[Edit]
General R&D (Some SSD's)
Vengeance-Class Super Star DestroyerLength: 5,700 Meters
Weaponary: 100 Heavy Turbolaser Batteries, 150 Heavy Turbolasers, 80 Ion Cannons, 80 Dual Laser Cannons, 60 Proton Warhead Launchers, 40 Tractor Beam Emplacements
Speed: 6 MGLT
Hull: 45,000 RU
Shields: 65,000 SBD
Hyperdrive: X2
Hyperdrive Backup: X12
Hanger: 12 Squadrons, 10 Assault Shuttles, Numerous Drop Ships/Landing Barges
Description: The Dominant-Class Star Destroyers are one of the few classes of vessel in the Imperial Navy that actually falls within the Super-Class range. The Dominant-class was designed to provide the Empire with a vessel capable of deploying and commanding multiple Battle-groups within a single sector. The Dominant-Class Star Destroyers were highly prized by the Imperial Starfleet, and were used to secure and hold strategic sectors within the Core Region. The Dominant-Class Star Destroyers carry six full Battle-groups, Four pre-fab Imperial Garrisons, Two full Starfighter Wings (a total of 144 starfighters), 10 Assault Shuttles, and a whole host of drop ships and landing barges for deployment of ground forces. Less than a dozen of these vessels were built before Endor, and it is unclear if any remained in service after the defeat of the Clone Emperor.
EDIT: Edited in descriptions and added Hyperdrive Backups...
Comments
#18 5:14pm 18/09/03
Taken from Star Wars Technical Comentaries, which I take as gospel on all Star Wars technecalities, so here ya go:
[b]Ratio of Executor to destroyer length[/b]
The Imperial Sourcebook from West End Games mistakenly claims that a Executor is merely five times the length of a star destroyer. (Note that this figure first appears in the original edition of A Guide to the STAR WARS Universe, which was published many years before the West End material. Therefore West End are not entirely to blame for the error.) The STAR WARS Sourcebook, also from West End Games, claims that the destroyer is 1.6km long, which would make the Executor-class ships only 8.0km long.
In recent publications such as the Official Star Wars Web Site and STAR WARS Incredible Cross-Sections, there has been a cautious revision of the Executor length statistic. The new statements claim that the ship is over eight times the length of a star destroyer; meaning a length that is greater than, and not less than, about 12.8km. The Behind the Magic CD-ROM inconsistently uses both the 8km and 12.8km figures. It also contains an [url="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/cg/btm/ssdisd.jpg"]illustration[/url] falsely presenting the Executor as being only a bit more than seven times the size of a destroyer. This illustration does not match the sizes of the bridge towers, nor the orientation of the vessels, so that the command ship is foreshortened.
The illustrations on this page are clear evidence that an Executor is in fact more like eleven times the length of an Imperator-class star destroyer. In the first picture above, the grand vessel clearly dwarfs the three attending star destroyers. Pay special attention to the destroyer which is in front of the Executor's docking bay opening. If the stern of the Executor is extrapolated to its proper extent beyond the left edge of the picture then the projected lengths of the two vessels can be measured and compared. One can then correct for the orientation of the ships to gain limits on the relative lengths. The most important thing is that the destroyer is closer to the viewer and therefore relatively "magnified" by the effect of perspective. It can thus be shown that the Executor is about 12.5 times the length of a destroyer. Given that both vessels are at a similar distance from camera in this shot, the destroyer will not be greatly magnified by perspective, and this length ratio must be close to the true value. The only qualification is that the destroyer is pointing in a slightly different direction; this may reduce the lower limit by up to about ten percent.
Similar constraints result from geometric study of other pictures taken from the films. For instance one of the shots of Lord Vader's fleet in the Anoat system gives a crude upper limit of 25 times the destroyer's length. Precise study of other shots yields length ratios which are consistently in the vicinity of 11 or 12. One of the most valuable sequences for this purpose is the encounter between the Executor and the personnel shuttle piloted by rebel commandos. These images contain two destroyers moving in formation with the Executor. The first is slightly closer to camera than the command ship. The distance of the second destroyer is unproven, but is further away, possibly off the Executor's stern, portside. Length ratios obtained for the escort ships are 10.62±0.02 and 11.15±0.02 respectively. Combining these constraints, the command ship's length must be somewhere between 10.60 and 11.17 times the destroyer length. This is a definitive measure of the true size of the Executor and is consistently supported by every relevent shot in both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The value of 5, expected from West End Games sources, is neverseen anywhere in the films.
