Mik's School of Space Naval Warfare

[MikDaTv]

This is MSSNW, or Mik's School of Space Naval Warfare. I'll be posting lessens in Star Wars Naval combat tactics and techniques in a series of posts, each detailing a particular tactic or idea.

If you have any questions on what's posted here, please PM me the question and I'll answer it for you to the best of my ability. if the question is good enough i'll turn it into a lesson post.

PLEASE DON'T POST IN HERE, so that it might be organized and clutter free so things can be found more easily.

[MikDaTv]

Some of the Basics

Here are some of the most basic principles of space battles that every captain or admiral should know.

Space is not a two dimensional chess board that we move pieces on to gain the upper hand.

First and foremost, it's 3 dimensional, as apposed to sea naval battles or land battles. There is an additional Z axis to think about. Some ships have a large portion of their guns on their tops or bottoms. Like the Imperial I and Imperial II Star Destroyers. For both these ships, the main turbolaser batteries are on the top of the vessel, on either side of the command tower. So ships attacking from below won't feel the full might of these batteries as apposed to a ship above.

A good captain forgets the idea of "Top" and "Bottom" or "Left" and "Right" as soon as he steps aboard a ship. These become Dorsal (Top of the ship), Ventral (belly of the ship), Port (Lefts side of the ship) and Starboard (Right side of the ship). This way when describing something to some one else, there is no confusion, because one mans left can always mean another mans right. Port and Starboard never change.

So to does the concept of "Up" and "Down." There is no Up or Down in space. Some good admirals think of down as "Towards the enemy" So the noses of all their ships should point "Down" towards the enemy. This means you might fight other ships in very awkward battle where the belly of your ship is facing the nose of an enemy ship. Or the Dorsal side of your ship might be facing the Ventral side of an enemy ship. That is perfectly normal in a space battle, in fact, it's to be expected. So be careful when using words like "Up" or "Down" during a space battle, because "up" and "Down" isn't the same for everyone.

Space is also unpredictable. Even in orbit around a planet, natural phenomena are present consistently. A solar flare from a nearby star could cause sensor or electrical disruptions, if a planet has rings that spin it could cause a unique magnetic field, X-rays and Gamma rays bounce off planets and moons and asteroids and fill the void between the stars. It's not just empty space to move out ships around in.

The concept of the Broadside is also VERY important in the star wars universe. In this way, star wars capital ships operate in much the same way that WWII battleships, Sailing pirate ships and even modern ships do. The idea is, that since many spaceships are long, rather then wide, most of the ships weapons will be along it's side, rather than it's front. So, to bring the most weapons to bare on a single target, you must first turn your ship so that it's side (It's Broadest side. usually the Port or Starboard of the ship) is facing the enemy. this maximizes your firepower.

The disadvantage of this however, is that it also makes you a larger target to shoot at. This is usually a negligible weakness however, since the enemy ship is 99% of the time going to turn to bring Their Broadside against YOU, leveling the playing field.

The concept of the Turret is also important. It seems like a simple idea, a gun that can turn at it's base to face an enemy so that the ship itself doesn't need to turn. But in space, this can get confusing, because most starship turrets can also elevate their guns 90 degrees, as well as rotate, giving it a full 360 degree by 180 degree zone that the turret can fire. It's not always this simple of coarse but this is just the basics, more on this later.

The idea of the broadside and the idea of the turret has never been implemented so beautifully as they are in the Imperial star destroyers. Their triangle and pointed shape means that most of the ships turreted guns can fire strait forward. An imperial star destroyers nose IS it's broadside. The exception to that being the ships main batteries which can not fire forward, only to the port and starboard.

[MikDaTv]

Myths About Shields

Shields are as important as weapons in space battles, and for good reason. They are what protect you from enemy fire and give you a surpassing edge over a ship without shields, but they don't make you invulnerable.

Unshielded targets are considered easy pray by a lot of young captains but they quickly learn otherwise. a ship doesn't necessarily need shields to be deadly and many a ship (usually the ones with good captains) have survived a battle even though their shields had been knocked out early in the battle. A shield is just added protection.

That being said, it's time to dispel some myths about starship shields.

many people think that a starship shield is like a bubble around the ship that protects it from all damage. Most starship shields have the shape of the ship itself, and are usually projected to be just under the outer hull of the ship.

