitely _one_ of them. Anyways, it's pointless to argue with others about how messed up Star Wars lore actually is when they refuse to admit that it's borked. May the Force Be With You.

And with its heavy plasma torpedo armaments, it could pose a serious threat to both star bases and even planetary colonies. And you won't see it coming until it is in firing range.

I was like 40 years old when one day it clicked that Romulans/Vulcans have green blood and all their ship are painted green. Just like Roman Soldiers all wore red uniforms.

Sorry but no star trek and star wars ships looks as menacing as the Shadow ships from Babylon 5.

@@classreductionist ; Coincidently, I also arrived at that realization a few weeks ago.

Tbf, if I were an Imperial captain commanding an Imperial 1 star destroyer (the variant that's ~700 meters long), I'd crap myself if I found myself looking at a group of emerald shaded warships where there was once open space. I'd consider resigning if they let me live long enough to watch their fleet cloak as they turned away, as cloaking devices are both much more expensive and even greater power draws in SW than in Trek. But most of all, I'd cry when my sensor officer confirmed the only way to confirm their presence, both pre-decloak and post-cloak, is a gravity anomaly that all sensors confuse for background radiation after just a few seconds.

I’d say it’s cloak, but whatevs hehe

Closest analogue is multi-purpose battleship. Aka Fast Response Battleship designed to invade disobedient systems, drop a small occupation force, while the Imperial Army transports and their Army Units are being mobilized, and support surface operations when required. George Lucas, and so many other writers for Star Wars, just misuse the ship. :/

And the New Republic ended every other skirmish with more ships than they began with. They captured several at Endor, two at Coruscant, one defected at Thyferra, then they captured another one from Szinj. The ISD had two spectacular strengths, it had a ridiculously overpowered reactor, and impressively redundant systems. It was a remarkably stubborn ship, and could be refitted substantially, so that after the Vong Invasion the ISDs once again outgunned the New Republic's finest ships. That said, it is a mess. All that space for ground troops, the large crew requirement, the lck of point defence for the ISD II, the exposed bridge.

UNLESS they had Nebulons Frigates or a Mon Cal Cruiser or 2.. least till the Star Hawk, the bane of even HUGE Super SDs existence, finally came out near the end of te Galactic Civil War

Brilliant take 👍

Nah Super Star Destroyer I would say a Borg cube is. Just because A cube is a fleet killer in itself, it can even take out whole Space Nations on it's own.

Imagine if they could cloak!😮

@@masere Actually why don't they? Surely the Borg should be capable of Cloaking Tech.

@@Historyfan476AD They don't need to. They are the Borg. Subtifuge goes against a hive mind. Why would you hide, if you can assimilate.

I give the D'Deridex one over the ISD in this department as ISDs are something you can see coming and if you don't see one its not there, whereas the cloaking device means you don't see the D'Deridex until it materializes in front of or above you so you can never be sure it isn't there.

@@Hartzilla2007 at which point the only thing anything shy of a major alpha squadron power ship can do is simply surrender or be annihilated. i do agree that the potential presence of a D'Deridex you can't see outdoes the terror aspect of the ISD but of course power projection is partly about being seen. that said 2360s romulan doctrine isn't a perfect match to imperial tarkin dontrine so differences are to be expected

The whole tarkin doctrine Angle IS massively overblown in my opinion because the ISD IS a great weapon in capable Hands Just Seen in heir of the Empire, also the fact at least in the EU the Star Destroyer IS still in use way way far into Future. Also looking at the ISD from an in universe Perspektive that Star Destroyer IS the solution for every single Problem the Republic faced in the Clone wars in space , completely Outclasses every CIS ship

IT seems largely to BE dumbed down also by people with surface Level understanding Like calling the ISD really slow , despite one of the reasons ISDs operate often alone IS because they are too fast for Most of their escorts and the literal First Scene WE See a Star Destroyer chasing down a much smaller and one of the fastest ship classes a CR-90 Corvette. IT really only struggled against the Falcon that isnt even smaller,faster and a Main Character ship but they still landed several Hits ON IT and were closing in.

Ships are as big as their role. ISD's are important for troops transport, though they are incredibly oversized for the weaponry they carry. It is like arming an Iowa Class with only quad 40mm Bofors.