The exquisitely-illustrated book based on an exhibition of the Lucasfilm Archives, From STAR WARS to Indiana Jones is in fairly good agreement with the calculated limits. Two pages are devoted to the Executor. On p.44 it says, in part:
... Executor, the flagship of Darth Vader, was conceived as eleven times the size of the original Star Destroyer of Star Wars. (For reference, the conning tower that rises from the Executor was supposed to be as big as the original Destroyer's conning tower.)
[b]Size of star destroyers[/b]
There is weak evidence that ordinary Imperator-class star destroyers are in fact a few miles long rather than exactly one mile. This notion is mentioned in the context of a discussion of the destroyer design in Stephen Sansweet's STAR WARS: From Concept to Screen to Collectible. It seems possible that the Lucasfilm artists working on the original film designed the ship to be five or six miles long. If so then this original intention takes precedence over the one-mile figure given in secondary references. The size of the destroyer is dealt with on pp.42-43 of the Sansweet's book. A caption to the illustration on p.43 is quite explicit:
The final version of the Star Destroyer, built in several different sizes, was meant in filmic terms to be about six miles long.
This implies that the Executor is at least 106km long.
On the other hand From STAR WARS to Indiana Jones, which gives the "eleven times" length figure for the Executor, supports the usual one-mile star destroyer theory.
These two conflicting references, which are both entirely based on the original Lucasfilm Archives sources, indicate an Executor length of 17.6km or 106km, depending on the true size of a star destroyer.
Independent calculations of the size of Lord Vader's star destroyer at the start of Return of the Jedi, based on the known width of the Lambda-class shuttle, gives a result of one mile to within the measurement uncertainties. (The result is 1.68±0.18 km.) Scale calculations based on the shots of the Millennium Falcon perched on the bridge tower of the star destroyer Avenger in The Empire Strikes Back also support the one-mile destroyer length.
[b]The horizon method[/b]
[center]
<a href="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/zs/rotj/execdive6.jpg">
<img src="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/zs/rotj/execdive6.jpg" alt="" width=320 height=141></a>
[/center]
It is theoretically possible to measure the length of the Executor by reference to the second Death Star. A careful examination of the curvature of the horizon of the Death Star in the scene where the Executor plunged to its doom should in principle produce the radius of the Death Star to the same scale. The absolute length of the ship could be determined assuming the true dimensions of the battle station.
In Return of the Jedi the diameter of the Endor moon is consistently 11.5±0.1 times that of the Death Star. This calculation can be accurately measured from the hologram in the rebel briefing, and from the whole-disk view of both bodies which was seen when the Rebel Alliance fleet emerged from hyperspace. To proceed from this point, it is necessary to know the absolute size of the moon.
The mass of the moon is loosely constrained by planetary physics. Too small a moon will not be able to hold a breathable atmosphere under the comfortable temperature conditions enjoyed by ewoks. The moon must therefore have a surface gravity which is a significant fraction of Earth's. At the same time, the Ewok hang-gliders would probably be unable to fly with exactly human-standard gravity (unless the atmospheric pressure at ground level is much greater than terrestrial conditions). Surface gravity of about 2/3 g seems reasonable; (it could only be stronger if the moon is endowed with a dense atmosphere; but the gravity cannot be much lower because of the atmosphere-loss constraint).
If the composition of the moon does not depart drastically from that of terrestrial planets in our solar system then the best solution for its size gives density of about 4.5 g/cm³ and a radius of about 5200±300km. This gives an approximate Death Star radius of about 450±26km. For further information read Death Stars.
It ought to be possible to fix the Executor's size by using this radius to scale the crash scene.
Unfortunately this elaborate method collapses in practice. The Death Star II's horizon curvature is so slight that tiny uncertainties in measurement lead to large uncertainties in results. Put bluntly, this technique is too imprecise. My own initial efforts with this technique produced values for the ratio of Executor length to Death Star radius varying from 0.038 up to about 0.18. The lowest horizon result for the Executor's size yields a length of 17±2km, which is in agreement with the length calculations based on a one-mile star destroyer length. Of course, the problem is that it is also too easy to obtain a very different kind of answer.
Even if it were not for this unreliability, the measurement is under fundamental doubt. The section of the battle station's surface seen near the point of collision was in fact produced from miniature model tiles laid on a flat horizontal surface. It is quite possible that the apparent curvature of the horizon is wholly illusory.
[b]Bridge tower comparisons[/b]
The absolute scale of the Executor can be determined by a careful examination of the bridge tower section, especially as it appears in Return of the Jedi. Several closeups of the front face of the command tower are seen in that film.
