MC80 Home One type Star Cruiser

MC80 Star Cruiser (Home One type) The Home One type was one of the several MC80 Star Cruiser designs built by the Mon Calamari. Originally built before the Galactic Civil War as civilian vessels, they were modified by the Rebel Alliance, and served in command ship and battleship roles in the Alliance Fleet.

Although probably not the most common MC80 type, this was perhaps the most famous of all Rebel capital ship designs, as it was to the class to which the Home One belonged, which served as Admiral Ackbar's flagship at the Battle of Endor.

Characteristics


No two Mon Calamari two ships were identical, each being individually designed and constructed, and they were further distinguished by the extensive refitting and adjustments made to the hulls when the vessels were converted for combat duty. Nevertheless, the Home One and her sisters formed a distinct design type: cylindrical hulls, with a tapered bow, hangar-bays amidships, and bulbous stern mounting ten huge sublight thrusters: four M8.0-StarDrive main thrusters and six M4.5-StarDrive maneuvering engines.

Home One was originally designed for deep-space exploration, and was constructed with massive panoramic viewports, which had to be removed when she was rebuilt as a warship, and this may have been true of her sister-ships as well.

The Home One was described as the largest Star Cruiser in the Rebel Alliance fleet as it gathered for the Battle of Endor, and, if literally accurate, thus may indicate some variation in size and tonnage between the sister-ships. Taken together, the ships of this type were arguably the most prominent capital ships in the Rebellion, serving in the role of command ships as well as battleships, Like most large warships, however, all MC80s were designated formally as cruisers. The full crew of Home One consisted of 5,156 personnell, plus 279 gunners, and 1,200 troops; this may have been common to all the ships of the group, and a minimum operating crew of 1,230 was shared by Home One,

However, it is possible that there were also significant differences between the ships. In the months before the Battle of Yavin, Independence carried only a skeleton crew, and she may not have been fully militarized at this time. Another area where the ships may have been different is in the number of starfighters they carried: whereas Home One is said to have carried ten squadrons, the Independence is not known to have carried more than three in Rebel service, and she was limited to just two squadrons of X-wings in later years under the New Republic. This discrepancy also makes it impossible to know whether the hangar facilities were the same on the different ships, although all three known ships had a large hangar on the starboard side of the hull. Design differences may also have affected cargo capacity, which was 20,000 metric tons aboard Home One.

Similarly, Home One is explicitly said to have carryied the heaviest armour and weaponry of any ship at the Battle of Endor, which means that what is known about her combat capabilities cannot be extrapolated to the other ships of the class: indeed, they must have been less-well protected.Star Wars Customizable Card Game, the Home One card in the Death Star II Limited pack; the cards for Independence and Defiance give a lower armour score. She carried heavy hull armour and powerful shields, comparable with an Imperial Star Destroyer, but with regard to weaponry, the sources are inconsistent even about Home One.

Some references say that the ship's armament included twenty-nine heavy turbolaser emplacements and thirty-six ion cannons, although others give forty-eight turbolaser batteries and twenty ion cannon batteries, the same as a standard MC80 Star Cruiser. There is no contradiction to the statement that Home One mounted six tractor beam projectors, but even this cannot be applied with confidence to all ships of the class.

Likewise, more is known about the internal layout of the Independence than her sister-ships, but it is not known how much of this information can be applied to all the ships of the class.

The Home One, like almost all early Mon Cal cruisers, retained her original, species-specific bridge control systems, meaning that, while the bulk of the crew was drawn from the many species that made up the Rebellion, the command crew was made up entirely of Mon Calamari. There is some evidence, however, that one ship of the class was modified for a human command crew.

History


No more than three ships of the Home One type are known for certain: Home One herself, Independence, and Defiance.

As mentioned above, the Home One was originally designed for deep-space exploration, and was among the first ships selected for militarization when the Mon Calamari joined the Rebellion, being selected by Ackbar as his personal flagship. It is probable that her sister-ships had a similar pre-war role, and they certainly seem to have been refitted for war at around the same time, and shared a similar prominence when they entered Rebel service.

While all the Mon Cal vessels provided valuable cruiser firepower for the under-resourced Rebel Alliance, it appears that the Home One class served specifically as high-level command ships, with at least two of the three known ships acting as a mobile headquarters for the Alliance High Command.

Independence served in this role before the Battle of Yavin, and Home One from the Battle of Hoth onwards. The third known ship of the class, Defiance, is less directly linked to the High Command, and seems to have served primarily as Admiral Nammo's flagship, but there are occasions where she may have been the fleet command ship in closest proximity to the Rebel leadership: in the evacuation of the High Command from Yavin 4, and in Anoat Sector immediately after the Battle of Hoth.

During the climactic Battle of Endor, most of the Alliance's naval resources were gathered into their offensive fleet, and Home One and her sister-ships added their firepower to the effort, apparently being the largest Rebel capital ships used in the engagement. Ackbar used Home One as his command ship, while General Crix Madine appears to have commanded a division of the fleet from one of her sisters, possibly Independence. At least one cruiser of the type was destroyed during the battle, however, as the second victim of the Death Star's superlaser. This was possibly the Defiance, which is not recorded subsequently.

In the early years of the New Republic, the class remained in front-line service as command ships, with Ackbar using Independence as his flagship at the Battle of Brentaal IV, and Home One herself leading the fleet at the First Battle of Coruscant, Battle of Bilbringi and the Second Battle of Ciutric IV.

From around 10 ABY, the veteran ships were superceded as fleet command platforms by newer warships, notably MC90 Star Cruisers. Ackbar first shifted his flag to the Defiance, and subsequently to the Galactic Voyager. In 18 ABY, at the Battle of Champala and the Battle of Anx Minor, however, Ackbar commanded from the Super Star Destroyer Guardian.

However, this did not end the careers of the older vessels. Home One was serving as a squadron command ship in 11 ABY, and remained in commission as the Supreme Commander's personal flagship until 23 ABY, while Independence was still on active duty in the early years of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, commanding a patrol force based near Mon Calamari.

Known ships



 * Defiance
 * Home One
 * Independence

Behind the scenes

 * A variety of continuity inconsistencies exist concerning Home One and her sister-ships: see here for full discussion.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: X-wing
 * Star Wars: Empire at War
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron ½
 * Star Wars Empire: A Little Piece of Home
 * Star Wars Empire: "General" Skywalker
 * Entrenched
 * Star Wars: X-wing Alliance
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi novel
 * Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars Manga: Return of the Jedi 3
 * The Vandelhelm Mission
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: In the Empire's Service
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Masquerade
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
 * X-wing: Solo Command
 * The Last Command
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge
 * I, Jedi
 * Starship Battles