Space warfare

Space warfare was the use of military starships and other spacecraft for the purposes of warfare across star systems and the galaxy. Evolving from water navy engagements and in turn the earliest orbital battles, space warfare became a high technology affair that often defined the outcome of the galaxy's most important conflicts.

Technology
While the sizes and capabilities of starships varied, four main technologies drove and were advanced by space warfare: weapons systems, sublight propulsion, hyperdrive technology and shielding.

Weaponry
There are two basic types of space weaponry, energy and conventional.

Energy
The weapons that make up the energy type are often mounted on turrets attached to the starship. These turrets are typically linked up to a targeting computer, which allows them to accurately attack other craft. The main starship weapon in the galaxy is the turbolaser, a heavier version of the laser found aboard most starfighters. Other weapons found on starships include the ion cannon, point-defense laser, Charic Beams and the super laser.

Conventional
Although the first conventional space weapondry included projectiles such as slugs, technology has now progressed. The conventional weapondry housed aboard most starcraft includes missles launched from tubes and launchers, as well as bombs. The missiles themselves typically hold their targeting equipment, although some are launched unguided. Missile and bomb types include proton and concussion varieties.

Shields
Shields are projected from shield generators, and are incredibly important in combat and hyperspace. Shields come in two types: particle shields and ray shields.

Propulsion
Hyperdrive technology works by first using a fusion generator to ripple space-time. Then, the ship is propelled by the ripples into hyperspace. Sublight drives also use a fusion generator, but not in the same way. They work by shooting particles out of the ship at very high speed.

Ship classes
The following is a list of the standard galaxy ship classifications.

Starfighter
Small craft typically piloted by one or two beings. May or may not include a hyperdrive; if not, they are often launched from a carrier or other larger craft. Some, like Imperial TIE fighters, are armed only for fighter-on-fighter combat; more versatile ones, like the Rebel X-wing and Y-wing, are also capable of anti-ship and anti-surface attacks.

Bomber
Bombers are of similar size and configuration to fighter class attack ships, however they are more heavily armed (with bombs, torpedoes and missiles), and therefore can attack heavier capital ships, and not just enemy fighters. The line between bomber and fighter is often blurry; the Rebellion's Y-wing and B-wing ships, for instance, are equally suited to both roles, and even more pure fighters like the X-wing and E-wing carry a small magazine of proton torpedoes, which enables them to play a limited role as bombers.

Gunship
Small ship, only slightly bigger than a fighter or bomber, but very heavily armed; specializes in destroying the maximum number of enemy small-ships in a space battle.

Corvette
A fast, light attack ship. Can be used in a variety of roles, including blockade running, anti-fighter missions, or support for heavier ships.

Destroyer
Usually the main heavy combat vessels of any fleet (ie the Imperial Star Destroyer). They specialize in heavy ship-to-ship combat, but are also used in planetary bombardment or enforcing blockades. They carry substantial amounts of fighters, gunships, shuttles and other small-ships to help them in these roles.

Capital ship
Are of a size comparable to destroyer class ships. However they are usually used more like mobile space stations, containing the diplomats or generals that may be overseeing a large construction project or a planetary invasion. They often had a large millitary contingiant including arial and ground troops.

History
Space warfare was inspired by and heavily based on aquatic and aerial engagements using surface and sub-surface warships, and atmospheric fighters, respectively. As technology evolved and various races achieved spaceflight and then faster-than-light travel, the traditions of naval and air combat extended to the three-dimensional battle planes that made up the vacuum of space. Generally speaking, fighter tactics are inspired by aerial engagements, while those of capital ships are based in aquatic combat.

Strategy and tactics
Strategies in space warfare mirrored those applied on the ground. These strategies were: asymmetric, attrition, conventional and psychological.

The multidimensional battlefield made space warfare tactics complex and difficult to master. In addition to the complexities of space combat itself, related operations and logistics were equally complex. For example, known hyperdrive lanes were a factor, as the angle of attack determines which starships will be in range of the entering fleet and vice versa.

Interdictor warships were able to hold fleets in realspace at will, preventing enemy retreat. In this sense, they were a valuable addition to any fleet.

The source of a fleet's ships, a shipyard, is very valuable, and made an important target for an opposing force. As they require ships to defend themselves, shipwrights are also very vulnerable and the defending fleet must destroy any opposition before it can damage the docks. In this case speed is an important factor to the invaders.

Various Commanders will use asteroids or floating piles of junk to ambush unsuspecting ships. The only major problem with this idea was that it almost always damage the ship in numerous ways.

In general capital ships fought other capital ships, and starfighters fought other starfighters. Exceptions include starfighters equipped with proton torpedoes or other warheads, and capital ships like the Lancer-class frigate, which were designed to fight starfighters. However most capital ships were equipped with anti-starfighter cannons to aid their fighter escorts or to serve as a front line defense against fighters in lieu of an escort.

When capital ships fought each other, one of the most basic tactics was to maximize the damage one did to one's enemy, and minimize one's own damage. This was often accomplished by maneuvering the ship so that you had more weapons to bear on the enemy than vice-versa. , as well as presenting a narrower profile for the enemy to shoot at.