And curses to that! I finally want a D`Deridex carrier warbird with properly sized hangar bays in STO!

@@davidedens6353 it's still kinda there but yeah it was meant to extend back way further

@@venomgeekmedia9886 it's on my to-do list

Part of this is that many isds literally did not install point defense guns to make room for more turbolasers. They decided to take off the anti-fighter guns for some reason even though rebels couldn't afford large amounts of bigger ships and relied on fighters.

​@jacksonhoiland2664 And the Imps thought that stripped down cannon fodder Tie Fighters _that needed to be scrambled and launched_ in response to a Rebel attack, could cover their Snubfighter defence. We all know how the Imperials ignored a lot of anti-fighter strategies that could have made life really hard for the Rebels (Lancer Frigate). But just stripping out a couple of Turbolasers and adding loads of point defence to a ISD would have made them far more effective. And the Turbolasers don't even have to be removed, they only compete with the laser cannons for power when the ISD is fighting another capital ship. Most of the time they will be sitting idle as only the point defence is being used to take down hyperspace equipped snubfighters.

The D'deridex was not even vulnerable to fighters, the Jem'Hidar Attack ships _are not fighters_ ... they are Attack ships. Which were combat specialised Corvette or gunship sized ships, with a crew of about 12 to 40. The Defiant being the largest example of the Attack ship concept, but also one of the best examples of the philosophy. And at the early stages of the conflict, before the Dominion war had even started. When the Romulans and Cardassians teamed up for an attempted genocide, Dominion polaron beams could ignore Starfleet shields, and presumably also Romulan and Cardassian shields. Judging the performance of the D'deridex in that scenario is not a true example of its capabilities, the fleet was led into a trap by Changelings that were in the Romulan fleet. With an overwhelming enemy force hiding in a nearby Nebula. In open fleet battle and the general Dominion war, the D'deridex was still a formidable ship. It's just pound for pound in a war of attrition, a Attack ship is a better use of resources.

The problem with the ISD is kind of found in the very problem the fleet was following: The Tarkin Doctrine itself. Vader and Thrawn both thought the Tarkin Doctrine was wasteful and short sighted, but The Emperor loves his huge warships and giant death laser station.

The Galactic Empire could have done a lot of things better, including much more efficient fleet design and deployment; but being an effective navy wasn't the point. The point was to be big and intimidating regardless of whether it allowed for effective operations - the Tarkin doctrine. Fear and terror.

Basically a big ship goes bang bang. I think they are compensating for something or lack there of. Don't get me wrong bout the way these ships purpose being built. Clearly they can do this but within there own fleets and doctrine. I will admit when I see these ships. I have the urge to work out more so I'm not that easy a target or nope the hell out of there if I can.

When you get right down to it, there's no reason "Destroyer" has to be synonymous with "small ship". The only reason it means that to IRL navies is because of legacy naming conventions, ie, "destroyer" is short for "torpedo boat destroyer", which were small ships designed to hunt down even smaller ships so that they wouldn't threaten bigger, more expensive ships. In a sci fi setting, all bets are off when it comes to classifications. A "Destroyer" can be a big capital ship if what it's supposed to destroy are other big capital ships. Or just anything it comes across. If you're gonna call a ship a "destroyer", the first question you should ask is, "What is it meant to destroy?" Size, armament, and so on and so forth will be determined by what the answer is. Although in the case of Star Wars, I very much get the impression that "Star Destroyer" means "any big wedge-shaped warship". You could build a ship with the same size and armaments and even purpose as a Star Destroyer, but if it isn't a wedge shape, it's not a "Star Destroyer".

@@LaterMercury823 yeah "what do they do?" And how well are a lot more interesting

No Romulan bias in this RU-vidrs opinions 😂😂

TLJ made all starship design in SW stupid retroactively. No warship would be any bigger than it needed to be to have a hyperspace torpedo, it's own hyperdrive and just enough crew to keep those things running (life support optional). Battles would be rapid pace shoot-n-scoot versions of submarine warfare: the instant you locate an enemy you jump in as close as possible, fire your torpedo and leave.