Another myth people love is that shields are a one shot deal, that once their down, thats it, no more shield. This isn't true at all. On most capital ships, there are more then one generator, usually two or four. These generate shields in arcs, or sides of the ship. The most common arcs for shields are forward, rear, port and starboard. or just port and starboard.

So even though you might bring down the shields of a particular ship, those might only have been it's port shields. and since we learned in the previous lesson that space three dimensional, it would be no issue for the enemy ship to just rotate on an axis and bring is protected starboard shield about to face you. This way it's unshielded flank is opposite you while you deal with the flank that has fresh, undamaged shields. This not only prolongs the battle, but it gives the enemy a chance to shunt power to the port shields in an effort to bring them back online.

another Myth about shields is that they protect you from ALL damage until they are down. This is far from the truth. Shields absorb, dissipate and deflect most of the damage, but some inevitably gets through. The damage is usually negligible but it can add up and be potentially dangerous if the fire is concentrated on a vital system or weapon, like a sensor dish or turbolaser.

One of the myths about shields i hate most of all is that they have some kind of energy meter, and when that energy meter reaches zero the shield is down. Thats not true at all. Shields will go down after a long period of constant fire, that is true enough, but your best bet for bringing down a shield is to focus fire in one spot. enough energy focused to one point in the shield will cause it to buckle and collapse temporarily allowing damage to get through. This hole in the shield will repair itself quickly though. Focused fire might also overload the shield generator bringing down the entire shield arc. This is why ships fire in volleys, rather then streams of fire. The idea is to cause as much damage as possible all at once.

[MikDaTv]

How to Use Shields Effectively

Shields draw a lot of ships power when activated, which is why they are turned off during non combat periods of time. When activated is when they use the most energy. That initial startup burst of energy uses lots of power while to simply maintain the shields uses significantly less.

shields protect your ship buy doing a combination of things.

A large portion of the energy from an attack is absorbed. This energy is channeled into a heat sink which is designed to cool as quickly as possible so it's ready for the next attack.

Some of the energy is deflected back out into space. This deflected energy is usually very weak from it's impact with the shield and extremely short ranged so there is no risk of a ricochet coming back at you. There is a risk to fighters flying close to the shield that gets hit however.

Some of the energy is also dissipated. The impact of the weapon hits the shield, the shield indents a bit to dissipate the energy like how a layer of Kevlar indents a little to dissipate some of the energy of a bullet.

Shields are more effective, the more energy is put into them. This allows them to Deflect, absorb and dissipate much more energy. Thats why it's a good idea to Angle your shields. When against a single opponent, you can draw power from one shield arc and put it into another shield arc. In A New Hope, when the X-wings are attacking the death star. Red Leader says shields "Double front" That means, take all the energy from your rear shields, and put it into your forward shields. that means your forward shields can withstand much more damage. Later, in the same battle, Red Leader says "Stabilize your deflectors" meaning apply equal power to both front and rear shields to provide full protection.

Once your shields are down it's a good idea to get them back up again as soon as you can. You can do this by shunting power to the off line generator to give it that initial kick it needs to bring the power back online. It usually takes the shield generator a few minutes to power back up however, even with the additional energy however. It needs to wait for it's capacitors to get up to speed again and sometimes the heat sink needs to do some serious cooling down.

Power can be shunted to the generator from just about any source. usually from weapons that aren't in use or from the engines if their not at full power. Some brave captains use Life support power but thats risky and most combat ships come with a supply of emergency power that can be shunted into any system that might require additional energy.

Shields also stop most sensor from penetrating through the hull. Pirates and even some combat ships like to scan the interior of a ship, weather it be to find out what it might be carrying in it's cargo hold or to map out the best places to target their weapons. This is why it's prudent to bring your shields up, even if the other ship doesn't appear to be hostile, not only as a show of force, but to protect your interests, as well as your ship.

[MikDaTv]

How to Defeat Shields.

As was stated in a previous lesson, the best way for removing an enemies shield is to focus as much firepower as possible onto a single shield arc, preferably onto a single location on that shield arc. If you can cause enough damage at one time, you can overheat the heat sinks of the enemy shield which will automatically shut off the shield to prevent the heat sinks from becoming so hot they begin to melt the ship around them.

