Star Dreadnought/Legends

Star Dreadnought, sometimes spelled Star Dreadnaught, was a formal designation for some of the largest and strongest battleships in the starfleets of regional and galactic governments.

The term "Super Star Destroyer" was also applied colloquially to some of these ships by the Alliance to Restore the Republic and the Galactic Empire. In these cases, Star Dreadnoughts were noted as being the largest Super Star Destroyers. In turn, the lower-case term star dreadnought could be used to describe Super Star Destroyers in general.

Various classes of Star Dreadnoughts were known to have served in the Kuat Drive Yards defense fleets, the Republic Navy, the Imperial Navy,  the New Republic Defense Fleet and the Galactic Alliance Defense Fleet. Their sizes eclipsed most conventional warships, peaking with the Executor-class at 19 km in length, and the Eclipse-class, with its unequaled mass and weaponry.

Private service
During the centuries leading up to the Clone Wars, important and rich galactic sectors were protected by private self-defense forces. The Kuat Sector had among its arsenal the Mandator I-class Star Dreadnought, a class that entered service at some point prior to 39 BBY. They were large battleships equipped with heavy firepower, but had a limited range on their hyperdrives. Mandators were primarily used to protect the valuable Kuat Drive Yards, as well as defend the general sector.

Clone Wars era and beyond
As the Clone Wars raged, heavier warships as well as increased loyalty were demanded, and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine pushed through legislation that made all home fleets fall under the centralized command of the Republic Navy. The Kuat Drive Yards produced the Mandator II during this period.

Following the war's end, the new Imperial Navy began the Sarlacc Project, to build a new huge warship design to serve as a flagship for the entire Navy. This Super Star Destroyer prototype was destroyed by early Rebel elements over Byss before its completion. Despite its destruction, it managed to inspire future Star Dreadnaught designs.

Galactic Civil War era


When the Galactic Civil War heated up years later, older Star Dreadnoughts were surpassed by new and radical designs. Skeptical of superweapons like the Death Star, the Imperial Navy worked hard to come up with reasonable alternatives that could hold their own in the face of massive centralization of power.

Among the achievements of this era was the Executor-class design. By this point, the Star Dreadnought designation was known to Imperial oversight committees as representing extraordinarily large and heavily armed warships. In order to avoid controversy in the Imperial Senate, naval documents simply classified the new Star Dreadnought as a new class of Star Destroyer, understating its size, role and armament.

When fielded, these ships gained notoriety as command ships for large-scale forces as well as being heavy weapons platforms, with the lead vessel serving as Darth Vader's personal flagship. These ships were some of the largest in the galaxy, second only to battlestations like the Death Star. Another design, the Eclipse-class, which began construction around the time of the Executor early deployment, became dreadful weapons of terror, as each ship was equipped with a superlaser for penetrating planetary shields and pulverizing enemy ships.

Despite the imposing threat of these classes, most were either destroyed by sabotage or in battle, or captured by the New Republic, leaving few rogue Star Dreadnoughts still active at the end of the Civil War.

New Republic counterparts


Following the Black Fleet Crisis, the New Republic realized the need for bigger and stronger capital ships to deter would-be attackers. Running low on captured vessels of this size, new dreadnought classes were designed that were meant to be Republic counterparts to the Star Dreadnoughts.

The Mon Calamari Viscount-class Star Defenders were new directions for Republic ship-building, away from the compact designs of the New Class program. They were among the largest classes produced by the New Republic and saw heavy duty in the Yuuzhan Vong War, becoming part of the Galactic Alliance Navy, when the New Republic was reorganized into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances.

At some point following the Second Galactic Civil War, heavy warships like the Star Defenders and Star Dreadnoughts were phased out of service, citing the expenses in operating the various designs. By 130 ABY, neither the re-emergent Galactic Empire nor the remainder of the Galactic Alliance used the term for their present ships, though the Pellaeon-class Star Destroyer was known to have combined some aspects of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer and the Executor-class Star Dreadnought.

Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer
The 17.5km Eclipse-class was fitted with a superlaser as its primary armament and its reactor took up much of the interior space. Two vessels were constructed in secret over a ten year period, and fielded during Operation Shadow Hand. Both were destroyed.

