So to defend the Star Destroyers they built an AA escort. Makes sense. They made it with a top speed of 20 unable to keep up with the fighters. Ok not good but a capital ship unable to run down a fighter is understandable. However with the SD's having a speed of 60 you have made an AA escort that can't keep up with the ship it's intended to escort. Brilliant.

The Lancer is a perfect example of a ship that could have been devastating if the design board had spent those three extra braincells and five extra seconds to see the GIANT GAPING FLAW in the basic design.

One of the reasons Thrawn had success with Lancers was that he forced the rebels to defend a fixed loaction (a planet) which removed many of the disadvantage of being slow

The Lancer doesn't get enough love because it would single-handedly wreck all of the dramatic "Wedge/Tycho swoops in and makes a strafing run and blows up the Big Bad Ship" scenes that happened over and over again in the EU.

Say it with me now; design by committee. Multiple engineers were throttled when Vader first encountered one of these things. I'm sure of it.

well in fact in SW, the Empire ships have an astonishing numbers of crew because it's the Empire method to fight against unemployment, in short "just join the navy, we have all the work needed" so they didn't need much of automisation contrary to the rebels

I love the dorsal sensor array that loses probably 10 degrees of visibility simply because of where it's placed. Gods bless you, Star Wars ship designers. Never change.

Based off what I know, the Lancer is an excellent ship when used properly in its intended supporting role, protecting larger capital ships from rebellion fighters. However, the empire failed to deploy them in significant numbers, and frequently would send lancers on their own to backwater planets, where they would be vulnerable to rebel attacks. Also have you considered potentially making a video about tie fighters and their pilots? :) Edit: holy shit I did not know how slow this thing was nevermind

This is the part where, when your DM picks up a copy of the Starships of the Galaxy from Saga Edition and starts laughing like a supervillain after reading the part about modifying ships, you run and hide. =^x^=

I remember reading that in the Star Wars universe space I’m not actually empty. There is a ethereal “mater” spread through space. Ships at least in leagues had something called a etheric Rubber to maneuver.

As I see it, it has the same problem the flower class frigates/sloops had; they were built on a rush of "we need cheap, fast to build escort ships right now, and we will take the first design that comes as a stopgap", and the result was that submarines actually just surfaced and outran them, and in theory could also just outgun them in some fights; so the flowers ended up used like the lancers, an escort that did not chase atttackers, just accompanied the other vessels and made a deterrent against what it was suposed to defend against, in the case of the flower, that freed faster destroyers to go chase the subs freely, and not worry about the convoys, as the flowers would stay with them, I guess the idea was the same for the empire, just put the lancers as a barrier between the capital ships and fighters, and send all fighters to chase down enemy fighters, with the bonus that if you had systems where you were shure the rebellion had only fighter sized ships (or could only raid there with fighter sized ships) you did not have to send carriers there or have a fighter station, a simple patrolling/escorting lancer will be deterrent enough.

I always assumed that star wars engines have a "grap onto the fabric of the universe and pull" style engine. Thus giving them the ability to turn like a air craft in air or space, but the speed the engine can pull gives it a practical top speed. Though this is based off of seeing one cut away of a hover car engine from the prequel movies.

The irony that the Venator and the Imperial each filled the niches that the other needed will never not be funny. Venator doesn't have big enough guns to take on a CIS dreadnought, and the Imperial doesn't have enough fighters to screen against raids.

They'd be a lot better if they had an opportunity to park themselves near a static high value target. A couple of them at the base in Rogue One likely would have stopped blue squadron from getting into the shield.

Wait, wait, the Nova was 1500m long? Seriously? **checks** Holy crap. I didn't realize just how *big* the Novas and Omegas are. That's ISD size.

I'm wondering how often Lancers got sent to hit a planet with theoretically pure fighter defense & tripped over a tantive 4 type blockade runner or a hammerhead hanging around for some reason.

