Throughout the Galactic Civil War the Imperial Navy never seemed to figure out just how to
grapple with the Rebel Alliance.
Its fleets were still organized as if they were fighting the Clone Wars, with many of
its most senior commanders dogmatically refusing to accept that when pitched against the Rebel
Alliance, they were now fighting a different kind of war.
So in this pilot episode of “Building Your Battlegroup”, the Templin Institute will
attempt to solve this problem.
We’ll analyze the assets available to the Imperial Navy and try to construct a new fleet
designed to fight and win the war the Empire was actually fighting, not the one they thought
they were.
In doing so we’ll eschew traditional Imperial doctrine, modify a few designs, and switch
up some starfighter compliments so they make more sense.
But before we begin this intellectual exercise of ours, we need to define the parameters
and limitations this fleet will be operating under.
First we’ll say that it was initially deployed right about midway through the Galactic Civil
War, right around the time of the Battle of Hoth.
Most of the Clone Wars era equipment has been phased out, and we are right at the peak of
the Imperial Military Industrial Complex.
Secondly, this is what the Empire would consider a “high readiness force”.
Many militaries use something called a “force generation model” or FGM to categorize its
units into different levels of readiness so they can then prioritise resources accordingly.
The exact terminology changes between navies, so who knows what the Empire calls it, but
for our purposes, we’ll imagine that a Tier 4 unit is still in training or otherwise unavailable
for deployment, whereas a Tier 1 unit is ready to roll, and given priority for new equipment
and reinforcements.
And while this fleet isn’t the most important formation in the galaxy, it is one that the
Empire wants to keep supplied and combat ready.
So we’ll put it into the highest tier.
And lastly, and most importantly, we need to consider the role of this formation.
Now the Imperial Navy operates several numbered fleets, the most famous being Thrawn’s 7th
Fleet.
These are permanent formations with upwards of several thousand warships, dedicated naval
bases, support facilities and everything else.
But the thing is, these huge numbered fleets are responsible for enormous sections of the
galaxy and as a result, are essentially never deployed en masse.
Rather they’re divided into many task forces and other smaller formations that can be specialized
towards specific duties.
So in our case, we’ll imagine that Thrawn, Piett, Motti, Sloan or somebody else has put
the Templin Institute in charge of one of these smaller task forces.
Our mission is to locate and destroy the Rebel Alliance’s interstellar assets, its cruisers,
starfighters and whatever else we might find flying the red starbird.
We’re not looking to hunt down rebel bases or root out sympathizers, our primary concern
is crippling the Rebellion’s ability to conduct interstellar warfare.
Faced with this objective there are three main things our fleet will need to be able
to do.
Locate enemy interstellar assets.
Create the conditions for a decisive battle.
And prevent the enemy’s withdrawal.
The Imperial Navy is famously pretty poor at least a couple of these, so we’ll need
to rely on a few tricks.
And the first one is throwing away most Imperial Navy doctrines.
Overwhelming displays of military force have their place, but if this battlegroup is going
to be chasing rebels across the galaxy, it needs to be powerful, but also nimble.
We need to constantly be at the highest state of readiness, so things like resupply, logistics
and administration should be as straightforward as possible.
Oh!
And it also needs a name.
Now realistically, it wouldn’t make sense to give a temporary task force like this its
own unit insignia or unique name.
It would probably be called something boring like Task Force 89.
And you know what, I’m fine with that, but let’s at least give it a cool nickname.
How about we just steal one from 1967 and call Task Force 89 the “Outer Rim Yacht
Club”.
We’ll let every other Imperial formation try way too hard to sound badass.
I want my crews to be diligent, but also possess an esprit de corps based on humor, camaraderie,
unity, and creativity.
Everyone in this fleet should be concentrating on their jobs, not worried if their commander
is going to use space magic to asphyxiate them if they make a mistake.
And when my Yacht Club wipes the floor with the Executioners of Death or whatever other
formations call themselves during Imperial Navy exercises, it will be all the sweeter.
So let's start with our main battle line.
This is the component of our fleet that once Rebel starships have been brought to battle,
can destroy them.
Its responsibilities are nice and straightforward.
For this, I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel.
My first selection is going to be three Imperial II Class Star Destroyers.
Why three?
Well I think that’s about the minimum number you’d need to destroy, pretty much 90% of
the formations the Rebels are using.
