I would have thought that there would have numerous V-wings taken out of service as the TIE was introduced. It makes sense unless every V-wing was "flown 'til blown" and even the Empire couldn't maintain the needed numbers of pilots in that case.

Maybe with the shift toward large battleships and away from fights and bombers the empire decided sending the v-wings to the bone yard was more cost effective from a political position.

I mean it's not so far fetched "eliminating the astromech requirement and hyperdrive expenses in our fighters will show a savings of 345 billion credits over the next 10 years through reductions in maintenance costs alone!"

The only trouble with that theory is that the Empire isn't real big on cutting military spending or military savings.

The Empire wants extravagance. Every military decision the Empire makes is inherently extravagant. Only the Empire would devise a battle station... housing a superweapon... with a hyperdrive! And then when they decided that the Imperial-class Star Destroyer - already the largest military vessel in the known galaxy - wasn't large enough, they built the Executor-class Super Star Destroyer that was, IIRC, something like 17 times longer than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. And if that wasn't enough, they went and make the most bonkers starfighters in the galaxy: the TIE Defender and the Missile Boat.

The only reason the Empire would cut spending on a starfighter is so they can spend even more on something else.

And that's different from a real world government how?

Let's cut those old, but still perfectly effective and useful fighter jets so we can save $50million annually while we simultaneously aquire another fighter jet that doesn't quite replace the one we cut and costs $1billion each!

Except in the real world, they're always talking about fighting the next war: We need to be able to beat the Russians or the Chinese. The Empire only needs to worry about garrisoning worlds and suppressing insurrection. There is no power in the galaxy that can defeat the Empire or even give it a run for its money. Except, well, the Empire's own disabused populace. In fact, its most massive and extravagant weapon systems - the Death Star and Death Star II - were specifically designed to destroy civilian targets - Imperial civilian targets - not military targets. (It wasn't until the Death Star II was built that the superlaser's targeting system was redesigned to engage capital ships.)

Who does the Empire have to worry about? The Hutts? Yeah, I can totally see the crime state of the Hutt cartels (and their, what, five major systems?) being a huge threat to the most powerful state the galaxy has ever seen.

It may be possible that the Empire simply surplused their V-wings: Gave (or sold) them to colonies and colonists in Wild Space. Of course, those ships could then end up in the hands of rebels. Or the Hutts. Or Black Sun. Or pirates. Or any of another of nefarious organizations. A farming colony in Wild Space would likely be more than happy to receive free - or mostly free - V-wings (and Z-95s and ARC-170s and other obsolete craft) to defend their holdings from pirates and bandits (and any other alien weirdness that might be floating around the edges of the Unknown Regions).

Imperial class Star Destroyers were not the largest known warship class pre-Executor. The old Trade Federation Battleships were three times the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer in fact.

Also the Empire has to be ready for any nasty surprises from the Unknown Regions.

I would have thought that there would have numerous V-wings taken out of service as the TIE was introduced. It makes sense unless every V-wing was "flown 'til blown" and even the Empire couldn't maintain the needed numbers of pilots in that case.

Maybe with the shift toward large battleships and away from fights and bombers the empire decided sending the v-wings to the bone yard was more cost effective from a political position.

I mean it's not so far fetched "eliminating the astromech requirement and hyperdrive expenses in our fighters will show a savings of 345 billion credits over the next 10 years through reductions in maintenance costs alone!"

More like "eliminating the astromech requirement will reduce the number of vulnerabilities in our electronic security and removing the shielding and ability to use hyperdrive rings will prevent disloyal pilots from defecting with their ships."

Plus, a lot of the Grand Army's military equipment was built with exceptionally advanced capabilities, but I'd guess that came with a severe drawback. The prime example is Acclamator-class Assault Ships.

They have a hyperdrive rating between 0.75 and 0.6, depending on your source; by far the lowest rating for any mass-produced vessel ever, never mind the standard frontline warship in one of the most intense wars in galactic history. Star Wars traditionally avoids delving into the realm of logistics except as a plot device, but even the Imperial Navy (which has a tradition of excessive naval R&D, and inherited the Republic's remaining Acclamators) never fielded anything comparable, and in fact replaced the Acclamators with slower ships over time (the Victory has a Class 1.0, the Imperial a Class 2.0).

My best guess is that the Acclamator's Class 0.75 was simply too fast to be reliably maintained, especially in the numbers and widespread deployments in which it was fielded. The entire fleet had hyperdrives more advanced than any standard design before or since; maintenance and refurbishment simply couldn't keep up and the Acclamators burned themselves out.

While the Acclamator is both the most extreme example and the one with which the best comparison can be made, there is a similar trend in other Grand Army equipment and techniques inherited by the Empire. You can see the cumulative wear-and-tear on the Alliance's Y-Wings compared to the original Republican designs. ARC-170s (which also had top-of-the-line electronics and hyperdrives) were being replaced by a more straightforward design (remember the X-Wing was designed for the Empire, although who knows if it would have been adopted). The well of cloning was, if not running dry, at least deteriorating as Kamino had to rely on second-generation Fett DNA or turn to other donors. Jedi starfighters were too sensitive and fragile to be safely flown by pilots unassisted by the Force.

So I think it's quite plausible that V-Wings, like a lot of other Republican equipment (and personnel, morbidly enough), simply didn't have a very long service life; either as a side effect of their over-engineering; or intentionally to reduce the potential impact if they fell into the hands of resistance groups after the war (which Sidious could more-or-less control the length of).