Lancers are some of my favorite expanded universe ships, always have been. Right up there with Dreadnaughts! But this new information troubles me. Lancers deserved better.

The Lancer sounds like a great craft for a defensive position. For example, set up a group of them in front of your Star Destroyer formation and absolutely wipe out the first wave of the enemy fighters, then advance with the Star Destroyers attacking the enemy cruisers, while the Lancers are covering their backs. That said... What the Empire really needed, is a better fighter. Much as I love the iconic design of the TIE.

They're listing lazily to the left, our only weakness! Did you at least jam them? We only have jelly? Nevermind, different universe, different fruit spread.

Meanwhile, I submit for consideration, the Corellian DP20 frigate. Commonly known as the Corellian Gunship. About half the length, with 14 laser emplacements to the Lancer's twenty. Eight double turbolaser cannons, six quad laser cannons, and as a bonus, four concussion missile tubes with a total of 120 concussion missiles. The DP20 goes 75 mglt to the lancer's 20 mglt, so it can keep pace with not only the ships, but with various bombers. You get four of these to match two escorting Lancers and you have effectively a superior force composition. Imagine the crossfire from four of these keeping formation, and the nightmare of having to make your way through that AND 480 concussion missiles.

I wonder how these would work in conjunction with Tractor Beam vessels and Interdictor Cruisers as defense for them.

To be fair to the Star Destroyers, the Imperial-1 class actually had good point defense. For whatever reason, the Imperial-2 class had no point defense whatsoever.

"You had to keep track of the designers designing your ideas because they quickly go way of the reservation." I concur; I am a designer. 😁

ork sees a nova class ship get spit out by the warp one day, sheeds a single tear then goes, "needs more dakka"

I get the feeling the designers were thinking of something like a WWII anti-aircraft cruiser... only _those_ had medium caliber, medium range guns to start the party, and anything that got close got a facefull of 40mm. These things onyl have the 40mm... and Starfighters can zoom around them and go for the fat targets...

The Lancer was originally one of the fastest ships of the time, if I remember correctly. Then some author made it slow and bad because “star destroyer should be better”. So… good job Star Wars. (this is all from something I heard like years ago, so I might be wrong about a few details, but you get the gist) Edit: I found the video I heard it from, if you’re interested it’s by EckhartsLadder

For the expense and crewing, you could just employ 10 Millennium falcon sized craft that would FIT in a Star Destroyer. Buff them up with deflectors and two quad cannons apiece (like a corvette sized vehicle) and there ya go. They could also do double duty as surface to starship transports and scout vehicles.

LOL. This ship would be known for being a slow brick, but then imagine some smart outfit gets a hold of it, disguises it and ends up with a Q-Ship, maybe even straps some better engines. Then it just cruises into a dock or something and pops off the strapped on disguise and pewpew boomboom. I think something similar happened in the Expanse books or some other sci fi books I've read in recent years.

Can you talk about the Ton-Falk, the Empire's other "Oh, we need anti fighter ships now!" vessel?

The Imperial Star Destroyer had 37,000 crew, PLUS all the pilots and troops carried on board. So the crew of the Lancer isn't too far out of line - that is, hideously overcrewed. This seems to be a theme on Imperial ships, .which leads me to believe that Imperial ships are nowhere near as automated as they could be for... reasons. 😅

The Lancer really isn't heavily armed enough on top of being too slow to even keep up with VSDs and ISDs. The close in weapons systems of the quad laser turrets are impressive, but it really needs long and intermediate range weapons, and something that'll let it actually land hits on similarly sized light vessels. Add some large scale laser cannons and concussion missile launcher systems and you'd have a much more capable warship.

One thing that's funny about the Lancer is the photon torpedoes that the rebel star fighters used, aka the weapon the rebel alliance uses to kill capitol ships out ranges the Lancer weapon systems. So it can't even effectively protect itself from fighters.

