I still really like ECHenry's take on what the nebulon-b looked like originally as an imperial vessel. It definitely looks way more Imperial with all of the original armor plating included
@@Paaanzaaa Why should he? He will lose a lot of precious time to promote someone else..., so he just promote Ramen;). YT put a lot of forced advert, and now even ECK too.
A very vivid memory from 20 years ago: I arrived at a friend’s house, and their Dachshund charged at me, snarling like a teeny derpy demon. I merely raised the front of my foot a few inches, and the dog crashed into it like a war horse into a line of pikes. But the little psycho didn’t give up or go around. It just kept snarling and pushing like it thought it could rip through my foot and kill me. When my friend came to the door, the tiny maniac disengaged and ran to her. Friend: “Did he bite you?” Me: “No, but he tried.” Friend: “Did you kick him?” Me: “No. Well, at least-“ Friend: “Cuz you SHOULD have.”
Dunno if you know but EC Henry did in fact create his own rendition of the Nebulon B if it were in Imperial service, and I for one LOVE the design of it, its perfect
E C Henry's concept still is THE original factory look of the Nebulon B in my head canon, and to me it makes sense that the TIE hanger space would have been within the area below the long backbone of the Nebulon B, now absent with the Rebellion, as they have hyperspace capable fighters and don't necessarily need the Nebulon B to have a hanger.
The Nebulon! Love this ship so much and I always use it as the Rebels in EAW, regardless of fleet comp. This is my mainline Rebel frigate and it has never let me down, so I'll never let it down.
They're literally the secret to early success as the New Republic in Thrawn's Revenge imo. Get Ackbar in Home One to face-tank everything, throw some mixed cruisers just behind him like the dauntless, liberator and various MC types, a bunch of mixed corvettes, and like 10 Nebulon B's, each one putting out a half squadron of fighters and bombers. Aesthetically that mixed fleet SCREAMS rebels, it can deal with most things you'll face until the AI spams you with a fleet of 20 ISDs, and you'll have fighter superiority in most if not all early engagements.
Same, I grew up with Empire at War (was my first real PC game lol) and I always loved the Nebulon. Finding out that it's just a stripped down imperial design is so cool. EC Henry made a fantastic video that shows his interpretation of what an imperial Nebulon-B would look like, panels armament and all.
One thing you didnt mention was it was a highly modular ship which was unusual for Imperial designs. All those tubular sections in the lower prow (visible at 7:13) were individual equipment modules which could be individually swapped out.
Since I first saw this ship in Episode V, my shorter self loved how unique, quirky, and janky this thing is. Like you, I still consider it one of my favorite capitol ships. My love of the Starhawk directly relates to the similar design. It’s like the Starhawk is what you’d get if a Nebulon transformed into the Armored Titan. If you’ve never played the miniatures game Armada, it does an excellent job of capturing the unique personality of this little ship, including its strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, it tries to “drift” around a larger target, keeping itself pointed toward the enemy, and withstanding a surprising amount of return fire… unless it gets pounded in the side
God I wish there was a PC game that tries to do something like SWA, and is SW themed. The format is perfect and super fun, but tabletop games are a bit of a pain to set up, and you need to meet somebody offline to play them. I wish I could just play against AI or play online multiplayer any time I want without much hassle.
@@michaelandreipalon359 He's probably just conflating events and ships. No big deal. There IS an EF76 named that in X-Wing, and an EF76 DOES come to your aid at least once in the TIE Fighter game IIRC.
@@michaelandreipalon359 While hypering to the gameplay area, it got lost in the world-between-worlds, sort of like how ships get lost in the Warp in WH40K. While in there, it was granted a refit by... oh... let's say the ghost of Yarael Poof, why not. *please excuse me, I've been drinking a bit.
Though I wish they showed a model that shows how 24 star fighters can be attached to it.... they only made the medical version and only games have ventured to make a combat one.
My bets will be inside its spine , or hanging dock rack below it , like a Gozanti ties can dock to it I think , but maybe gut the cargo and add the hanger
I was thinking about this while playing the X-Wing game back in 1993. The idea I came up with is this: TIE Fighter hexagonal flat wing panels are 'plug and play', and can be attached or detached in seconds. So in the Nebulon B's hangar, the TIE Fighter ball cockpits are stored in 3 vertical tubes in the centre of the forward superstructure, while the flat wing panels (not including the wing struts) are rotated 90 degrees and stored flat in 6 narrow chutes on each side of the 3 vertical tubes (overlapping each other to save vertical space). So to launch TIE Fighters, the cockpits and wing panels are brought up to the small hangar deck in automatic hoists, like the shells in a WW2 battleship, and then very quickly assembled on deck by robotic arms, while the pilots board the TIE cockpits and power them up. It takes less than a minute to hoist, assemble, man and launch a flight of 3 TIEs.
