So when do we get the Hammerhead? How many should we get? =)

I realise I'm like, seven pages late to the part here, but...

As for the hammerhead corvette ramming and destroying the 2 ISD's, which some people defend. How would you think of the following scene in a pacific theatre WW-II movie:

A small US fleet engages the Yamato & Musashi guarding a port. After a lucky torpedo disables the Yamato's engines, a small US Destroyer rams the Yamato, then pushes the Yamato against the Musashi, causing the Musashi to be cut in two halves bow to stern after which both super heavy battleships sink. Would that make for a believable naval scene?

So what you're saying is, the ocean and the vacuum of space are exactly the same thing?

Why did we ever bother building rockets when we could just send Submarines to the moon! Someone get NASA on the phone, I've got to stop them wasting so much money!

How about this for a naval battle:

A small force with the element of surprise manages to sink many capital ships with relatively minor losses.

Like, if the ships were in a harbour of some kind. Like, something-something Pearl Harbour...

I realise I'm like, seven pages late to the part here, but...

So what you're saying is, the ocean and the vacuum of space are exactly the same thing?

Why did we ever bother building rockets when we could just send Submarines to the moon! Someone get NASA on the phone, I've got to stop them wasting so much money!

OUR space is being mistaken for STAR WARS Space.

Star Wars Space certainly has a different set of physics to it, which is visible in the films all the time.

Which makes the statement (and the consequent hyperbole) completely irrelevant.

Read David Weber's "Honor Harrington" and get back with me!

Capital ships would NEVER be that close to one another.

Heck, our modern day war planes hardly see each other when they are "engaged" let alone what a battle in space would really be like. (yes, I realize we are talking about a fictional universe.)

Read Honor Harrington!

Yea, well, the Empire doesn't have weapon ranges well into light-seconds. (well, the Superlaser can destroy a planet at six diameters) Weapon range is rather a factor when describing fleet maneuvers.

Mother of god.... don't make me chart where my target is going to be based on relativistic distances. My brain will crawl out my nose and strangle me with little Krang arms!

The Lost Fleet series has combat like that and how it's described is awesome and terrifying to my mind all at the same time. Which is ironic, because if a target near the sun get's shot by a ship in Earth orbit, my mind actually got blown 3 minutes ago and I just now realise it. Error, error....

As for the hammerhead corvette ramming and destroying the 2 ISD's, which some people defend. How would you think of the following scene in a pacific theatre WW-II movie:

A small US fleet engages the Yamato & Musashi guarding a port. After a lucky torpedo disables the Yamato's engines, a small US Destroyer rams the Yamato, then pushes the Yamato against the Musashi, causing the Musashi to be cut in two halves bow to stern after which both super heavy battleships sink. Would that make for a believable naval scene?

There are a few major issues with this comparison, but the largest and simplest is that the mechanics of this maneuver are very different at sea and in space.

On a seafaring deep draft ship like the IJN battleships listed above, the physical resistance of the ocean as well as the drag of the water would tremendously affect the ability to move the ship in any direction not directly forward or backward. On a related note, the mechanisms for turning the boat (primarily the rudder) are largely dependent on forward motion for the same reasons.

In space, despite the size, far less force is required since there is far less intervening matter to resist motion. We can safely assume that thrusters of some sort are already use to maneuver ships of any size, including Star Destroyers, and that those thrusters are likely far less powerful than a full-burn capital ship engine array for a small combat capital ship like the Hammerhead. This is no worse than a tugboat towing or tending a large cargo or even combat ship.

Combined with what we can reasonably assume to be some sort of forward momentum to keep pace with the orbiting shield station and the existing gravitational pull of Scarif, the Hammerhead assault ram and its effect is actually highly reasonable. It moves downward, sharply to the side, and with sufficient momentum to collide a disabled ship with an unprepared other ship of similar mass to the first at a location where armor has been compromised for gunnery emplacements. We also see that this requires the sacrifice of the existing ship and crew for a maneuver that could only be accomplished against a completely defenseless and disabled enemy craft.

...no wonder the Empire/First Order is desperately building Death Star after Death Star. These must be the most poorly designed ships ever. (and no, I'm not impressed with the twice as big First Order version either, with 1 Tie-fighter managing to destroy its main guns)

So I just saw the movie, and while generally I thought it was okey but not great (a meagre 7, if I were to rate it) one thing specifically disappointed me: the space battle.

For those not seen the movie but not caring about spoilers, the final part of the movie is the space battle where the Rebel fleet attacks a planetary shield gate in orbit of a planet, guarded by 2 Imperial Star Destroyers.

Those two Star Destroyers seem to do very little, except for launching fighters. A small squad of about 3-4 (surviving) Y-wings then disables one Star Destroyer entirely with a handful of ion bombs. It remains disabled for the rest of the battle.

In one rare starwars moment where Tie-fighters actually seem to do well, right after the orbital gate facility finally decides to launch its fighters (like halfway into the battle, did the station officers forget they had fighters in their hangar?) we see X-wings getting destroyed left and right, and the Tie-Fighters apparently do heavy damage to the Rebel fleet as it is announced shields are at half strength. The still functional Star Destroyer still doesn't do much on screen, but we can assume or at least hope it is firing on the rebel ships without destroying anything so far but some X-wings.