On the topic of future tech and automation, Star Wars is a setting where automating turrets is rare, and sub-optimal in most cases. There is very little automation beyond just having droids do the work.

Once again showing that if everyone just used ships from the Babylon-5 universe, everything would be so much better! I mean, imagine the Trench Run from the original film if the Rebels were using Starfuries and Nova-Class destroyers. "Lieutenant, target all turbolasers on that...what is that anyway?" "I'm not sure Governor - it appears to be a collection of large guns welded onto an engine of some kind, and it's been accelerating since it dropped out of hyperspace, it doesn't appear to know what a speed-limit is!?" "The Force is strong with this one...I have you now young...WUT! He's facing backwards but still going forwards!? That's not faiAAAHHHH!" Boom.

I recently run across a video about the Blackburn B-25 Roc which has all the same problems. A turret fighter that has all the guns you want. But the turret only covers the rear and side, and it's not fast enough to stay ahead of enemy fighters. It had ONE confirmed kill in WW2. When they scrapped the plane, they pulled the turrets and installed them on the ground for anti-aircraft use, where they were quite effective.

Someone at Kuat sabotaged the Lancer's plans :) The Empire didn't notice that the engines weren't up to spec for the job.

The Lancer class is a Flak Tower in SPACE. And I swear somewhere it was said that Lancers used the Tie Bomber lasers but eh

It's like they took a hull that had already been built for a different purpose and shoehorned the AAA part of it into it.

my understanding is the speed thing was producers notes to the special effects teams doing the filming and composting work for the space battles, and wasn't meant to be taken literally, so much as a guide so they knew what each ship could and could not do. later writers and creators took said notes more literally, and when it came to bringing legends materials like the lancer in, they didn't bother cross referencing it with the other ships they'd done. sadly most of these values carried over when the new canon materials came out too. the lancer was a West end Games creation for their old star wars RPG, and the WEG stats for star destroyers in the 1989 Imperial sourcebook had them as sublight 3D, and the Lancer as sublight 2D, with the #D value not representing actualy speed values but rather the # of dice you rolled when determining if you would overhaul/catch up to another vessel. so an ISD in a race agaisnt a lancer, the lancer is rolling 2D6 against the ISD's 3D6. a Y-wing was 3D+2, an Xwing was 4D. so while the Lancer was effectively slower than the fighters it was designed to fight, it wasn't all that much slower than the ISD it was meant to escort. how that became "3x slower than the ship it was meant to escort" when it got ported over to the MGLT scale i have no idea. but i suspect someone looked at a WEG book, saw "2D", didn't realize it was a game mechanic entry, misread it as "20" and just put that down without checking what they'd listed the ISD as. thankfully in the current Canon, the empire relies more on the Raider class Corvette (canonized in the battlefront II game) which fills the same role but has speed and mobility greater than a ISD. (just a third the guns of the lancer.. but its also a third the size of the lancer) the lancer is canonized in some novels, but with the Raider taking up most of the anti-fighter escort role, we can safely shunt it off to being an escort meant for slow moving freighters rather than something meant to keep up with an ISD and Arquitens battleline.

Well if this is like an inverted space DG1000 (which POGO did a wonderful breakdown of IMO - Tin Can Destroyer or something it is called) I would love to see an LCS equivalent episode.

The rebels sure are lucky Thrawn is the only imperial admiral who knows basic mixed fleet tactics and how tonproperly use multi roll ships. If the empire had more than 1 guy with brains this ship could have crushed the rebels hit and run attacks easily

I looked up the Zumwalt... what little I read seemed to indicate they had very high expectations for it, then decided (repeatedly) to go with cheaper systems instead. It also doesn't help that only about a third of the technologies it was to be built with were fully ready.

"because Empire dumb" sums up half of the plot points in Star Wars.

"...still getting pwned..." Thank you for that whiplash-level flashback. Where did I put the 'u mad bro' trollface...

The Lancer is so slow that the ISD has to slow down for it to keep up.