Those ships were murder in the old *X-Wing* DOS game. They were tough enough to need the help of a squadron to handle without hassle (which wasn't the case 90% of the time), had no vulnerable shield generators to target like a star destroyer, and their gun emplacements were pinpoint accurate. The *TIE Fighter* sequel allowed you to target the individual laser batteries on anything larger than a corvette, but no such luck in the original game. Downing even one of those monsters was a major accomplishment.
Also, while Star Destroyers are more heavily armed and armored, their own size works against them since it creates huge blind spots. Frigates, being more compact, have an easier time always keeping you in the sights of at least one of their cannons. You could try to get into the blind sport right behind their engines, but the hot wash from those can also kill you. You can kill a Star Destroyer with just your cannons if you have the time, but killing a frigate demands the use of torpedoes, and that´s not something the Rebellion always has at hand.
The Nebulon B in X-Wing had 12 turbolasers, same as the Star Destroyer. But the Nebulon B actually had a stronger turbolaser broadside from side on than the Star Destroyer, since more of the Nebulon B's guns were centrally mounted and could fire to either side of the ship. While the Star Destroyer could only fire half of its own guns to either side. That's why Nebulon B's could fire more laser bolts at you than a Star Destroyer could.
I remember playing the old X-Wing game on PC. These things were harder to fight than Star Destroyers, especially since they showed up after you used all your ordinance
The Nebulon B in X-Wing had 12 turbolasers, same as the Star Destroyer. But the Nebulon B actually had a stronger turbolaser broadside from side on than the Star Destroyer, since more of the Nebulon B's guns were centrally mounted and could fire to either side of the ship. While the Star Destroyer could only fire half of its own guns to either side. That's why Nebulon B's could fire more laser bolts at you than a Star Destroyer could.
@@timonsolus That and the Star Destroyer had the two shield generators on top. In a Y wing or B Wing it was easy enough to blow them up, switch to ion cannons, and disable the destroyer.
In canon, they were even used by rebel factions long before the Alliance was formed, at least 5 years into Imperial history. A Rebel faction ran by a former Republic intelligence officer had one alongside a Nebulon B alongside his modified Providence class cruiser in a campaign against Tarkin.
I have a fondness for the Nebulon-B2. Also you forgot to mention how the long 'neck' of the ship was a weakness and that concentrated fire could break it down the middle!
We see it a couple of times in the EU (IIRC in the Wraith Squadron novel about 20 or so torpedoes in that section makes the ship break in half). Then there's Rogue One where one basically disintegrates.. And the Nebulon B-2 is sorta weird as it's only appeared in one real setting and never outside of that. So hard to gauge. It makes sense out of universe - a highly successful design gets a solid upgrade made of it. So easy to accept. Stronger hull, shields, probably bit faster at sublight, few more guns..
It was that way for game balance. I mean, if you go by the way stats are in the game vs the canon (EU), they're dialed well down to give the player (who is just in a fighter) a chance. The Corellian Corvette is supposed to be able to match an X-Wing at speed (it's called a blockade runner) but it goes at IIRC ~ 16 MGLTs in the game. It also has two turrets in the games whereas the 'canon' one has IIRC 4-6 light turbolasers and then 2-4 PD ones. Going by pure 'hardpoints' an ISD is supposed to have ~ 120 weapon emplacements in canon, whereas in the game it has maybe ~ 20'ish. The games are done for play balance! Not canon
I suspect the "medical bay viewport" was originally for a pivot turbolaser emplacement. We see guns like this firing through similar windows on the death star. Perhaps the forward hull had many more of these openings for guns, but the Redemption covered the openings with armor plate.
Love this ship. Back in the mid 90's I had AOL and there were Star Wars role playing chat rooms. One would host fleet battles where you could pick your ship and be part of a fleet. I always picked a Nebulon-B and smashed my face into every Imperial ship I could find, with predictable results.