But as for me, Odyssey, Yorktown and Lexington-class Star Dreadnought Cruisers are the best Federation Rival Ships to match the Republic Venator-class Star Destroyers in terms of size, though whether or not the Lexington will Phaser Spinal Lance will be a match against Imperial-class Star Destroyers?

but is that not the most important part of the ISD?

@@venomgeekmedia9886 that what Grand Mof Tarken told me. 😁

​@@venomgeekmedia9886 The Tarken Doctrine wants your location.

They are force projection vessels. Built to project the might and authority of their respective empires into the far reaches of the galaxy and bring/keep entire star systems under control by their mere presence.

IT Isnt remember that the Imperator class Star Destroyer was Designed in the Clone wars and effectively counter nearly all CIS Ship Designs fielded by the seperatists

The funniest Thing i read was in the imperial handbook a commanders Guide, the ISD is the equilivant of a Squadron but was bureacratily turned into the equilivant of Just a Line to get more ISDs. After all you need way more lines than fleet Squadrons

I mean that is the way military procurement works. And the budgeting process. And yay, someone else that's read the WEG stuff!

The Romulans would love that, they’d just have to be careful of overextending themselves too quickly.

The Romulans ability to target specific areas would be huge , decloak, target and disable ... take over

@@steller630 that's exclusive to members

@@venomgeekmedia9886 oh

I doubt that Star Trek IS more realistic than Star wars, because Trek Tech IS way more magical than Star wars Tech that IS way more realistic from Tech to Looks ,they contain all the Fantasy stuff in the Force, meanwhile in Trek the Magic IS the tech

​@@laisphinto6372 i know what you mean but i dont mean realistic in the sense whether its possible or not; rather, its more about everything being consistent and how in line it is with the technology of the setting. Also we're not talking about any other aspects of the franchises (the force, the Q) other the subject here - the ship weaponry. So if you are able to engineer hyperdrives, semi sentient droids, and have super computing power able to navigate the galaxy then you expect a certain way of fighting and how a ship might - realistically for the setting - be setup with weapons. Things like piloted dogfights with ships shooting laser bolts in a straight line (might as well be bullets) are not a serious doctrine even today in the relatively mediocre tech of the 21st century, let alone when you can engineer a space station the size of a small planet. So its in that regards that I think star trek is more 'realistic' or 'consistent' might be a better word. Both with how the ships are armed as well as things like the lack of fighters. All of this makes sense if you think about the premise of the franchises. (Star wars is big screen action, about looking great, providing a sense of scale and awe. Star Trek is more about inspiring mystery, discovery and imagination on the small screen. ) If you don't mind me adding another example of unrealistic - again given the context - is melee fighting in future warfare. We have practically phased this out as the primary way of fighting ever since humans invented guns and its not going to make a return. Yet it creates fighting scenes like no other so you have many many action based films, games ( Warhammer 40k probably one of the most obvious) , making it pillar of their franchises. Understandable and great fun if a bit at odds with the technological context offered in those worlds.

V’ger has entered the chat

they even do it on the jem'hadar fighter which is really strange. but on the cruiser and battleship you could argue its because the crew isn't just jem'hadar and vorta but other servitor races we don't see

@@venomgeekmedia9886 Ahhh yes that's right. Like the Vorta command-class.

Windows on something like the dominion battleship could be used for visual targeting of enemy ships and stations or navigation in the event those systems go offline or are otherwise unusable.

@@BlastHardcheeseable no because scimitar is silly.

I mean the Galaxy feels like good guys making their own Star Destroyer and not realizing it, especially since it has a considerable amount of guns you can point at planets.

@@Hartzilla2007 But the Galaxy is not meant to instill terror like the others. It has the capability (note the Romulans never wanted to take on a Galaxy one-on-one with the D'deridex despite it being much larger, suggesting the match was even or at least too close for comfort), but not the reputation. Which is why the MC-Series is probably a better analogue. They are the Alliance counterpart to the Star Destroyer with comparable capabilities and missions profiles. Yet, even if they could rain death and destruction on a helpless planet at a similar scale, the Mon Cals are not known or associated with rampant destruction.

@@Al1701 that’s only because the Federation are good guys, I mean between the Republic and Empire the only change to the Venator was the imperial paint job and it’s pretty much acting like an ISD under the Empire.