It’s easy to forget that the enormous engagements that occurred over Endor and Jakku were pretty
rare up until the end of the war.
At the time our battlegroup is being used, the Rebels still favor dividing their forces
and avoiding pitched confrontations.
Now the reputation of the Imperial Class seems to have taken a bit of a hit in recent years.
Footage of them crashing all over the galaxy probably didn’t help.
But I think this points to failures in how these ships are being used, rather than deficiencies
with the class itself.
So the standing order I’ll be giving to each of the Captains assigned to these ships
is going to be “take a lesson from Vader”.
I don’t want to see these ships keeping their distance, I don’t want to see them
trying to cut off avenues of escape.
This is not a Venator.
This is an Imperial II.
All I want to see these things doing is closing the distance as fast as they possibly can,
and beating the absolute shit outta anything in their way.
I want this part of the team to be known within the Rebel Alliance as Murderor’s Row.
But the Imperial II does have a slight deficiency, not so much with the ship itself, but rather
the starfighters assigned to it.
And as we’ll bring up a few times over the course of building this battlegroup, Imperial
Admirals and Commanders do seem to have quite a bit of influence when it comes to the equipment
they’re assigned.
Director Krennic basically forced Sienar Fleet Systems to produce a special shuttle for him
and Admiral Thrawn had the Tie Defender Project not to mention all the things Tarkin was involved
in.
What I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t seem completely out of the question for the
Commander of an elite unit within the Imperial Navy to make a few changes.
We can’t get greedy, but we can pull a few strings.
So I want to start from scratch on the Imperial II starfighter complement, it can hold roughly
6 squadrons plus a few auxiliary units so we’re looking at around 96 craft.
For our first three squadrons, I want TIE Interceptors.
And we’re going to load them up with as many concussion missiles as we can manage.
I have never understood why Imperial starfighter doctrine favor these close dogfights, when
missiles are available, but assuming they’re not extraordinarily expensive, I’d want
them as standard issue on my fighters.
TIE Interceptors constitute the bulk of this forces’ starfighters, but they’ll mainly
be used defensively.
It's right there in the name, I want these sticking pretty close to the fleet, intercepting
anything posing a danger.
Instead, the offensive component of our starfighter compliment will be TIE Defenders.
So much of Rebel firepower is concentrated in their starfighters that having a solid
counter is an absolute necessity, and the Defender is the only ship that can reliably
perform better than T-65 X-Wings.
Getting these though might be tricky.
Supposedly the program was canceled with funding diverted to the Death Star, but it does seem
that at least a few were present across the Galactic Civil War, so I’m confident I could
get my hands on one squadron for each of my Star Destroyers.
Especially in a post-Yavin environment.
Next up, I’d have a squadron of Tie Bombers on two of my destroyers.
In most cases I’d expect these to be outfitted with anti-ship missiles, but the capacity
to drop some heavier ordinance into space stations or planetary bodies is something
I’d like to maintain in this fleet.
It probably would come up only rarely, but it's one of those things where you’d hate
to need it and not have.
The remaining Destroyer will instead be given Tie-Punishers, same role, just with greater
firepower.
We’d probably only break this out when going up against something with very heavy shields.
Now with our last two squadrons, I’m going to be spending a bit more influence with the
Imperial military-industrial complex because we need some craft that might not exist.
This entire fleet will be essentially useless if it can’t locate the enemy, and given
the Imperial Navy’s success in this so far, we need to find some new solutions.
And for me, the Lambda shuttle is looking pretty interesting.
Though mainly used as a simple transport, I see a platform with a lot of empty room
for reconnaissance equipment.
I want to get the best sensor suite available to the Imperial Navy and duct tape it to these
things if that's what it takes.
These squadrons will be the eyes and ears of the fleet.
Most of the time they’ll be operating independently, tracking rebel movements and relaying their
disposition back to the main fleet.
We mentioned at the top that one of the main objectives of this fleet will be to create
the conditions for a decisive battle, and these are the tools you need to do it.
If this squadron does its job, we’ll have already won every engagement before the first
shots are even fired because we’ll know the strength of the enemy, their heading,
and any potential avenues of escape.
The final squadron aboard our Star Destroyers I’d like to be dedicated to electronic warfare.