The X- wing and TIE fighter games put the hangar on the opposite side of the size-changing window. But the window could have been a backup exit. (Fan mods for XWA put an extea hangar exit right where the head and "beard" meet the neck and use that to launch transports
Long ago, in a neighborhood far away, I played a former Imperial Captain in command of the "Far Orbit" - a Nebulon-B turned Rebel Privateer (This was a module/scenario in the old D6 SWRPG that my GM built a campaign around.) From what I can recall, the way I handled the fighter problem was by modifying it to install docking clamps on the outside of the ship. Basically lined them along the spine - only had room for 6 Z-95s. Originally the hangar could hold 2 full squads of TIEs, but I could only fit 6 TIE-wings (hanging up) and a small shuttle in there, pre-modification. Bonus was that the docked ships literally physically shielded the weakest point of the ship. Came in clutch in one battle, though it required many lucky dice rolls, lol Wasn't your standard D&D style game - my friends played it more like a strategy wargame with some light roleplaying thrown in. I didn't run the Far Orbit for long - our second or third session was when I stole a Victory-Class - but every ship I've commanded since gets compared to the Orbit. By the time the campaign ended (which was the Battle of Endor) I'd modified the Neb to hold a full squadron of A-wings internally. Cost the same as purchasing half the squadron. Not really worth the credits, imo. Just have all your starfighters hyperspace capable. Too many eggs in one basket. I'm not about making life for my pilots "cushy"! I had a war to win. Not that ANY of this applies here, as this was Legends. I'm just commenting for the algorithm. You not having over a million subs yet is inexcusable.
Always loved the Neb-B. My headcanon is basicly that the Neb-B in imperial service is what EC Henrys version looks like, while the Rebels took the same approach with it that they did with many Dreadnoughts, also a rather slow ship, to refit them into the Assoult frigates, remove a lot of armor to make them go faster and be more agile. Thats why they look so rugged and spindly.
The ol' Neb-B has always been my favorite midsize ship in Star Wars. Such an unusual design, rugged as opposed to sleek. it's sort of the Star Wars version of a Klingon D7/K'tingaa class (one of my favorite ships from that franchise too). It's a shame physical models of this ship are so rare (I have one from the old Star Wars spaceship tabletop game on my desk, it's like 4' long). I even built one in Space Engineers, 1:1 scale (with a few mods for more star wars-esque ship components). It even had a functioning hangar that launched up to 3 Z-95s!
Though small, the miniature from Star Wars armada is surprisingly detailed and I quite like it. The small size also makes it affordable. The coolest thing I’ve ever seen a Nebulon do in that game is charge right at a Super Star Destroyer (THAT model is 24 inches long), blaze away, barely surviving return fire, then disengaging. That teeny hero survived the whole battle.
@@WillFredward7167 Hot damn dude. Vikings who never even heard of Star Wars must sing songs about that ship. I played tons of tabletop games back in the day and that sort of thing is the stuff of legend, like when I had one of my humble Space Marine Sergeants (albeit equipped with a Power Fist) clobber a Daemon Prince in melee combat. Game-winning moment. To be fair, the EF76 Nebulon B2 **is** known for punching well above its weight class....
@@andyb1653 It was magnificent. It had one HP, pulled a crazy tight maneuver that put it directly behind the SSD, pointing its rear shields (all it had left) toward the dreadnaught’s underwhelming rear guns. Those shields lasted barely long enough for the ships to move beyond extreme turbolaser range of each other. Perhaps the descendents of that crew one day left the star wars galaxy and became the ancestors of the Vikings. That’s some epic backstory.
@@WillFredward7167 Winning any decently-crafted tabletop war game requires a blend of gutsy tactics and good luck. Sometimes it comes down to one dice roll, no matter how good the plan was, and sometimes the dice just can't save a horrible plan no matter what happens. But when both are in one's favor, one can work miracles. This lowly frigate (I hereby dub it the RMS Unbreakable, if I may be so bold) is, in my headcannon, now parked in a New Republic war museum somewhere in the Corellian System (where it very well may have first been built). Yes, the museum survived the First/Final Order's oh-so-temporary conquest too, for what THAT'S worth. "Somehow, Palpatine returned"-->"Whatever man we build space vans. Y'all deal with that... May the Force be with you I guess"
I love how in the force unleashed 2, that the Nebulon-B is VASTLY oversized within VS how it is outside haha like the turbo train/lift that you ride on goes for at least 500 (understatement) metres and then you journey even further through the ship, with massive spaces, rooms and floors. They made it like a damn TARDIS. Huge hanger bays, gigantic turbo laser and many other spaces. Basically they fit a star destroyer within a nebulon-b. I love how ridiculous it is 😂
Never forget, the absolute ballsiness the captains of these had, such as the one that went toe to toe with broadsiding vader's executor flagship, and the craziness crix madine has pulled throughout his career.
I know people have often been down on the Nebulon-B because of the spindly central section being an obvious target, but i always thought it might be a "honey pot." That it was much more heavily armored than might be expected, and that, combined with being a smaller target, actually made it a somewhat bad area of the ship to target.