The Mon Calamari Admiral Ackbar was renowned for developing several different space battle strategies which ultimately led to countless Alliance victories.



Other tactics include using starfighters to distract the larger guns of capital ships minimizing damage to frigates and other capital ships. This is ineffective if the ship has anti-fighter defenses such as point defense turrets. This tactic still provides bombers and larger ships the opportunity to do damage. However, this can be viewed as suicidal by some commanders.

Starfighter screen
As its name suggests the Starfighter screen is a purely defensive formation in which a capital ship or freighter would have its starfighter escorts form up in front of it to engage enemy fighter squadrons before they could close in on the larger vessel. As the description suggests it is a very basic, but effective maneuver.

Marg Sabl
The Marg Sabl closure manuever was a simple manuever well-known in Imperial Navy circles both before and after the Battle of Endor. It was an opening tactic where the superstructure of the starfighter-carrying vessel would turn to face the oncoming enemy's vessels, allowing the starfighters to launch without risking attack. It was typically followed up by a massed assault of starfighters clustered in a group. Grand Admiral Thrawn used this tactic against an Elomin commander quite effectively at the Battle of Obroa-skai.

Thrawn Pincer
The Thrawn Pincer was a tactic pioneered by Grand Admiral Thrawn and used by him at the Battle of Bilbringi. The tactic first called for Interdictor cruisers to create a gravity well which denied the enemy an easy escape. Then, reinforcements could hyperspace into the general area and be pulled out of hyperspace with accuracy and surprise which would otherwise be very difficult to achieve. Admiral Ackbar used this same tactic to help defeat the Ciutric Hegemony.

Ackbar Slash
The Ackbar Slash was a space warfare tactical maneuver devised by Admiral Ackbar. It involved one side's ships forcing their way into the middle of an enemy formation. The desired result was that, with enemy gunners running a high risk of shooting their own forces, they would be hesitant to fire. The other side would have no such risk, and be able to cause higher damage to their enemy. If the enemy ships did choose to fire, the risk of them hitting each other still worked to the advantage of the attacking fleet. In addition, the enemy ships in this situation could usually bring no more than half of their weapons to bear, while nearly all of the weapons on the ships executing the Ackbar Slash could be used, as there would be enemies on both sides to target.

Slashing the deck
Slashing the deck was a tactical maneuver used against enemy capital ships by the dark lord Kaan at the First Battle of Ruusan. The technique involved any number of smaller ships would fire all guns while cutting in along a vector that minimized the amount of guns the enemy capital ship could could bring to bear against them. When the enemy capital ship tried to change direction to bring more guns about, the smaller ships would pivot and double back for another pass along a different vector to inflict even more damage. However, the tactic focused heavily on the element of surprise and was almost useless if the enemy could call upon the support of other ships.

Tallon Split
The Tallon Split was a tactical maneuver designed by Rebel military instructor Adar Tallon, after whom it was named. The maneuver was theoretically simple, but took a great amount of skill, precision, and concentration to execute correctly. When applied successfully, the Tallon Split would allow two starfighters to inflict a considerable amount of damage on an unsuspecting capital ship. The tactic called for two starfighters to fly extremely close together as they approached a capital ship, so close that the larger ship's targeting computer would detect the two fighters as one approaching ship. At very close range, the two fighters would split apart: one fighter would continue on a strafing run of the capital ship, while the second would draw fire away from the first. The attacking fighter would have about five seconds to cause damage on the capital ship before it was clearly identified as a second ship. Even so, those five seconds would allow enough time to cause serious damage to the larger vessel.

The tactic was executed with surprising success during the evacuation of Hoth in 3 ABY by Rebel starfighters flying escort for GR-75 Medium Transports attempting to run the Imperial blockade of the planet. Most notably, Rogue Squadron pilots Wedge Antilles, Derek Klivian, Wes Janson, and Luke Skywalker employed the tactic to help the transport Thon's Orchard safely reach hyperspace. Antilles piloted his X-wing close to Klivian and Janson in their BTL-S3 Y-wing starfighter as "one target," as they attacked an Imperial-class Star Destroyer blocking the transport's flight path. In conjunction with those two ships, Skywalker also attacked from a hidden location flying underneath the transport. The Star Destroyer was distracted and damaged enough to allow the Thon's Orchard to reach safety.

Tallon Roll
The Tallon Roll was a starfighter maneuver designed by and named after Adar Tallon.

This difficult tactic was performed when an attacking starfighter pilot became aware of the possibility of overshooting a breaking target. The pilot would level out, pull up hard, then roll away from the direction of the turn. To complete the maneuver the attacking pilot would have to slide in behind his target, thus effectively altering the angle of approach without losing distance or speed. This maneuver was difficult to counter as it took place in the typical starfighter pilots' blind spot; at the same time the maneuver itself was difficult to accomplish without the attacker becoming disoriented himself, thus making him overshoot and possibly a target himself.