You might also simply overload the shield. This is rare in capital ship battles but more common in smaller ships that have less powerful shield generators. The generator just uses so much energy to maintain the shield that it overloads and simply quits. While this doesn't happen often on larger capital ships, it is a good thing for you, because it means that shield generator is down for the count and can't be used again until it's repaired.

Aside from bringing the entire shield arc down, you might cause a particular location of the shield to collapse for a few seconds allowing damage through. This is why fighters or bombers fire all their missiles all at once at a particular target. 24 missiles to a single location is more then enough to collapse a section of shield to create a window to damage a particular ship system like a turbolaser battery or engine.

A constant stream of fire will also bring a shield down, but it takes much longer then a volley of fire would. The only advantage of a stream of fire is that it prevents the enemy from taking shield energy from that shield arc and placing it into another shield arc. So when attacking a single enemy target, have one ship keep a constant stream of fire on one shield arc while another ship fires volleys of deadly turbolaser at the other.

Shield also do not offer perfect protection, as we discussed before. Even a small amount of concentrated fire can let some damage through. So a fighter squadron firing all their laser cannons on a single turbolaser can potentially damage the turbolaser, possibly even destroy it outright.

This tactic can be used to great effect in attacking the enemy ships shield generators. You can fire on their generators in an effort to damage the generator or even destroy it. This is difficult since the shields are stronger the closer to the generator they are, but in some cases it's worth a shot. An example would be in Return the of the Jedi, Admiral Ackbar has all his ships focus fire on the Executor which weakens it's shields enough for the A-wing concussion missiles to penetrate the shield enough to destroy the bridge deflector shields. The bridge shields went down and the poor A-wing pilot crashed through the bridge window, destroying it.

So, in review.

Use Volley's of fire rather then streams, unless you both outnumber the enemy and have more then one angle of attack on him.

Focus fire on a particular area of a shield arc.

Target ship systems to do as much damage as possible.

[MikDaTv]

Fighters

Fighters are a key element to any space battle. They come in large numbers, when focused their firepower can be damaging. A fleet with fighters has a distinct advantage over a fleet without. Fighters provide a valuable service to large capital ship fleets. They can act as scouts, raiders, fast assault forces and as delaying forces.

There are many different kinds of fighters however, and not all of them are useful for the same things. Take the TIE fighter for example. It lacks shields and a hyperdrive. It's a short range fighter that must be carried to a position by a carrier ship. This limits it's usefulness in most fleets, but it does what it was designed to do very well. It has two very powerful laser cannons and it's speed an maneuverability are top of the line. It can outrun and outfly most other fighters. They make the perfect interceptors.

Interceptors

An interceptor, is a fighter designed to be fast and maneuverable so that it can launch from it's parent carrier and intercept incoming fighters or missiles. Interceptors are the only fighter with the qualifications to shoot down enemy torpedo's and missiles before they reach the capital ship their aimed at. They also are good at taking out enemy bombers before they can reach weapons range of your fleet. That is why speed is so important to an interceptor, they need to be fast enough to keep up with missiles, and to intercept their targets as soon as possible.

Bombers

Bombers are the polar opposite of an Interceptor. These larger, more heavily armored craft have to be able to withstand fire from both fighters and capital ships so they can last long enough to drop their payload of missiles. They have much more mass then most other fighters do to the extra weapons and ordinance they carry so they won't accelerate as quickly. These fighters excel at causing lots of damage to capital ships but aren't as handy against other fighters, which is why they usually require an escort.

Escort/Medium Fighters/Fighter Bombers.

Known by many names, these are the fighters that sort of bridge the gap between the interceptors and bombers. These fighters are usually designed for a specific purpose. The E-wing for instance is an escort fighter, designed to escort larger ships and squadrons of bombers. The X-Wing was designed to fight against other fighters but still have enough bite to harm capital ships. These fighters fill many roles but use them outside their designed purpose at your own risk.

Screens

The most common method of deploying fighters is whats called a fighter screen. A carrier or destroyer will launch it's compliment of fighters and these fighters will array themselves in a formation off the capital ships bow. most commonly, each squadron (a squadron is 12 fighters) will break up into 3 groups of four. These four fighters, or Flight, will form a vertical diamond formation along with the other two flights.