I love how they went in that direction with Rogue One, the devastator targeted the spine and just severed it with turbo laser fire haha such a design flaw. But I still love this ship.
@@aidantrojan3710I always thought that the frigate was not the Devastator’s target since it was aiming at the Profundity and the poor Nebulon B was just unfortunate enough to be positioned in a way where it absorbed the entire opening barrage
@thiccchungo1041 what you have to try and remember is that these ships have vastly superior capabilities and technology than what we know of or even really see. Their targeting computers are actually very precise, you can see in the movies/tv shows etc that in the very large crew pits they have many officers just for the guns and turrets. It stands to reason that would have automatic fire capabilities as well as individual crew members for different guns and firing arcs. It wouldn’t be a very practical strategy to just open fire with every gun onto a particular area. There would most definitely have been several technicians/gunners targeting the frigates and smaller blockade runners surrounding the cruiser. We know from canon sources that Star Destroyers and other large ships have a very immense effective firing range. A target as small as the spine of a Nebulon-B would have had to have been a purposefully strategic shot target. At least in my head haha
These ships showed up everywhere on both sides in the X-Wing computer game, though their ubiquity was likely due to the game's very limited ship variety. My headcanon is that at least some of the vessels encountered in that game were stand-ins for other midsize capital ships like Dreadnaughts and Bulk Cruisers.
Correct. The Nebulon B in X-Wing was overpowered in terms of shield strength and especially hull strength. I modded it in my copy of the games to bring it down to exactly half the strength of the Star Destroyer in both categories.
I have one major problem with the Nebulon-B: that long, exposed pylon, which presumably contains vital power, control and communication lines, since it connects the stern, which has the engines and main reactor, with the rest of the ship, which contains the bridge, most of the weapons, the hangar, long-range sensors and communication systems, everything else basically. Therefore, in theory, if you could sever or at least severally damage the pylon, you would leave the vessel almost, if not completely, crippled.
I’ve always loved this ship, ever since I was a little kid. I don’t know why I guess it’s just how it looks. But after reading a lot of legends lore I just fell more in love with it.
When thinking about the supposed hangar bay (before a medical suite replaces it), there might be potential hangar doors at the rear of the forward section, to the right of where Luke & co are, facing backwards to the rear of the ship, underneath the spine (would also potentially provide head-on cover for landings and launches during battle, too). The existing viewport would then be considered an add-on or part of the suite, not a docking bay/port. For small craft like an A-Wing, you could potentially land/launch a fighter there, carry it forward to where the medical suite was later installed, and potentially have a sub-deck below there for storage. And a further one-to-two deck areas to Luke & co's left, past the viewport. So that's half a squadron right there (albeit with only a three-solo-launches-at-a-time capability). And, yeah, docking on the spine would be the only other places you could fit more in an obvious way. But depending on how those are attached/accessed, you could potentially fit fighters below, above, and to each side of the docking tube, and probably up to 3 deep at a minimum (and probably a lot more if they're really crammed in there, though that might be overkill). So another squadron or two could be accounted for that way. This, of course, would require no medical suite, etc and be pretty much a dedicated carrier variant (would probably need to increase crew quarter capacity by perhaps swapping out a sensor module or two for rooms- though they could probably squeeze some tight-quarters bunk beds in the existing/remaining space, if necessary).
I was thinking about fighter storage while playing the X-Wing game back in 1993. The idea I came up with is this: TIE Fighter hexagonal flat wing panels are 'plug and play', and can be attached or detached in seconds. So in the Nebulon B's hangar, the TIE Fighter ball cockpits are stored in 3 vertical tubes in the centre of the forward superstructure, while the flat wing panels (not including the wing struts) are rotated 90 degrees and stored flat in 6 narrow chutes on each side of the 3 vertical tubes (overlapping each other to save vertical space). So to launch TIE Fighters, the cockpits and wing panels are brought up to the small hangar deck in automatic hoists, like the shells in a WW2 battleship, and then very quickly assembled on deck by robotic arms, while the pilots board the TIE cockpits and power them up. It takes less than a minute to hoist, assemble, man and launch a flight of 3 TIEs.
I've been watching Eck's videos for like five years now and this is the first time I've heard where the cut scene with the assault frigates, gunships, and nebulon b vs ISDs was from. Force Unleashed II. Had no idea before now, but I've been watching it on repeat in various videos for forever.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Dang, that IS who I was thinking of. My bad. And yeah theft of fan art is an issue, not just in Star Wars either... It'd still be an honor though, even if it's only the fans themselves who respect you. That's what's most important, really. Corporations gonna capitalism, but if the fandom likes your stuff then you've actually done good work. That applies to fanartists AND the so-called professionals.