One key is that the distinctive triangular windows of the bridge are visible on the model which was used for these shots. The bridge structure is a slightly rounded bulge positioned symmetrically at a point which is about two-thirds of the height of the face of the command module. The absolute width of the bridge is approximately known from interior scenes. The absolute length of the bridge should be of the order of 15 - 20m. This can be used in conjunction with an [url="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/isd/tower1.gif"]image[/url] of the tower model and a measurement of the tower:ship size ratio to yield an absolute ship length.
Neglecting distortions of perspective and rotation in the primary photograph of the tower module, the bridge is one sixth of the width of one of the sensor globes. Correcting the orientation and perspective of the view shows that the bridge width is closer to a quarter of the globe diameter.
With this established, we must next determine the ratio of the globe diameter to the ship length. In most images this is imprecise because the globes are so tiny in comparison to the whole vessel. However in large broadside photographs can give fair results. Two independent broadside images give a ratio of ship length to globe diameter of 391.5 and 439.0 respectively. Because the ship length will appear shorter if the vessel is not perfectly perpendicular to the camera's line of sight, these two figures are lower limits.
Using crude corrections for the projection-shortening of the bridge on the tower face, the Executor's length generally turns out to be of the order of twenty or thirty kilometres. To obtain a length approaching five miles, the orientation of the conning-tower photograph would have to be over seventy degrees, which is disproven by even a casual inspection of the actual image. Even reducing the figure for the ship's length as low as 17.6km (11 miles) requires an angle of over fifty degrees, which stretches the bounds of credulity if we judge the image by eye.
A more precise value of the Executor's length can be obtained by determining the diameter of the sensor globe without reference to the bridge. Under the assumption that an Imperator is 1600m long, measuring pictures of the Devastator model determines the globe diameter as 41m with an uncertainty of about two percent. Depending on the perfection of the orientation of the Executor in the broadside images, this globe diameter yields minimum values for the total ship length of 16.2km and 18.1km. This is in good accord with the geometrical studies of star destroyers overlapping the Executor in the movies.
Thus an examination of the tower and bridge windows and scanner globes of the Executor yields an absolute length which is greater than or consistent with the 11-mile value indicated by other lines of evidence. For further information refer to Bridge Towers.
[url="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/chron/executor.jpg"][ The broadside yielding a SSD : globe ratio of 439 : 1. ] [/url]
[url="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/ssd/ssd4l.gif"][ The broadside yielding a SSD : globe ratio of 391.5 : 1. ] [/url]
[b]Model measurements[/b]
David West Reynolds has kindly taken some measurements of the actual Executor model. The total length of the model is 277.0cm and the command tower is 4.2cm wide. If we know the absolute width of the tower, we can then determine the absolute length of the ship.
The Imperator-class star destroyer has the same basic tower as the Executor. (The structure is probably a constant brand feature of all major warship designs from Kuat Drive Yards.) By examining the destroyer proportions, and assuming its well-established length (about one mile), we can determine the absolute tower width. Photographs in STAR WARS Chronicles and STAR WARS to Indiana Jones yield upper limits of 284m and 282m, an estimate of 267m and a lower limit of 245m. There may be some slight variance between the different models.
The true width of the tower is probably in the range of 265 - 270m. Therefore the Executor's length, based on the tower yardstick, is:
17.6±0.2km.
[b]Scaling conventions[/b]
Warship model kits are built to certain discrete conventional scales. Special effects artists like the modellers of Industrial Light & Magic adhere to these standards in order to help maintain consistency in the on-screen dimensions of their creations, because they incorporate parts from commercial warship models, and in deference to tradition. One of the most common natural scales for battleship models is 1/620, which appears to have been used for the [url="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/isd.html#model"]Avenger model[/url] of the common Imperator-class star destroyer.
In books, the length of the Executor model is usually stated as 2.82m, which obviously puts it at a different scale. For such a stupendous vessel none of the ordinary scaling standards is applicable. However [according to Martyn Griffiths] the natural extension to the set of standard scales is 1/6200. If this is correct then the precise length of the real Executor is 17.5km, which at 10.9 miles is neatly at the low end of the range of possible dimensions indicated by other lines of reasoning.
David West Reynolds has directly measured the model at 2.77m, which is somewhat shorter than the published version. Therefore if the intended scaling of the ship was 1/6200, the intended length of was closer to 17.2km.
[b]STAR WARS Exhibition[/b]
Several years ago many of the important props from the Lucasfilm Archives were put on public exhibition in San Francisco. According to Martyn Griffiths and Frank Bitterhof, many of the models were associated with in-house technical specification cards produced by ILM. The card relating to the Executor made an unambiguous statement that the vessel was eighteen kilometres long. The present fates of this card and others in its series are unknown to the general public.