Executor-class Star Dreadnought
The Executor-class was a successful line of Star Dreadnoughts that came in several variants, and was believed to be the "ultimate" in Star Dreadnought design in its time. The 19km battleship model was considered a valuable prize to many commanders, and receiving command of a ship was a high honor, sometimes bestowed upon an officer as a gift by Emperor Palpatine himself. Over a dozen ships were built and fielded.

Mandator I-class Star Dreadnaught
The Mandator I-class served in the private sector fleets of the Kuat sector, being designed and fielded in the final decades of the Galactic Republic.

Mandator II-class Star Dreadnaught
The Mandator II-class was a new model of the Mandator design and served as part of the Republic Navy during the Clone Wars. Its power-generation facilities matched that of almost 1,000 light Separatist destroyers.

Sovereign-class Super Star Destroyer
The Sovereign-class was based on the Eclipse-class and meant to be a smaller, cheaper design for mass-production. Construction on the first four ships were begun, and Imperial warlord Zsinj managed to field the lead ship Sovereign at some point, but they were all ultimately destroyed around the time of Palpatine's final death and the Destruction of Byss.

Sarlacc Project
The Sarlacc Project was aimed at developing a flagship for the then-newly created Imperial Navy in 19 BBY. The end result was a warship 12km long, covered in various armaments. The vessel was destroyed in a partially-completed state, a few years after its construction began. Despite the loss, it was used as inspiration for the later Executor-class.

Eye of Palpatine
The Eye of Palpatine was a dreadnaught bigger than the largest Super Star Destroyers, fielded in 18 BBY. It was meant to pick up Imperial forces along a secret route that lead to a planet where Jedi were in hiding, but malfunctioned due to Jedi sabotage and disappeared. Decades later, the ship was reactivated in a ploy to get more power for the Imperial Remnant, but was ultimately destroyed by the New Republic.

Viscount-class Star Defender
One of several Star Defender classes, the Viscount-class was built by Mon Calamari and fielded by the New Republic and Galactic Alliance.

Yuuzhan Vong Kor Chokk grand cruiser
The Grand Cruiser was a Yuuzhan Vong analog of heavy Super Star Destroyers and used in fleet battles during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Behind the scenes
In Naval terminology, dreadnought is generally synonymous with battleships constructed after and influenced by HMS Dreadnought. This term was sometimes used for great ships in Star Wars, like the Executor, the Eye of Palpatine and the Death Star II.

The designation "Star Dreadnought" was first explicitly used in Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross-Sections for the Mandator-class, and the Executor-class was given the designation in Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy. Inside the Worlds also stated that "Super Star Destroyer" was used in "Rebel slang", while Starship Battles Preview 1 explained that the term was invented and popularized by Imperial personnel.

The term "Star Dreadnought" (or "Star Dreadnaught") is disliked by some fans who prefer the term "Super Star Destroyer", which already referred to many different ships. Since the Expanded Universe renaissance introduced by West End Games had sources specifically divide warships into different types depending on their size and power, some fans welcomed what they saw as a necessary additions to explain all the differently sized Super Star Destroyers seen throughout decades of publishing. Others considered the various redesignations and redefinitions contradictory and unnecessary, accepting the use of Super Star Destroyer as a general category. Despite different naval nomenclature being used by various authors, Curtis Saxton was widely seen as responsible for the change in designations.

Much of the criticism towards the term "Star Dreadnought" stem from the belief that it's applying terminology to ship names that were not originally created to fit with the English naval hierarchy and that only recent authors like Saxton have used it in such a fashion. I.e. a Star Destroyer and a Star Cruiser are not analogous to a naval Destroyer and a naval Cruiser and are equivalent in size and role, ships of size comparable to Star Dreadnoughts like the Subjugator-class heavy cruiser lack the description, and the existing Dreadnaught-class ship is smaller than all three. As well, the term Star Dreadnought is largely redundant with the pre-existing term Super Star Destroyer, as Super Star Destroyers categorized as Star Cruisers and Star Battlecruisers have not been introduced, leaving Star Dreadnoughts the only category within Super Star Destroyer with any ships in it.

Notes and references
Star Dreadnought Acorazado estelar