If the primary duty was cargo ship escort, then you really don't need that much speed. You just have to minimally be as fast as your convoy, maybe a little faster to get distance between yourself and the convoy to engage the attackers. I could see a convoy of 10 cargo and 6 or 8 neb paired up for mutual support
Real space probes often have weirdly thin/fragile looking bits I guess they intended for the Neb B to look strange for some good reason TBD later. But we never got a good reason
I GMed the West End Games Star Wars RPG,and I adventure where my group stole a Nebula B from a out of the way Imperial dry dock. I also based most of how I used the Nebula B in the RPG from the X-Wing PC game. It was frightening with it's guns,and it could turn on a dime.
I recall that in the original RotJ book, there was even mention of a Nebulon B used for SAR of pilots and crew that ejected from their fighters and ships. Imagine having that job in the middle of a fleet engagement with a Death Star pot shotting all around!
Because as "poster boy" of rebel capital ships in the movies, authors kept piling on "cooler and bigger" details about it on attempts to flesh it out and halfway through they forgot why they started it?
In Rogue Squadron 2 for the GameCube, Rogue squadron is often commanded from or flying escort for the Redemption, and during those missions there's several instances of a tube system being used to dock fighters and the Millennium Falcon to the spindly center section.
The only Nebulon-B Frigate that I remember being as an enemy was the FGR Redemption from Star Wars X-Wing Alliance, the Redemption was a resupply vessel for the ISD Corrupter under the command of Admiral Garreth Holtz
Sometimes I think that the Nebulon B frigate is 'small', but then I realize that the front pod of the frigate is roughly the same height or a bit taller than Fenwick Tower in Halifax.
TFU2's rebel ship was originally meant to be thr Assault Frigate, they changed at the last minute, so using it as a guide to the inside of a Nebulon is very messy
Well, it is an Assault Frigate in the Wii version. In the other versions, it's an EF-76 that has clearly been scaled up, three or four times. And all the interiors within are huge - even the medical bay, and service tunnels. The novelization treated it as a more vanilla frigate, though, plus more proportional.
@@chrissonofpear1384 Yeah, the interior is even too big for an Assault Frigate which is only about teice as long and maybe 4x as thick around the middlem
Have you seen EC Henrys Nebulon B version that he made for the Emperial Service? That one looks awesome and I still wish I had a printed model of it. As well as I wish it would be an official design. I like his idea that the Rebel version is a stripped down version. PS: The window part that is supposed to be the medical bay looks way to large to me. That window should be much larger then we see it in the scene. I mean it should have been large enough to fit a T-Fighter through it and those things wings are high. 2-3 times of a normal person I would say. I think this was just a practical edit they made without considering the size differances.
A frigate is basically the workhorse of a fleet that can be used for all kinds of tasks. They're one of the two basic types of ships that make up a fleet, the other one being battleships (which are specifically for fighting naval battles). There can be of course other ship classes and over time there will be a natural evolution that leads to diversification. For example, if you equip and upgrade a frigate so it can operate independently and without being supported for an extended amount of time, it becomes a cruiser. But if you only have two kinds of ships, you'll want one that specializes in winning battles and one that does everything else.
Yes - the Nebulon B's shields had to be brought down the hard way, no shield domes atop the bridge to knock out. Plus the frigate could actually fire more guns to either side than the Star Destroyer, and on top of that, was a much smaller target.
I remember, back when I was a kid, I, for some reason, did NOT like the Neb-B. Idk why either. I don't know what put put me off whenever I first saw this ship in Empire Strikes Back. However now I absolutely love the ship. I love it's history, it's design, everything. not sure what changed in me, but something did, and I'm glad it happened!
5:50 A docking tube is just a wide hallway that it uses to transfer materiel and personell between the ship and other ships or stations. It can't hold a ship, it only attaches to one.
My head canon was always that the long spindle allowed modular mission specific sections to be added as needed. Including big boxy hangers on either side.
I was thinking about hangar space while playing the X-Wing game back in 1993. The idea I came up with is this: TIE Fighter hexagonal flat wing panels are 'plug and play', and can be attached or detached in seconds. So in the Nebulon B's hangar, the TIE Fighter ball cockpits are stored in 3 vertical tubes in the centre of the forward superstructure, while the flat wing panels (not including the wing struts) are rotated 90 degrees and stored flat in 6 narrow chutes on each side of the 3 vertical tubes (overlapping each other to save vertical space). So to launch TIE Fighters, the cockpits and wing panels are brought up to the small hangar deck in automatic hoists, like the shells in a WW2 battleship, and then very quickly assembled on deck by robotic arms, while the pilots board the TIE cockpits and power them up. It takes less than a minute to hoist, assemble, man and launch a flight of 3 TIEs.