It's also not uncommon to see fighters along the sides of a capital ship in addition to it's forward fighter screen. These fighters will protect the capital ships flanks.

the main purpose of a fighter screen however, is to create a wall between the capital ship and the enemy. Any missiles, or turbolaser fire must pass through the fighter screen first, which offers some light protection for the capital ship and gives the fighters a chance to shoot down incoming missiles. It also gives them a good starting position from which to launch into other maneuvers, like bombing runs or interception duties.

with all the larger capital ships in the star wars universe, it's easy to forget about the little guys. but lets not forget, that it's a fighter, that has two death stars painted on it's side, not a Mon Calamari cruiser. And everyone remembers the names Wedge Antilles, Gavin Darklighter, Hobbie, Tycho Celchu and Corran Horn. They don't remember the name of the turbolaser gunner who fired the killing shot against some Victory class star destroye

[MikDaTv]

Organization of Fighters

This may seem like a trivial matter to some because of it's basically academic nature, but it is important to the structure of how your fighters will operate and interact with each other. I can't tell you how to organize your fighters, but i can tell you the most common methods of doing so.

Fighter Wing

A Fighter Wing is the largest formation of a group of fighters. The usual Wing consists of three squadrons. But in some instances this changes. The Imperial Wing was 6 Squadrons, a total of 72 fighters. This is because Imperial Class Star Destroyers could carry 72 TIE's in their hangers and since Impstars were the flagship class of the empire that was made the standard Imperial Wing.

Some Capital ships can carry more than one Wing of fighters, which allows for the generals of these wings to coordinate with each other.

Fighter Wings can be organized however you want, but i usually like to keep things simple. A wing of uniform fighters. Like an entire wing of X-wings or an entire wing of TIE Fighters. Others like to combine fighters, Like a Squadron of bombers with two squadrons of Interceptors.

Squadrons

A Squadron is 95% of the time, composed of 12 fighters. The number 12 was not picked at random though as some people believe. 12 is one of the best numbers for a military fighter unit. It's not to big, nor to small. It's divisible by 2, 3, 5 and 6 and it's easy to multiply into higher numbers.

The Squadron is your most basic Starfighter unit. All pilots operate in a squadron based unit with 11 other pilots. These pilots might never see the other 24 pilots in their Wing, but they all know each other well. They train together, they fight together, they drink together and they talk with each other. These pilots expect to have their squadmates with them. They're a team, a team which trusts their lives to their fellow pilots.

Flight

A Flight is a part of a squadron. In the standerd 12 fighter squadron, a Flight is 4 fighters, usually flying in a delta or diamond formation. When a squadron is just cruising, doing active reconnaissance of an area, or escorting a larger ship, they are usually in this grouping. Flights are useful because they put the maximum amount of fighters into three separate locations. This way you can have a 4 fighters on the Forward, Port and Starboard flanks of a larger capital ship, all ready to support one another.

Shield Trio / Triangle / Trio

Three fighters fly in a delta formation. This is the setup for a Shield Trio. The term Shield Trio comes from an idea the Rebels came up with during the galactic civil war. usually if a fighter is struck by a turbolaser it's fried in an instant, no passing go, no collecting 200 credits. This method, involves flying three fighters incredibly close to one another. As close as humanly possible, so that the three shields combine into one shield. In this way, these three fighters can withstand a direct turbolaser hit and survive.

There are other advantages to a trio, but not many. It's an odd number which means if the trio splits up and reform there's the chance that one will be the odd one out. This is more often a formation of desperation then strategic value. Pilots will form up in trios when they can't form a flight but don't have the advantage of breaking up into pairs.

Wing Pair / Element.

In real life, this last formation is called an element. In the star wars universe it's more commonly called a Wing Pair, although Element is also sometimes used.

The element is extreamly useful and what squadrons split up into most often during combat. An element is composed of two fighters, a leader, and a wingman (I'm on the leader!). The leader does all the work, he picks the targets, calls out orders to his wingman, he even does all the shooting.