Don't forget symbolism. The Empire could have easily made the decision to switch to the TIE series starfighters and bombers simply because the V-Wings had been associated with the Republic, of which the last remnants were done away with when the Emperor dissolved the Senate. The Stormtrooper's white armor, while very similar to the Republic's Clonetrooper armor, reminds the populace of the faceless, numberless war machine of the Empire. The angular, dagger hulls of the Victory, Imperial, and Executor classes of Star Destroyers, while having the same similarities to the Venator and Acclamator cruisers, are simply enough to scare any dissident group.

Imperial class Star Destroyers were not the largest known warship class pre-Executor. The old Trade Federation Battleships were three times the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer in fact.

Also the Empire has to be ready for any nasty surprises from the Unknown Regions.

The Trade Federation Battleship was a refitted civilian bulk cargo ship, though.

True but their were other warship classes larger then the Imperials they just weren't nearly as common.

Imperial class Star Destroyers were not the largest known warship class pre-Executor. The old Trade Federation Battleships were three times the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer in fact.

Also the Empire has to be ready for any nasty surprises from the Unknown Regions.

Imperial class Star Destroyers were not the largest known warship class pre-Executor. The old Trade Federation Battleships were three times the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer in fact.

Also the Empire has to be ready for any nasty surprises from the Unknown Regions.

The Trade Federation Battleship was a refitted civilian bulk cargo ship, though.

True but their were other warship classes larger then the Imperials they just weren't nearly as common.

There were some very massive warships, even bigger than the Executor. However, they either don't last long due to the huge target they make of themselves or were kept as test beds (Kuat and I believe CEC had a few).

These "dreadnoughts" were used for both protection as well as a marketing tools. Especially if it was a new weapon or support system. Problem is, their lack of mobility meant they were stuck in one system through out their service life unless they were moved by tugs and such.

While the Trade Federation Battleships might be bigger, they were first civilian cargo haulers upgraded to battleships. Even then, they still had issues that caused them some serious trouble. The Imperial Star Destroyer was the first hyper-space capable warship of such a massive scale in several centuries.

It is correct the other warships weren't as common, but that also stemmed from the fact of how good the ship was as well as the crew. The Imperial Navy had bullets, beans, and bandages on their side when they want to actually invade a sector.

The purpose built larger warships were mostly used for defense of key systems but some of them saw action in the Clone Wars and they definitely had hyperdrives. One took out a CIS planet it was attacking when damage to the hyperdrive caused it to jump to hyper and slam into the planet.

Now before the Clone Wars they were legally restricted to very slow hyperdives but that restriction vanished as soon as the shooting started if not before then and many were retrofitted with faster drives . The same restriction would apply to the Trade Federation Battleships and most of the Warships the CIS navy inherited when it formed but they ignored them

They weren't very popular because of cost, the speed and nav data restrictions, and the fact that the prevailing school of tactical thought in the decades leading up to the war thought that smaller, faster, and more agile designs were superior to larger and easier to target ships.

Kuat's Mandator & Mandator II Class Star Dreadnoughts (which were all much, much bigger than a ISD, running up close to SSD size), were noted to have limited Navcomputers in order to comply with Republic requirements, limiting them to their assigned sector. This restriction essentially made it impossible for the owning government to use it as an offensive weapon, which was the whole point.

Anyway, I have to at least partly agree with the general theme Joker 2 put out - that the G.A.R.'s design was extremely money, labor and time heavy. Nearly every ship or item in the GAR armory is listed as a hanger queen, needing excessive maintenance, or being excessively difficult to maintain. The entire GAR was a disposable army - it was never meant to last longer then it took to win the war. The ISDs and Imperial craft, by comparison, are almost all described as being very easy or low maintenance. These units are designed to be operational along galactic timescales.

Kuat's Mandator & Mandator II Class Star Dreadnoughts (which were all much, much bigger than a ISD, running up close to SSD size), were noted to have limited Navcomputers in order to comply with Republic requirements, limiting them to their assigned sector. This restriction essentially made it impossible for the owning government to use it as an offensive weapon, which was the whole point.

Anyway, I have to at least partly agree with the general theme Joker 2 put out - that the G.A.R.'s design was extremely money, labor and time heavy. Nearly every ship or item in the GAR armory is listed as a hanger queen, needing excessive maintenance, or being excessively difficult to maintain. The entire GAR was a disposable army - it was never meant to last longer then it took to win the war. The ISDs and Imperial craft, by comparison, are almost all described as being very easy or low maintenance. These units are designed to be operational along galactic timescales.

That makes sense. Between the fighter itself using tech and weapon systems that were more difficult to manufacture but the fighters themselves took specialized training to use effectively. In addition, there's the cost of replacements fighters as well as numbers. While it might be a superior fighter, those fighters would be outnumbered.

Interesting.

Kuat's Mandator & Mandator II Class Star Dreadnoughts (which were all much, much bigger than a ISD, running up close to SSD size), were noted to have limited Navcomputers in order to comply with Republic requirements, limiting them to their assigned sector. This restriction essentially made it impossible for the owning government to use it as an offensive weapon, which was the whole point.

Anyway, I have to at least partly agree with the general theme Joker 2 put out - that the G.A.R.'s design was extremely money, labor and time heavy. Nearly every ship or item in the GAR armory is listed as a hanger queen, needing excessive maintenance, or being excessively difficult to maintain. The entire GAR was a disposable army - it was never meant to last longer then it took to win the war. The ISDs and Imperial craft, by comparison, are almost all described as being very easy or low maintenance. These units are designed to be operational along galactic timescales.

It wasn't the navcomputer that was restricted but they were only supposed to have charts for the sector that they were based in. Once the wars started they received charts for other sectors and the Mandator-IIs were built with much faster hyperdrives.