EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate/Legends

Nebulon-B escort frigate "Just once, I'd like to destroy a starship that we didn't pay for!"

- Imperial Admiral Hurkk at the Battle of Oovo IV

The EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate was a 300-meter-long warship that was built by Kuat Drive Yards for use by the Imperial Navy, to protect convoys from Rebel Alliance starfighter actions. It was, however, used more famously by the Rebellion.

Characteristics
The standard Nebulon-B frigate was armed with twelve turbolaser batteries, twelve laser cannons, and two tractor beam projectors. It was designed to carry twenty-four TIE series starfighters.

While generally well-armed for a vessel of that size, its midsection connecting spar was a vulnerability. It could be split open by concentrated heavy weapons fire, venting the frigate's atmosphere and killing most of the crew.

History


The EF76 was introduced some months after the Clone Wars, long before the formal establishment of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The Nebulon-B was originally designed to defend Imperial convoys against raids by Rebel starfighters. The Imperial Navy was loath to relegate its expensive Imperial Star Destroyer to escort duty, while the Corellian Corvettes were too weak and carried few if any TIE Fighters.

The EF76 was used extensively by both sides in the Galactic Civil War. The frigate was known and respected for its efficiency against fighters and bombers, and its anti-fighter assignment in Imperial convoys had an immediate impact, causing the Rebels to reconsider their hyperspace raids after suffering irreplaceable losses in fighters and pilots. They were also often used to support larger capital ships, such as Imperial-class Star Destroyers and Rebel Mon Calamari Star Cruisers.

In their starfleets, Imperial Admirals Thrawn and Zaarin often used Nebulon-B frigates as command ships in lieu of the standard Star Destroyer.

Rebel Usage
Before the formal founding of the Rebel Alliance, the escort frigate Resurgence, was used by the Alderaanian Resistance forces allied with Alya Aldrete and Bail Organa.



The Rebel Alliance also acquired a number of these ships through defection, capturing them in battle, or by outright theft. The Rebels were not the only ones beyond the Empire to acquire Nebulon-B frigates. It was rumored that Kuat Drive Yards would sell the frigates to interested third parties through secret fronts so as not to upset the Imperial Navy. The sale price was 194,000,000 credits, cited as a twentieth the cost of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

The Rebels were able to find other uses for the ships which took advantage of their sophisticated sensors and deep-space multifrequency antennas. Escort frigates were used as long-range scouts, search and rescue ships, or to relay information to command ships during battle. In small, shorthanded, Rebel task forces, Nebulon-B frigates often served as the command ship.

In 3 ABY, it was onboard the EF76 frigate Redemption that Luke Skywalker received a mechanical hand after he had lost his natural one while dueling with Darth Vader on Bespin. There and then, Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca departed aboard the Millennium Falcon to commence their quest for the abducted and carbonite-frozen Han Solo.

All available Rebel Nebulon-B frigates were deployed at the Battle of Endor, where they took pivotal part in the battle.

Variants


The Rebels converted some of their Nebulon-B frigates into medical vessels, which served as mobile hospitals. Weaponry and hangar space was sacrificed to make room for treatment facilities, bacta tanks, and hospital suites. These ships could not carry any fighters, and their armament was reduced to 6 turbolasers and 8 laser cannons. The most famous medical frigate was the Redemption.

Kuat Drive Yards eventually produced an improved version of the Nebulon-B, the Nebulon-B2. They were similar overall, but had higher sublight speed, improved shields and hull armor, a thicker connecting spar, and additional weaponry.

Following the Battle of Endor, Kuat Drive Yards followed up on its successful Nebulon-B design with a new starship class, the 275 meter-long Corona-class frigate. Corona-class frigates were produced solely for the New Republic. Due to the fact that Corona frigates were not part of the New Republic's New Class modernization program, orders for the ships remained modest. A number of them served in the Corellian Defense Force during the Confederation-Galactic Alliance War.

At least one EF76 was used to make up a secret retreat in 137 ABY.

Behind the scenes
In the Star Wars: Essential Guide to Vehicles, the entry for the Nebulon-B Frigate is erroneously referred to as a "Rebel Cruiser", which can lead it to be confused with Mon Calamari Star Cruisers. Most sources commonly refer it it as "Nebulon-B Frigate" or "Escort Frigate".

The shape of the Nebulon-B, designed by Nilo Rodis-Jamero, was inspired by an outboard motor.



There is some dispute among fans on the claimed fighter capacity of the Nebulon-B. Computer games and the deck-plans in The Far Orbit Project show a hangar in the forward hull, with a launch aperture in the starboard flank, but there seems to be no such opening on the model used in the movies, and the ship lacks the internal volume to carry 24 TIE fighters without hollowing out nearly the entire forward section. Other depictions in the computer games show starfighters docking and launching via an opening in the thin connection between the superstructure and drive bay.

However, the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, seemingly the source which first introduced the Nebulon-B's starfighter capability, makes no mention of internal hangars. The text simply says that: "The escort frigate has the capacity to carry up to two squadrons of starfighters into battle. In addition, the ship has docking fixtures to accommodate ships of up to medium freighter size" (p. 60). Since The Empire Strikes Back shows the "docking fixtures" to be external hardpoints on the spar between the prow superstructure and engines, it is possible that the fighters could also be carried on a rack along the spar, in the manner of Carrack-class cruisers, assault frigates, and FarStar.

Additionally, some fans have speculated that some Nebulon-Bs could have been equipped with an enclosed hangar bay fitted under the spar, filling the space between the forward keel and the engine block. Perhaps added as aftermarket additions, such hangars would enable them to carry fighters like X-wings more comfortably, and Kalla's Stanchion, a ship that could belong to this subtype of the class, has appeared in Rebel Alliance hands in an issue of Star Wars: Empire. Although scaling extrapolations when compared with snubfighters shown in the same panels would suggest a size significantly larger than the 300m-long Nebulon-B, the two designs corresponds closely in appearance, and the size discrepancy may simply be a result of artistic license in the comic-book art.

Notes and references
Nebulon-B-Fregatte