You should check out the Tartan Patrol Cruiser. It was a formidable escort ship that could tear through fighters, but it was never really loved by the Imperial Navy because "Meeh, its too expeeeensive per unit and it's not MAAAASSIVE." Also the Tarkin doctrine made sensible fleet composition a no go, so that further pushed the Tartan into obscurity.

The only ways i can think of (and by "i " i mean my roommate Harry ofcourse) a maximum speed in space travel is the structural integrity of the vessel on turning or the energy deflector shielding not creeping up.

I still think at least on of the Zumwalt warships should have been named 'The Sword of the Sea'. :D

The problem of the Lancer is not that it cannot keep up with fighters. It's that it cannot keep up with the capital ships it was meant to escort. Assuming that it could keep up with the capital ships, the next question is: was it cost-effective enough to justify building enough Lancers to form an effective picket ring around the capital ships. On that, it probably was. So I agree: sacrifice a bit of fire power to ensure the ship can keep up with the capital ships it was meant to escort and the empire might have had more success. In all honesty however, it would probably have required reducing the number of capital ships and the size of the second Death Star in order to have the resources necessary to build enough Lancers to make a real difference.

Regarding the speed chart at 6:20 - It's been a long time since I played the game, so my memory might be slightly off, but in the original X-Wing game (1993), Y-Wing had a nominal top speed of 80 MGLT, while the X-Wing was 100 MGLT. Basically, the X-Wing game and the X-Wing fighter set the baseline for MGLT of everything in the Star Wars universe with everything else being measured relative to the X-Wing. The Y-Wing was clearly less maneuverable than the X-Wing, but could take nearly twice as many hits as the X-Wing (to include armor hits after the shields got knocked down). I believe the A-Wing was also lower than the charts at 125 MGLT, and the B-Wing (which came along in the 2nd game expansion) was either 5 MGLT higher or lower than the Y-Wing (I can't remember which, someone feel free to correct me). Now, all of these speeds could be "boosted" if you sacrificed gun and/or shield charging, with a boost of up to 25 MGLT, IIRC. I've still yet to play the follow up games (TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE, X-Wing Alliance) so I can't speak for any changes made in those games or "official" MGLT numbers on the empire vehicles, but the TIE Interceptor was in-between the X-Wing and A-Wing, while the TIE Advanced x2 (only made a bare few appearances in X-Wing) was a pain to chase down, even in the A-Wing.

Lancer class Frigates exist in StarWars lore to specifically tell a story about resource misalocations and poor designs. First the lack of point-defence on every large Imperial ship which the movies clearly showed. Then book and game creators wanted to make the Empire to show some adaptability and more variety, thus the Lancer, but they needed to have the Empire still lose, so crippling mis-use and shortcomings to make Thrawn look good. But in games like StarWars Rebellion (the game your taking the small picture from), they are great when used properly by the player because they are your cheapest ship option behind Carrack which are are their foil (very fast vs weak vs fighters) and give you great operational coverage to blockade planets and can't be bullied by less then 3 Corvettes or Alliance Carriers which carry 6 squadrons of fighters each.

Lancer frigates were so effective and cool that even the First Order would use them.

Similar principal to the Atlanta-class Light Cruisers. Personally I don't see an issue with the concept, the problem was how the empire used it. It needed to be used as a close-in anti-fighter escort for the Star Destroyers, but wasn't. Not a big surprise that it isn't much use outside the close-in anti-fighter escort role.

5:11 As an Empire at War player, this rant feels right at home. Speaking of, the Tartan-class patrol cruiser is basically the Lancer except it has less laser cannon firepower, but in exchange is MUCH faster and still quite capable of defending star destroyers against fighter and bomber attacks.