The Nebulon B that Mon Mothma uses in _Dark Forces_ has a reasonably sized hangar that Kyle Katarn parks the Moldy Crow at least twice during the story.
The section for the Neb I believe were supposed to be modular so it could be changed out relatively quickly and each section would look someone different and take up different amount of space. A hanger would be mostly empty except for maybe some fuel pods and ammo storage. A med bay would take up most of the space with beds, med droids, Bacta tanks and other medical items so it would be more enclosed than a hanger bay.
@@sumukhvmrsat6347 One of the short stories released around Episode VII lists several ship classes used by the First Order that we never see in the movies. Including Nebulon-K Frigates and making the Lancer class Frigates canon.
I remember playing Star Wars Rebellion (the video game) growing up, and I pretty much was unbeatable against my friends… until I noted that the Nebulon B had a perfect balance of turbolasers and point defense lasers, making it the only vessel tough against both fighters and capital ships. After that, I never could win as my opponents would only use Nebulon B frigates and I couldn’t counter it unless I used… Nebulon B frigates as well.
Yes, the neblon B frigate, although initially an imperial build ship and to combat rebel raids, proved itself to be of massive use to the rebel alliance as a multi purpose frigate, that in various configurations can build roles from frigate, medical ship, command ship and communications centre ship.
In the Star Wars RPG, both the original West End Games offering and the D20 offering, I developed the Nebulon-Carrier. Take the fighter boxes off of wrecked Quasar Fire class carriers. Stack one atop another, then attach 1 pair on either side of the central shaft of a Nebulon-B. Add more support structure behind them, including maintenance bays, and replace the internal hangar space with quarters and facilities for the pilots, hangar deck crew, and mechanics. The fighter complement is 48 per "box", 96 per side, for a total of 192 fighters. That's 16 squadrons, or, 4 fighter wings. This is the Star Wars RPG equivalent of a Super Carrier. The Nimitz of Star Wars.
I’d like to see a series on Disney+ sort of like Vehicle Flythroughs and Biomes, but that shows stuff like how the Empire used the Nebulon ships and and what an Imperial convoy would look like, and that kind of thing.
There was an RPG sourcebook or something I stumbled on a couple years back that detailed the hangar bay being on the starboard side with a retractable door and covering two decks, with plenty of room for 24 TIE Fighters. Ever since then I've never questioned the fighter capacity.
'The Far Orbit Project' by West End Games. Deck plans, overview of both Imperial and Rebel use, as well as a really fun pirate/privateer campaign set in the Core Worlds... a few of the reasons it's my favorite Star Wars RPG sourcebook. And yes, it touches on all the 'issues' brought up about the Nebulon-B's fighter capacity.
@@chrisbyrnes8758 Right, that was it! Honestly, I kind of wish EC Henry would take a second pass at his Imperial Nebulon-B idea and incorporate the Far Orbit deckplans while still doing something about the very non-KDY-like jagged design that looks like it's been stripped down.
When I play ST:EAW the Nebulon-B is a great mid-range support frigate that can handle most other ships in the game. As a frigate, it has a multi-role capablity like transport, medical, supply carrier, interceptor, and so many more.
If you check the cutscenes in "The force unleashed 2" the nebulon b flagship is absolutely gigantic especially compared to the Rogue Shadow, which I believe should have been comparable in size to the Millennium Falcon. Maybe an in-universe explanation is that particular nebulon b is some sort of giga-sized version.
That "two squadrons" is also a question of "what size starfighters are we talking about?" A-Wings are so much more compact than most other rebel fighters and TIEs don't seem especially large but that many Y-Wing... yeah, no.
My first foray into Star Wars as a kid wasn't the movies, but the X-wing game (as in the first one that ran on freaking DOS, even before Tie Fighter). In that game, the Empire used way more Nebulon-Bs than the Rebels did, in exactly the way the game's manual established them: as convoy escort ships. So it was no surprise to me when other materials came out detailing that it was definitely an Empire-produced ship that the Rebellion just "Creatively Acquired" in large enough numbers.
My head canon says that it's built so that addition structures can be added behind the front of the ship such as a dedicated fighter hangar. But the rebels have removed those capabilities since it would just be a waste of eqipment to leave them installed functional when the frigate is being used in an offensive manner against larger Star Destroyers.