This is something the Empire only seems marginally interested in, so it’s hard to get a grasp
of their capabilities, but essentially what I want this squadron to do is reduce the effectiveness
of enemy munitions, ion torpedos especially, jam communications, and to whatever extent
possible, keep the enemy confused and misdirected.
While not specifically designed to fulfill this role, I think the Tie Command Shuttle
could be pretty easily modified to be some kind of electronic warfare craft.
So we’ll have a squadron of those aboard each destroyer.
That to me seems like a pretty solid battle line, but we’ll add just one more capital
ship whose role will be obvious: an Interdictor-class Star Destroyer.
One of the stated aims of this task force is to prevent the escape of the enemy, and
this is how you do it.
Interdictors are definitely rare, but I don't think it would be an insurmountable challenge
to have one assigned to this fleet, given it's pretty much a necessity for the formation
to do its job.
Now we need to move on to our escorts, which in most Imperial Fleets that even bother to
include them, seem rather aimless.
I think we can give them a bit more structure, and we’ll do this by bringing to the Imperial
Navy the concept of an Escort Squadron.
I’m kinda making my own doctrine up on the fly here, but the idea is a formation designed
to work in tandem with the larger ships of this battlegroup, but that also have the capability
to function as an independent flotilla as circumstances dictate.
Our main battle line is going to be escorted by two such squadrons of identical composition.
For this, I like the Arquitens-class light cruiser.
It’s a proven ship dating back to the Clone Wars, they’re available in large numbers,
and having been built by Kuat, likely share a lot of the same technology, spare parts
and ammunition as our larger Star Destroyers.
All very handy when you’re trying to keep a large fleet like this nimble.
But the biggest advantage of this class is that a command variant exists.
Presumably it includes additional flag and command & control facilities.
This makes it perfect as the leader of our escort squadron.
So we’ll include a single command variant, and then 3 of the standard.
And because I think I’ve used up almost all the clout I have with my superiors, I
won’t try and fill these ships with TIE Defenders, instead we’ll stick to the standard
squadron on two of the standard variants, with interceptors on the remainder.
I still have a few things on my list that might be hard to get so I don’t want to
act too greedy here.
But I want to add a few other ships to these escort squadrons, something that can provide
for them the same general set of capabilities that some of our starfighter squadrons did
to our Destroyers.
Specifically reconnaissance and electronic warfare.
Essentially the intent here is that if one or both of these squadrons is acting independently
from the main battle line, it can maintain its eyes and ears, and when these squadrons
and the battle line are deployed together, there is a kind of interlocking redundancy.
The loss of a single element will never cripple the entire fleet.
So for reconnaissance purposes, I want each escort squadron to include a single Raider
class corvette.
As with our Lambda shuttles, we’ll be retrofitting these with the best sensor suites we can get.
I’d even be tempted to strip out most of their weapons, just to make it absolutely
clear to whoever is captaining these ships that I don’t want them anywhere near the
fighting.
The role of these ships is to sit on the periphery of the engagement, providing targeting information
and whatever else to the rest of their squadron or the larger battlefleet.
This might come as a surprise to some of you, as the Raider has a pretty good reputation
as an anti-fighter platform, so why isn’t it being used that way.
Well, my thinking on the matter is that corvettes just don’t really belong in the kinds of
naval actions this fleet will be pursuing.
They’re intended mainly as patrol vessels and orbital support, not something that should
be heading out into open water so to speak.
During a large-scale fleet engagement in which potentially dozens of enemy squadrons might
be operating I just don’t think Corvettes provide enough bang for your buck.
To be effective you might need dozens, and their small size means they would constantly
need to be resupplied.
Far more economical to rely on the Arquitens and Tie Defenders.
In the reconnaissance role, I think two is a good number, as that way both can be quickly
docked in one of our Star Destroyers, whenever that inevitable need for a resupply occurs.
The last element I’ll be including in these Escort Squadrons is a single IGV-55 listening
ship.
This to my knowledge is one of the few Imperial starships dedicated towards electronic warfare
so it’s an easy pick.
Like our modified TIE Command Shuttles, I want these craft to be jamming munitions and
causing confusion amongst the enemy.
These vessels are also capable of reconnaissance, so one of these IGV-55s might be able to replace
the aforementioned Raiders, but I want to keep my reconnaissance and electronic warfare
elements separate, and an additional layer of redundancy never hurts.
With two of these escorts squadrons to the task force, I think this fleet is really starting
to come together.
