Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD
Also my belief is quality > quantity. Harrower-class dreadnought is designed in such a manner that it makes rapid deployment of its Starfighter squadron possible and the starship itself can deliver firepower in very effective fashion.
The Vong ship has better quality, though... it has superior fighters... the larger one is just all-around stronger..
Mark VI Supremacy-class Starfighter wasn't shield-less but was designed to trade-off protection with speed, mobility and firepower. A squadron of this starfighter would be deadly to anything in a swarm, as it was intended to be as per the doctrine behind its design.
Except they're outnumbered and it took late-model X-wings, preferably with special modifications, to match Coralskippers.
Harrower-class dreadnought also had a fleet of 32 bombers designed to inflict mass-scale devastation. These bombers packed so much firepower that they were used to bombard even planet landscapes to level cities, do the math.
Coralskippers are effective against capital ships, and 32 is a pretty small number that are unlikely to make it through fighter screens / interception.
And Harrower-class dreadnought would do nothing but relax, right?
No, they can try and close, but that just makes it a chase while the carrier's fighters eat away at both the Harrower's fighters and the Harrower itself.
Bro, size does not matters much in the context of technology. Design and efficiency is more important then size, always had been.
It very much matters. A Victory and Imperial are just as efficient, but one's stronger because it's bigger. A Nebula B is highly efficient, but much weaker than a Victory.
I don't know why you think size doesn't matter, it very much matters, larger ships usually have the edge in SW, with even the exceptions not being that far off (Mon Cals are more efficient than ISDs and thus a close match despite being moderately smaller... but they aren't *that* much smaller)
Nor, mind you, is there any evidence that the Harrower has an efficiency edge.
Harrower-class dreadnoughts were designed to be super-efficient and deliver firepower in most effective ways possible, they were a (major) leap in every aspect of starship design and capability in comparison to every other starship design of their era.
Sure, and Vong cruisers fought evenly against larger ships that had every one of those advances included (ISDs).
If they're an even match for an ISD, they're superior to a Harrower.
However, progress in protection level, energy output, design, efficiency and firepower is virtually non-existent or minimum.
True, the difference is slight until the post-OT era (when some advantages do happen. Legacy manages to improve Turbolasers)... however, that still leaves the issue of similar efficiency on larger ships.
Vong ships are not comparable to OT-era Imperial Star Destroyers at technical level, they have vastly different ground realities and protective and offensive principles.
Different realities, similar practical effect.
Vong ships are primitive ancient vessels, lack in technological sophistication.
In that they possess no non-biological technology at all... however, in biological technology they are incredibly sophisticated organisms.
They are by no means primitive, they are equally advanced in a different way.
Vong ships had no concept of proper shielding either, Doval Basins in them used to produce artificial blackhole like manifestations for defensive purposes of those ships.
Which has both advantages and disadvantages over shielding- indeed, early in the war they were more advantageous than not, and only later on were the effects more even.
Vong were dangerous and made progress because their ground realities were not understood well at the time of invasion but situation changed once their ground realities became apparent and Vong were utterly crushed afterwards.
I think you're misremembering things. The Vong continued to inflict heavy losses even late in the war, their fleets were by no-means crushed, but the galaxy had geared up more and more and had the number's advantage increasingly in the Alliance's side. But the fights were brutal and at no point did their ships become easy picking, they just no longer had the initial edge that unfamiliarity gave them.
In the end, their fleets were not even destroyed in fighting, but rather they signed a treaty, got rid of their fleet, and moved off on a living planet.
Have you read the Essential Guide to War? It goes over the war in a lot of strategic detail.
That would be more due to ineptness in decision-making on part of Sith then lack of capability of the starships.
Ships commanding by Malgus, and simply due to getting the drop on them.
If one Harrower is such a fleet buster, even the element of surprise shouldn't matter than much, especially
Doesn't matters. Harrower could eliminate disparity and even achieve supremacy with superior firepower (e.g. Doombringer and Desolator).
Problem: Those fancy weapons? According to their inventor, Darth Mehkis, without a Sun Razer those normally take a decade to make.
So yea, you *can* make a Harrower massively powerful, but only by making it cost as much as fleets to begin with.
The option is either have large fleets of outmatched Harrowers... or a tiny few Silencer-equipped Harrowers that are massively outnumbered.
Going toe-to-toe is not a big deal. Inferior Republic starships had performed really well against superior odds in various battles. Decision-making, quantity and coordination also makes difference in engagements.
Sure, but the Vong are good at that too.
Going toe-to-toe certainly helps.
So everybody looses due to logistics according to you? This is not the case.
Not everyone, but it is the number one reason wars are won and lost.
The Vong lost due to logistics. The CIS lost due to logistics.
The Mandalorian's assaults in the Mandalorian war badly stalled due to logistics.
The TOR Sith Empire had a similar problem with their initial conquests and the need for their logistics to catch up with their conquests.
The Old Sith Empire pretty much never had a chance against the Republic militarily because it's logistics base was so much smaller, they were entirely dependent on the Sith pulling something on the force to win (and even Naga Sadow's ability in his meditation sphere to make a star blow up and do mass battlefield illusions turned out to not be near enough! Once he was countered, they were crushed).
At the end of the day, if you have good commanders and good ships and superior numbers/ability to replace numbers, you have a very significant edge.
And similarly, if you have good commanders and good ships, but pressing too hard costs you too many ships and makes you stop and gives your opponent time to counterattack, winning is a *much* more uphill battle. It can be done, but it's certainly harder.
Losses in wars puts the real dent on the war machine of any civilization, specially if resources are limited.Logistics is not much of a problem for a civilization which can deploy resources at any time and in any part of the galaxy using hyperspace travelling procedures.
Ah, but it is. Hyperspace routes are still limited (some are much faster than others, some areas can be slow), and ship-capacity even more so.
Loses are very much relative to logistics. If one side wins a fight and loses 20 ships, and the other side loses and loses 25 ships, but the other side can build 25 in the time it takes the former to build 18, the 'loser' is winning.
This, btw, is a large part of why Grievous fled so much in TCW. As long as his fleet was intact, the war went on. But if too much of his fleet was destroyed at once, the CIS becomes vulnerable and the Republic crushes them. So it was in his best interests to flee rather than get into costly fights, even victorious ones- he'd lose by winning if he did.
Logistics wins wars. Read the Essential Guide to Warfare, which goes into the flow of most of the wars in SW. Not TOR (which was still too new at the time), but many of the others.