I can tell you from in game experience (TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance) that the Nebulon B is a major PITA to kill without capital ship support. The way the lasers are placed means you always have at *least* 3 of them can hit you no matter what direction you come from. Add a warhead launcher that has a launch/lock range TWICE that of your normal fighter.
Something I like about the Nebulon-C in canon is that it runs with the idea that the B looked run down. The Nebulon-C just is a run down piece of junk because they're up to the Nebulon-K.
Imperial officer: “Just once, I’d like to destroy a starship that *WE* didn’t pay for!”
I still really like ECHenry's take on what the nebulon-b looked like originally as an imperial vessel. It definitely looks way more Imperial with all of the original armor plating included
Same. That was a fun project
It has honestly become my head canon,. He even solved the hanger bay issue.
Have you seen Fractal Sponge's?
Absolutely, was kinda hoping Eck's would get to that one too; especially during the hangar-question
@@Paaanzaaa Why should he? He will lose a lot of precious time to promote someone else..., so he just promote Ramen;). YT put a lot of forced advert, and now even ECK too.
It’s the Dachshund of Capital ships
Lol
Dashhound
A very vivid memory from 20 years ago: I arrived at a friend’s house, and their Dachshund charged at me, snarling like a teeny derpy demon. I merely raised the front of my foot a few inches, and the dog crashed into it like a war horse into a line of pikes. But the little psycho didn’t give up or go around. It just kept snarling and pushing like it thought it could rip through my foot and kill me.
When my friend came to the door, the tiny maniac disengaged and ran to her.
Friend: “Did he bite you?”
Me: “No, but he tried.”
Friend: “Did you kick him?”
Me: “No. Well, at least-“
Friend: “Cuz you SHOULD have.”
@@D5quared91 Dachshund is the actual name, like how Donuts are actually Doughnauts. Dachshund means badger dog in german
@@WillFredward7167as a dachshund owner that sounds about right.
Dunno if you know but EC Henry did in fact create his own rendition of the Nebulon B if it were in Imperial service, and I for one LOVE the design of it, its perfect
I completely agree with you here
They’re friends so he knows.
ye, but eck only talked about the Onscreen and Supplements to it and how they (don't) fit together
E C Henry's concept still is THE original factory look of the Nebulon B in my head canon, and to me it makes sense that the TIE hanger space would have been within the area below the long backbone of the Nebulon B, now absent with the Rebellion, as they have hyperspace capable fighters and don't necessarily need the Nebulon B to have a hanger.
Of course he bloody knows....
I think the nebulon b is one of the most amazing ship designs in star wars.
Up video quality to 4K60fps!
Me too. It is well balanced.
The shape is said to be based on an outboard motor.
As a kid 1980s I thought the long, thin tube-shape was not impressive or with a designed purpose.
If there's a Zebulon B, is there not a Nebulon A?
With that lower bridge, it looks like it could attach to other large ships, perhaps to salvage them after a battle.
True. Also, I think in one of the comics the imperial navy also used a Nebulon B as a prison ship.
"For once I want to destroy a ship we didn't pay for!". Paraphrase of imperial commander famous comments on fighting a nebulon-b
The Nebulon! Love this ship so much and I always use it as the Rebels in EAW, regardless of fleet comp. This is my mainline Rebel frigate and it has never let me down, so I'll never let it down.
So true lol. This and dreadnaughts
They're literally the secret to early success as the New Republic in Thrawn's Revenge imo. Get Ackbar in Home One to face-tank everything, throw some mixed cruisers just behind him like the dauntless, liberator and various MC types, a bunch of mixed corvettes, and like 10 Nebulon B's, each one putting out a half squadron of fighters and bombers. Aesthetically that mixed fleet SCREAMS rebels, it can deal with most things you'll face until the AI spams you with a fleet of 20 ISDs, and you'll have fighter superiority in most if not all early engagements.
In The Star Wars Space Combat Simulation games they really shine in battle.
Same, I grew up with Empire at War (was my first real PC game lol) and I always loved the Nebulon. Finding out that it's just a stripped down imperial design is so cool. EC Henry made a fantastic video that shows his interpretation of what an imperial Nebulon-B would look like, panels armament and all.
"Nebulon-B Frigate here"
One thing you didnt mention was it was a highly modular ship which was unusual for Imperial designs. All those tubular sections in the lower prow (visible at 7:13) were individual equipment modules which could be individually swapped out.