This is not to say that the Wingman is pointless though. The Wingman has a very important job. While the Leader is focused on scoring the kill against an enemy fighter, the wingman's job is to look around for fighters coming after them. He also covers the Leaders back. These two fighters also set up traps together and coordinate their firepower against an enemy warship.

[MikDaTv]

Hyperspace

One thing i find that people don't quite understand around here is the details in how hyperspace works.

For a ship to enter hyperspace, it must be equipped with a hyperdrive. I may sound patronizing here but i've seen more then a few people talk about jumping to hyperspace in a TIE fighter when everyone knows, TIE fighters don't have hyperdrives.

Now Hyperdrives are divided into classes. The lower the class, the faster the hyperdrive. So a class 1 hyperdrive is better and faster then a class 2. The Millennium Falcon had a class .5 hyperdrive which is very, very fast.

when traveling through hyperspace you can only go in a strait line. If you want to change coarse, you must first drop out of hyperspace, turn your ship, then jump back into hyperspace.

Sounds simple right? not so much. Jumping to hyperspace requires a lot of things to go right first. First and foremost, you need a destination and a point of origin. Put those to sets of data in your navacomputer. Your navacomputer will chew some numbers and spit out a coarse for you to follow. The use of a computer is important because if your even a hair of coarse at the point of origin, you'll be lightyears away from your destination when you exit hyperspace. To get this data from your navacomputer takes around 10-15 seconds.

Gravity is also an issue when thinking of jumping to hyperspace. All hyperdrives are built with a safety system hard wired into the device. This safety system triggers whenever it feels a significant pull from a gravity well and shuts down the hyperdrive. Essentially, you can not jump to hyperspace when in a gravity well. Even if your in hyperspace, a gravity well can pull you back into realspace.

This safety system is in place to make sure that when traveling at faster then light speeds you don't collide with something big. like an uncharted planet, black hole or super nova. There is a lot of crap floating about in space and traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops.

It is possible to remove this safety feature from your hyperdrive but the process is long, difficult, and ultimately unwise since many times it's the only thing keeping you from slamming into your destination planet.

This safety feature can also be exploited. Using a gravity well generator, one can pull a ship out of hyperspace and prevent it from reentering hyperspace.

Safety checks must also be gone through before making the jump to hyperspace. Not going through the checklist could lead to a catastrophic failure which, at worst, could rip your ship apart, and at best, blow up your engines leaving you dead in space without ever making the jump. Going through the basic checklist usually takes just a few seconds and some ships have a computer that does it automatically.

So, jumping to hyperspace is not just some off handed thing. It's potentially lethal and incredibly unsafe without taking the right precautions.

[MikDaTv]

Here is a list of videos documenting space battles everyone might want to look at.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC3OoBSgFYs&NR=1
One of my favorites. This video shows just how deadly a Super Star Destroyer can be. Those bright lights you see coming off the SSD are concussion missiles, lots of them. I will say though that this video isn't entirely accurate. a SSD facing this many ships would sustain plenty of damage and would probably be crippled after the battle and need a few weeks in dry dock.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtWn1aKGWkI&mode=related&search=
This is form one of my favorite games. Homeworld 2. it's not star wars but it shows the point i'd like to get across. This shows the pretty much standard amount of chaos that comes with most space battles. Lasers and missiles going every which way, fighters colliding and blowing up. Just chaos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCo8K78ms6Q&mode=related&search=
this one is just a bunch of ships getting blown to hell but i like how it shows how there are no "ups" and "Downs" in space. You have ships at 90 degree angles to the ships they're attacking.

[MikDaTv]

MANEUVERING

Here is where you learn how to turn your ship this way and that. I know it sound simple, but thats because your only used to turning your car this way and that. Remember the is no gravity in space and there is no friction. If you don't remember that, you'll end up dead and you'll wake up in heaven with Newton beating you over the head with his three Laws.

Maneuvering Thrusters

So, first things first. There is no air in space, which means there is no friction. This is a good thing for space ships since it means you don't have to spend all your fuel getting from one planet to the next. all you need is a quick burst from your engines and you can "Coast" to your destination.

unfortunately, this makes turning a bit of a pain. Since if you don't apply a force to keep you from turning, you'll just keep on turning and turning and turning. So making precises turns requires some precise computer controlled thruster burns.