In the old EU, the Lancer-class Frigates captured by the New Republic would routinely get engine upgrades. I can't remember which New Jedi Order novel stated this, but of course, one of the things they could do--actually pretty well--was escort the Nebula-class and Republic-class star destroyers. Not only that, but the New Republic liked the design so much that they essentially knocked it off--again thanks to the NJO novelists--as the Ranger-class Gunship, which is basically described as having a slightly different laser cannon layout (single laser cannon emplacements in the dozens) and, of course, being much faster, and oh yeah, even Han Solo basically fanboys out over one in Vector Prime. I think people took a look at the Lancer, realized that if not for the speed, it actually would be pretty good, figured "oh, well, the New Republic must have some considerably better design", realized they didn't (well...sort of...there was the Corellian DP-20 Gunship, but it cost a disproportionate amount of money to build because Corellian Engineering Corporation was, depending on your source, license-building too many expensive parts or the shields were so heavy that the shield generators cost some ridiculous amount), and I think they realized "okay, so we've been nerfing this thing's engines for plot armor and forgot how good it looked with a few tweaks", which led to the Ranger-class.

I think I know why starships have top speeds. I worked it out once during a discussion re: Serenity. It's long and complicated and involves relativity vs engine power/thrust.

They where meant to form up as a Point Defense Screen for the ISD's as part of a layered pattern, Outer Shell was to be the TIE's, Inner Shell was to be the Lancers with the ISD with its own meager Point Defense in the Core. only thing is to do it's job the Lancer had to block notable sections of the ISD's Arcs of Fire, when they moved out of formation to open those arcs of fire up fully again it left gaping holes in the ISD's Point Defense Screen that let fighters slip through.

Maybe someone high in the hierarchy put their child in charge of the design, and this is the result. No one questioned it because they did not want to get fired.

It'll probably be a couple weeks yet before you can make and release a video on it, but I'm curious about your take on the Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser from episode 11 of Andor.

The Lancer being slower than an ISD is an example of sourcebook shenanigans. In the first x-wing book it’s described as being able to outrun Y-Wings which are sourced at a speed of 80 megalights. The lancer is described in sourcebooks as having a speed of 20 megalights. The Lancer should have a speed of over 80 megalights which makes it faster than the ISD which is sourced as having a speed of 60.

I really want to see SCS do a vid reacting to the shit that Thrawn does in his books.

It makes sense if you are doing proper fleet tactics where these vessels are the screening vessels protecting the larger vessels in the center. But it's lack of speed is still stupid.

Yup. He's definitely a Navy guy. He's asking for forgiveness after the fact, rather than asking for permission.

According to the old canon at least, the space in the Star Wars universe isn't empty vacuum, but aether: it has resistance that limits the way objects can move. Not the best excuse to make space battles similar to naval and air battles, but not bad either.

Strip out half the turrets, spinal mount a cluster of fore tubes and put the stripped out turrets on a SD. Do a department ratio of 2 Landed PiPs to one SD upgrade

The lancer is more of a mobile laser cannon battery.

Should be reclassed as an LST (Large Slow moving Target).

remember dockmaster... ships are often designed by those folks who were never sailors

If you want this thing outclassed: Carrack-Class Cruiser! Can deal with fighters and can also engage captical ships (and if you have several (3 and more)? Yeah, even a Mon-Cal-Cruiser can't take them on!)

Although I do agree that it has a woefully anemic top speed. For an escort vessel, what matters is that it can keep up with the vessel its escorting and cover the weaknesses of that vessel. Where it appears the design failed was that it was outranged, not outpaced. Which confuses me considering that they must have anti-aircraft laser batteries with longer range than a fighter considering the power plants that must be inside of these lancer class escorts. Appreciate everything you do sir!