Then the Rebel admiral, a military mastermind of unequal magnitude, performs a masterstroke. He orders a tiny hammerhead corvette (which apparently is constructed as a battering ram) to ram the side of the disabled ISD. In a moment that defies non-starwars logic, the tiny corvette burrows itself into the side of the disabled 1.000 times heavier Star Destroyer taking pretty much no visible damage but ripping a sizeable chasm in the Star Destroyer's flank. (Hey its just like in Armada where a tiny corvette trades 1-1 damage to a rammed/ramming ISD!)

Then, in a moment that defies even starwars logic, the lodged hammerhead corvette activates its thrusters to push the disabled Star Destroyer against the still functional Star Destroyer hoovering next to it, causing the still functional Star Destroyer to be literally sliced in half....Yes this actually happens. Somehow.

Naturally the Imperial officers, engaged in a sampling of exotic teas, showed no iniatitive or even reaction until the collision was like 2 seconds away from happening.

Only when Vader hyperspace jumps his personal Star Destroyer in the middle of the Rebel fleet, at point plank range, and at the exact same time where they attempt to hyperspace out and thus don't fire back, we finally see a Star Destroyer that manages to destroy one or two small ships and by some miracle disables the already battered rebel capital ship, while allowing the other 20 or so ships to escape unharmed. In fact, with the Rebel fleet already having destroyed 2 Star Destroyers without loosing a single ship, judging by their track record if they hadn't hyperspaced out they would have been more than able to destroy Vader and his Star Destroyer.

We can draw several conclusion from this scene. Firstly, the Empire has not only skimped on expensive paint, which is why we are stuck with Imperial White for all our ships, apparently they also skimped on hull armour. Wat looks like hull plating is apparently only a mere centimeter thick unhardened iron purchased from Alihutta-express on last year's black friday. Yes it was listed as Durasteel, but at 1% of the price of real durasteel, did you really think it was legit?

Secondly, besides inheriting the british accent, imperial officers apparently have also inherited the British need for regular tea-time regardless of the circumstances. 15:00 is tea-time, mid-battle or not! Rebel scum.

The initial two ISD-Is were not shown to have any overall commander in charge(orson krennic was planetside) so they probably didn't receive any commander bonus. They didn't seem to close either so we probably can assume they fought at non-optimal long-med ranges. Devastator on the other hand, did a hyperspace assault into close range, and probably carrying gunnery teams and XX-9, with vader in charge could thus end all those half-beaten reb ships. We don't know if it came from another battle, if it did that would explain it's seemingly superior firepower from lack of defense tokens.

The Imperial Navy in Rogue One was an epic fail....I was very disappointed by their performance.

Star wars is space fantasy where fighters dogfight like atmospheric WW2 planes so using physics to argue for or against the ramming is relatively pointless.

Also, how can there be Jedi KNIGHTS in a REPUBLIC?

Also, how can there be Jedi KNIGHTS in a REPUBLIC?

Strictly speaking (), an aristocracy and a republican government are not mutually exclusive. The Roman Republic is perhaps the best historical example - the senatorial families certainly formed an aristocratic class.

But we can go one step further, and could imagine a feudal society - with the same sets of oaths of fealty that bound medieval knights to their Lord - that was governed by a Republican system.

For simplicity, let's consider a federal system of 50 hereditary baronies, each ruled by a baron with a number of lesser nobility underneath him, including a reasonable number of knights near the bottom.

Then, let the barons owe fealty to a Senate instead of a monarch. We could even mashes it bicameral if we like, with one house filed with baronial appointees and the other elected by the nobility of their states - ahem, baronies - as a whole. (The serfs, of course, would get no vote under such a system. We never claimed this was a good form of government, just that we could do it.) Now we have a feudal society, complete with knights, ruined by a republic.

(Since tone is hard to convey on the internet, take this post as a humorous response to a humorous initial post)

I DARE any of you to play an un modded two ISD-I, heavy tie fighter screen list without a fleet commander for the opening rounds against a rebel list that has initiative and consists of a:

MC80 (Only equivalent of an MC-75 we have now)

2X Nebulon B's

4x or 5x CR90's

several Brahatok gunships

several rebel transport flotillas

and numerous Bomber and fighter squadrons.

I loved the battle. A small battering ram ship pushed another and slices it in half. Looks cool. That's what I want to see. I want my pew pews in space, and I want crazy ships blowing up and smashing into other things making more booms.

I think the biggest thing that took me out of it was the explosions. Having seen large explosions close and from a distance, the shock wave and shrapnel travels much faster.

I DARE any of you to play an un modded two ISD-I, heavy tie fighter screen list without a fleet commander for the opening rounds against a rebel list that has initiative and consists of a:

MC80 (Only equivalent of an MC-75 we have now)

2X Nebulon B's

4x or 5x CR90's

several Brahatok gunships

several rebel transport flotillas

and numerous Bomber and fighter squadrons.

Plus you're not allowed to reveal any command dials for the first two turns.