The last step will be looking at any potential gaps in our capabilities and working to solve
them.
And right away, there’s a bit of an issue.
If our Battle Line is supposed to be charging towards the enemy and the escort squadrons
are supporting them, the Interdictor Star Destroyer is starting to look very exposed.
I think it’s going to need a dedicated escort, and I got my eye on the Victory II class destroyer.
This is a pretty big ship to dedicate purely to escorting another, but because Interdiction
is the one element we can’t really create layers of redundancy for, I think it’s worth
it.
And I like the Victory II specifically because of a configuration it’s sometimes outfitted
with that includes a large number of concussion missile launchers.
This ship is pretty much always going to be near the rear of the formation so having some
longer range weapons will be a nice way of making sure it's still able to engage enemy
targets.
I’m also gonna make sure that whoever is in command of this vessel is someone I trust.
I need a professional in this position, not someone who's going to chase glory.
Now the last ship I want to include in this battlegroup is a Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser.
While not a true replacement for the Interdictor, it does have limited, but similar capabilities
and anything that can prevent the Rebels from retreating is a worthwhile investment.
Unfortunately it does need to be near the front of the formation for it to operate effectively,
and there is a chance that in a major fleet action, this thing would be a sitting porg.
But on the off chance a Rebel Commander tries to ram one of my ships, well, we’ll get
some fun footage for the Imperial Navy holiday blooper reel.
But, I want to push my luck a bit and ask for one more favor from the Imperial High
Command.
Or maybe I introduced Grand Admiral Thrawn to Art Deco and now he owes me a favor.
However I manage it, I would love to include a TIE Phantom.
The is the Imperial Navy’s only, and perhaps the very first true stealth starfighter.
These are exceedingly rare, and according to common military knowledge, impossible.
And possessing capabilities that your enemy isn’t aware exist, is a huge advantage in
itself.
Of course, this starfighter would be much too valuable to engage the enemy directly
in a dogfight, so I’d only use it as another layer of reconnaissance, something that can
slip in close to the rebel fleet and keep tabs on its movements.
And with that, finally our Task Force is completed.
What we have here is, hopefully, a formation sophisticated enough to detect rebel movements,
nimble enough to keep pace with them, and yet formidable enough to overpower them.
Imperial Admirals tend to be rather unimaginative in their maneuvers, usually relying on nothing
more than the time-tested “front towards enemy”, but with this fleet opens up a number
of interesting possibilities.
Ideally, this formation would seed an area known for its rebel activity with reconnaissance
platforms, identify rebel fleets, and intercept them.
But there is also the potential for its escort squadrons to lure enemy forces into a trap,,
or dozens of other more creative tactics.
And before we end things, I’ll do my best to get ahead of my critics.
I’m sure some of you were wondering why we didn’t include the venerable Venator,
or even try to use my influence to create some kind of Venator II.
The reason is, its role as a more dedicated carrier just really isn’t needed.
Between our Star Destroyers alone we have I think a significant fighter-wing and because
we’re relying on Defenders and Interceptors, overwhelming numbers just aren’t as important
to me.
The same applies to the larger Secutor Class and smaller Quasar.
I want quality, not quantity.
This isn’t the Clone Wars, the Rebels rarely operate any more than just a few squadrons
and in my fleet at least, pilots are never expendable.
And while it was also tempting to include a larger command ship, maybe something like
an Assertor Star Dreadnought, it would be hard to justify it.
Our fleet is too small to really require a command ship that size, and it would just
slow down what is supposed to be a faster formation.
Between our star destroyers alone we already have over 90,000 personnel, it's already going
to be a big enough to keep this fleet in a state of constant readiness.
So this to me is pretty solid formation, but that of course is just my opinion.
And even though Task Force 889 had already achieved a string of impressive victories
across the Outer Rim, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Do you see any glaring weaknesses in this formation?
How would you command it?
And what would your ideal Imperial fleet look like for this role?
Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, this has been incoming.
What you just watched is the pilot for a new series we’re calling “Building Your Battlegroup”,
where the Templin Institute constructs fleets, armies, and other formations from across alternate
worlds.
This is one of four new shoes we’re releasing this week, and on Friday our Patrons will
have the chance to vote on which ones will become regular additions to Incoming.
If you’d like to take part, a pledge of just $2 gets you a vote.