I've got two more ships from the Empire for you to review. The Imperial Storm Commando Escort Carrier and the TIE Hunter, both from Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike. They're both rather versatile and agile; not as obvious as a Star Destroyer bearing down on you, but they can just be as deadly. The Storm Commandos' Escort Carriers carry TIE fighters and black-ops squads of Storm Commando units, they can maneuver well, have a decent amount of shielding, and they have powerful turbolaser cannons and laser cannons for defense and offense. A volley from these cannons can blow away a Rebel transport in one go, so it's not like these ships are lacking in firepower. The TIE Hunter has laser cannons, proton torpedoes, and ion cannons, as well as a hyperdrive and energy shields, and are also flown by the Storm Commandos for elite, black-ops missions. Their ion cannons can disable the shields of the cruisers and frigates used by the rebels, not to mention help them capture enemy starfighters, while their proton torpedoes can blow through capital ship armor and cause some really heavy damage. They're both perfect for hit-and-run attacks against rebel scum, which is ironic, since rebels usually gear themselves up to fight Imperials who attack them head-on, not Imperials who show up out of the blue and raid them. The Storm Commandos are typically good at screwing with the rebels because they use the rebels' own tactics against them.

In all fairness the original ISD I did have a point defence system on it. For some reason the Empire dropped it on the ISD IIs.

Always a pleasure to see a new vid from the Dockmaster!!!

I would buy a bumper sticker that said "We asked, 'Can we get rid of the stupid?' and then did."

This is what I call Burracracy development, the burracrates look at it an think oh this sounds like a good idea but then don't check with the people who would actually use it to see if it will fit their needs. A great example is the US Army Universal Camouflage Pattern, in theory and lab tests is works fine but in field the camo made you easier to spot!

Starwars loves it's slow ships. It'd stand no chance against an organised fighter squadron ironically.

This thing might have had a role in convoy defense. If we assume the rebels were targeting Imperial shipping with their usual hit and run style of fighter attacks then assigning a Lancer or two to each convoy would free up larger and more important ships. I don't think the Empire ever actually used them that way but I could see the idea.

The thing with a top speed in space is its everywhere in media from TV series to movies to games. Everyone puts a top speed on ships where the ship for some magical reason just can not accelerate any faster. Production wise, this is probably due to a lack of understanding of how actual space works, so the people making the decision as working off their limited knowledge of terrestrial physics where vehicles do have a point where they just simply cant accelerate any faster due to air resistance and gravity and other factors.

Really wish they'd use more ship designs like this for the Republic/Empire instead of the countless triangle Star Destroyer designs

Grand admiral Thron, the only person is all of the Empires military who is actual competent, he makes Vader look like a bumbling fool

Nebulon B Frigate (seen as the medical frigate in the movies) is interesting too... engines and power supply in the butt... and command and stuffs in the nose... and a long thin skinny neck bit to neatly slice the ship in half!

They needed some laser based 5"/38s. Throw some Star Wars Mk 51 Directors in there, just for giggles.

7:41 had they really wanted to make a threat to the fighters of the Rebel Alliance they would have mounted a boat-ton of torpedo and missile launch tubes. These would have been far more effective than quad cannons.

It's academic anyways since the Imperial navy never deployed enough Lancer class frigates to even make enough use of them, anyways.

2:52 invert it and paint it pink. instantly its the most powerful shape

So it sounds like it was the Empire's equivalent of an Atlanta-class cruiser. Also the speed rating can be handwaved as the max the onboard inertial dampeners can handle, or the fastest it can move without tearing the ship apart on maneuvers.

What about the littoral class ships that are being scrapped without actually being used at all due to the designer having no idea what sea water in coastal areas contains

I have to go back through your videos to see if you've done the ships from Space Above And Beyond. Also, Project Orion. Specifically the Archangel Michael version from Niven's Footfall.

Rogue One introduced a piece of lore that explains why the Death Star has such a fatal flaw. Now, I believe that rebel agents or sympathisers are responsible for any design flaw in the Empire's inventory, tactics and strategy that shouldn't exist or be ignored for far long. Aside from bureaucratic corruption the Empire was rife with rebel agents throwing monkey wrenches in every possible project. Perhaps there's a secret cabal of pro-rebel/anti-Empire engineers who actively prevented the Lancer frigates from getting any engine upgrades.