The thrusters that do these burns are most usually referred to as Maneuvering Thrusters. They're all over the hull of your ship, especially around the aft and fore decks. It's not uncommon for a ship to lose a lot of its maneuvering power during a battle because a fighter squadron bombed some of their Maneuvering Thrusters. Stop a ship from maneuvering and you turn it into a sitting duck to be killed at your leisure.

Thats why a lot of war ships come equipped with an unusual amount of Maneuvering Thrusters. so they can afford to lose some and still operate at near 100%.

Main Engines

Your main engines are the ones that do all the work. They are what propel you forward through space and they provide the power for your ship.

It's a common misconception that the Reactor your ship has provides all the power for your ship. in some rare cases, thats true. but most of the time, the reactor powers the engine, and the engine then in turn powers the ship by recharging the ships batteries.

There are some cases where an individual system is powered by it's own reactor, like the long range turbolaser on the Warbird class republic cruiser. but 95% of the time it's the main engines that make sure the lights are on, the ship has gravity, your guns are firing and your shields are up.

This makes your engines are nice juicy target for the enemy. knock out your engines and then watch you die slowly as your batteries run out of the power needed to run life support. You'll slowly suffocate and then freeze to death.

It's no wonder then that your engines are usually well protected, encased within the ship itself and sometimes encased in an armored shell within the ship.

... not finished, more on Maneuvering will come later....

[MikDaTv]

More Videos of space battles for all of you. these are brought to you by the Game Decent Freespace 2. Arguably the best space fighter simulator ever made thanks to it's realistic feel, story, and completeness of the universe. They demonstrate how fleet battles really work. Keep in mind that the ships and fighters might be in different shapes with different weapons, but it's strikingly similar to what would happen in the Star Wars universe.

The first video is of a fleet battle between a several ships. It starts out as an attack on Shivan (The bad guys) freighters in the system. The fighters scout for them, locate them, send the coordinates to a nearby fleet which microjumps into the area to finish off the freighters. Unfortunately the Shivans call in reinforcements from the nearby jump node and the Bastion is damaged in the battle. The Colossus protects the Bastion's rear flanks while the fighters do their best to damage the Shivan cruisers as much as possible.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mVtDhK8D9c&feature=related

This next one is a shining example of why you always, always always jump your fleet into a system in groups. These rebels go through this node one ship at a time and get cut to shreds by stationary defense platforms and several bombers all launching torpedo's. The rebels in this video didn't have a choice, the node only accepts one or two ships at a time, but you don't have that limitation in star wars. jump in with your fleet in waves, never one by one.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG8DyjqVbc8&feature=related

This video is strait forward. you get the briefing at the beginning so you know whats going on. But i like it because it reenforces the fact that space battles aren't always these grand specticals with hundreds of ships going this way and that. This one had a grand total of 5 capital sized ships in it, and it was considered a major turning point in the war with the rebels. It also emphasizes the importance of fighters.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox-LiMWetns&NR=1

[MikDaTv]

Sustaining Damage

Ok, so your in your ship and your shooting this other dude with all your turbolasers. what kind of damage can you expect to do?

It's called surface damage. when your weapons impact the hull, they will do damage to the surface area of the hull. Now this kind of damage is fine since the enemy ships offensive weapons, sensors and shield generators will most likely be on or near the hull. The only problem with this particular kind of damage is it will take a while to do any significant damage to the enemy.

the best example of this i can think of is like how it was in Independence Day, the movie with the aliens and Will Smith as a fighter pilot. When those shields went down and the fighters were all launching their missiles, they did damage to the alien ship, but they could have fired missiles all day long at that thing with no significant damage being done.

So, what other kind of damage can we do. Well, when striking an unshielded hull, missiles can penetrate through the hull of the enemy ship and then explode. Thats handy to cause a lot more damage which is why missiles haven't been totally replaced by turbolasers.

the other cool thing you can do with turbolasers is target the same spot on the hull over and over again. once you break through the outer hull armor and start hitting the ships innards you can really do some damage. interior bulkheads and decks aren't designed to take the kind of damage the outer armor is.

If you can, your main objective is to do critical damage to the enemies engines, power plant, or just good old fashion structural damage. Breaking a ships keel can be just as effective as knocking out it's reactor.