[b]Cronkite footage[/b]
In 1980 George Lucas led a televised visit to the ILM special effects workshops. Among the important models that he demonstrated were the full-length model of the Executor and the larger scale model of the brim trench region from near the prow. Interestingly, there was a small star destroyer model sitting atop the Executor model off to one side. The size relationship between these two models matches that of the star destroyers seen moving over Executor's wing during the approach to Hoth and Captain Needa's shuttle scene. It seems very likely that this star destroyer model was made to exactly the same scale as the Executor for the purpose of making these shots. The relative sizes of these models are difficult to calculate from the television imagery, but they seem visibly consistent with the eleven-mile length reached via other methods.
Conclusion for absolute size
If the star destroyer length is accepted as 1.6km then the Executor's length is given by the length ratios between the two ships. Observations from scenes in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi where one ship occludes another constrain the length ratio to be within the range of 11.0 to 12.0, corresponding to an absolute range of 17.6km to 19.2km. Measurements based on the collision between Executor and Death Star II are inconclusive, because the curvature of the battle station's horizon cannot be measured with sufficient precision. A chain of geometric reasoning involving two independent Executor broadside views and the size of the sensor globes indicates lower limits of 16.2km and 18.1km. The conventions of the construction of warship models indicate a length of close to 17.2km. Direct measurements of the Executor model using the standard KDY command tower as a yardstick indicate a length of 17.6±0.2km, which is consistent with the photogrammetric methods and other approaches. I conclude that Executor-class command ships are somewhere between 17.4km and 17.9km long; and certainly much more than the mere 8km claimed by some Roleplaying Game sources.
It is to be hoped that the tragic underestimate of this warship's size which was accidentally promulgated in certain references will not be further compounded in future STAR WARS novels and reference books.
#17 4:08pm 18/09/03
Odd, 'twasn't the other month.
#16 4:55am 18/09/03
Actually, it's listed as 12 800 meters on sw.com.
#15 4:50am 18/09/03
It's 8000 on TRF though. Because of the screwup, and because the Executor is listed as 8000 on starwars.com, that's what we use.
#14 1:33am 18/09/03
That's because the SSDs in the movies and in the books are the same ship. There [i]is[/i] no 8000 meter SSD. West End Games just decided to be dicks and slapped some stats onto Darth Vader's Star Destroyer and screwed a bunch of @#%$ up.
EU authors, reading those stats, then placed the Executors in their books at 8000 meters instead of 17.6 km. Any 8000 meter SSD in the books is a 17.6 km Executor; the authors just got their numbers wrong.
End Result: Despite us using it, the 8000 meter SSD does not exist in a seperate form from the 17 600 meter SSD.
#13 11:46pm 17/09/03
Yes but it also says that it was an exact copy of the Executor...which was 17.6km...
#12 10:00pm 17/09/03
The Lusankya was 8km, says so in the X-wing books.
#11 2:40am 17/09/03
I simply call the SSD's from the book Super-Class Star Destroyers as they were all 8km, and the Executor (and the only other ship of it's make, the Lusankya) was 17.6km...so I call that the XSSD...it has stats (somewhere, although I cant remember where) of the 17.6km varient...but anyway this thread is about those other ones *points at the 1st post*
#10 2:04am 17/09/03
There is no such thing as a Super Class Star Destroyer. The "SSD" is an Executor Class, and most of the stats place it as 8000 meters.
I haven't seen a totally different stat set for the 17.6 km (real) ship, and no one would build one with the Eclipse option anyway. If you're building an SSD, it's an 8000 meter Executor.
#9 11:35pm 16/09/03
E[b][u]x[/u][/b]ecutor-class [b][u]S[/u][/b]uper [b][u]S[/u][/b]tar [b][u]D[/u][/b]estroyer
EDIT: Edited the Valorous so it was a 6.2km SSD like theforce.net technical commentaries say...lowered it's weapons a bit...
#8 11:31pm 16/09/03
XSSD...?
#7 10:40pm 16/09/03
8km is the size for the regular Super-Class Star Destroyers...I'm assuming your just using the stats for the SSD's as the XSSD's then?
#6 5:47pm 16/09/03
We use 8km, though in the movies it is 17.6.
#5 5:40pm 16/09/03
Oh yeah...what length is TRF using for the Executor-Class SSD? Just 'cause, going by the models in the film, it is 17.6km, in the RPG books it was made 8km (which is the size for a regular Super-Class Star Destroyer), and ILM decided it would be 12.6km...just wandering...
#4 4:59pm 16/09/03
After a brief scan, they look fine. Griff, Shree?
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