Pre-Disney Lucas Arts isn't exactly known for its consistency of design, timeline, or mathematical ability.

Goes to show that idiots abound not only in our universe, but in others as well, including fictional ones.

Credit for knowing about the Zumwalt class cruisers!!!

At the beginning of WW2 the British had some horribly slow tanks and that was considered ok since they where not supposed to outrun the infantry. That becomes a problem when the infantry boards a truck and drive away from their armour support. The thought process may have been similar for the Galactic Empire. The Lancers, supposed to support the Star Destroyers are not belived to need to be faster then they would need to passively escort them. Still if THAT was all they where supposed to do they could just as well installed all those extra point defense guns on the Star Destroyers and not bother with the Lancers at all.

11:56 Oh look, a shit ton of guns with parts of tankls attached to them...

It should also be noted that Lancers do not JUST have lots of guns, they have the most sophisticated centralized computerized fire-control systems the Empire ever developed, with high predictive ability of where fighters would go they would fire dozens of guns and absolutly saturate a small area of space and take out shielded rebel fighters with one barage. They were basically impossible to dodge as every target within it's range were systematically eliminated. This made them terrifying to Rebel pilots as your skills are useless.

They seem a bit like a Klingon Battle Cruiser... in that they are much more effective in groups of at least 3. Their small complement of fighter defenses in more effective that way, and they can cover each other to a degree. As for the throw torpedoes at it angle, well they may be slow but it's not impossible to shoot missiles down in Star Wars. or even enter a system and immediately calculate your exit vector and make a 1 second jump if someone shoots at you with missile. Strike and fade is a Rebel technique that can apply to a small frigate like these too. I think their best use is to defend Imperial ground bases, and to play lamprey to Star Destroyers. But they just don't do that much so they end up being something the Empire can show up with as a modest threat without everyone wetting themselves when even a Light Star Destroyer shows up.

The ship was a rush job.. It was meant to stay close to it's capital ship, as it had no guns capable of harming another capital ship. It could easily have been replaced with several smaller ships that wouldn't have been such slow easy targets. Hell modifying the star destroyer to carry a squadron of skipray blastboats would have been cheaper and more effective (and the skipray could hurt capital ships)

I kind of have to wonder if someone came across the "Atlanta" class from WW2 and thought they were cool, but didn't know *how* and *why* they were cool, so they made a really bad knockoff.

The Empire do have some issues with their fleet doctrine, and well most of their military, but that seems to be a recurring issue in that galaxy... Maybe the Force messes with their minds? Anyway, here is another couple of ships you might find either interesting or seizure inducing, the "Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser" and it's Mandalorian ancestor the "Kandosii-type dreadnaught". Also best of luck in the future.

Pentagon Wars: The Empire Edition. “We need anti-small craft capability.” “Okay, we can upgrade the Twin Ion Engine POS.” “Nah, Vader likes the way it complements his helmet. Make something bigger.” “Okay, how about an anti-fighter cruiser?” “Too big…use a smaller hull.” “A frigate, then?” “Sure, now give it all the guns.” “All the guns?” “ALL THE GUNS.” “So, do you want automated targeting?” “No, we need something for the Stormtrooper washouts to do.” “But..but…they can’t hit anything if they don’t wash out.” “Doesn’t matter. Want fingers on triggers.” “Ummm…you do realize that we need accommodations and life support for the morons attached to those fingers…” “Don’t care. Manual Dakka rox.” “Ummm…the current power plant and engine configuration doesn’t provide sufficient delta-V to maneuver against fighters…” “Are you asking to be sent to Kessel or be put on compactor detail? It only needs to keep up with the Star Destroyers.” “Okay, so you are really asking for a slow accommodation ship with a nice light show.” “Yes. Here are your transfer papers. Enjoy the strangley thing in the trash.”