I was looking for this comment! 🫶
He made a passing comment at the end of the
Since I first saw this ship in Episode V, my shorter self loved how unique, quirky, and janky this thing is. Like you, I still consider it one of my favorite capitol ships.
My love of the Starhawk directly relates to the similar design. It’s like the Starhawk is what you’d get if a Nebulon transformed into the Armored Titan.
If you’ve never played the miniatures game Armada, it does an excellent job of capturing the unique personality of this little ship, including its strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, it tries to “drift” around a larger target, keeping itself pointed toward the enemy, and withstanding a surprising amount of return fire… unless it gets pounded in the side
God I wish there was a PC game that tries to do something like SWA, and is SW themed. The format is perfect and super fun, but tabletop games are a bit of a pain to set up, and you need to meet somebody offline to play them. I wish I could just play against AI or play online multiplayer any time I want without much hassle.
After the Warspite saved my ass in TIE Fighter I have always appreciated these guys
This ship? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warspite_(03)
Holy F*ck that's a blast-from-the-past if I ever heard one. I pretty much grew up on those games.
@@baron7755 Yes, but in space and shaped more like a 1200-ft. stone garden hoe from minecraft.
@@michaelandreipalon359 He's probably just conflating events and ships. No big deal. There IS an EF76 named that in X-Wing, and an EF76 DOES come to your aid at least once in the TIE Fighter game IIRC.
@@michaelandreipalon359 While hypering to the gameplay area, it got lost in the world-between-worlds, sort of like how ships get lost in the Warp in WH40K. While in there, it was granted a refit by... oh... let's say the ghost of Yarael Poof, why not.
*please excuse me, I've been drinking a bit.
imperial engineer "sir! we have a new ship available!" imperial officer "is it a triangle??" engineer "no" Imperial officer "I DONT WANT IT"
Though I wish they showed a model that shows how 24 star fighters can be attached to it.... they only made the medical version and only games have ventured to make a combat one.
My bets will be inside its spine , or hanging dock rack below it , like a Gozanti ties can dock to it I think , but maybe gut the cargo and add the hanger
Simple solution would be for canon to bulk up its spine and fit them there, even if designers don't want to change anything else
I was thinking about this while playing the X-Wing game back in 1993. The idea I came up with is this:
TIE Fighter hexagonal flat wing panels are 'plug and play', and can be attached or detached in seconds. So in the Nebulon B's hangar, the TIE Fighter ball cockpits are stored in 3 vertical tubes in the centre of the forward superstructure, while the flat wing panels (not including the wing struts) are rotated 90 degrees and stored flat in 6 narrow chutes on each side of the 3 vertical tubes (overlapping each other to save vertical space).
So to launch TIE Fighters, the cockpits and wing panels are brought up to the small hangar deck in automatic hoists, like the shells in a WW2 battleship, and then very quickly assembled on deck by robotic arms, while the pilots board the TIE cockpits and power them up. It takes less than a minute to hoist, assemble, man and launch a flight of 3 TIEs.
Those ships were murder in the old *X-Wing* DOS game.
They were tough enough to need the help of a squadron to handle without hassle (which wasn't the case 90% of the time), had no vulnerable shield generators to target like a star destroyer, and their gun emplacements were pinpoint accurate.
The *TIE Fighter* sequel allowed you to target the individual laser batteries on anything larger than a corvette, but no such luck in the original game. Downing even one of those monsters was a major accomplishment.
Also, while Star Destroyers are more heavily armed and armored, their own size works against them since it creates huge blind spots. Frigates, being more compact, have an easier time always keeping you in the sights of at least one of their cannons. You could try to get into the blind sport right behind their engines, but the hot wash from those can also kill you.
You can kill a Star Destroyer with just your cannons if you have the time, but killing a frigate demands the use of torpedoes, and that´s not something the Rebellion always has at hand.
The Nebulon B in X-Wing had 12 turbolasers, same as the Star Destroyer. But the Nebulon B actually had a stronger turbolaser broadside from side on than the Star Destroyer, since more of the Nebulon B's guns were centrally mounted and could fire to either side of the ship. While the Star Destroyer could only fire half of its own guns to either side. That's why Nebulon B's could fire more laser bolts at you than a Star Destroyer could.
I really like EC Henry's version of the Nebulon B's history and the way it looked back in the day.
I love Nebulon-B's design, it looks so different and unique compared to other ships in star wars
I remember playing the old X-Wing game on PC. These things were harder to fight than Star Destroyers, especially since they showed up after you used all your ordinance
The Nebulon B in X-Wing had 12 turbolasers, same as the Star Destroyer. But the Nebulon B actually had a stronger turbolaser broadside from side on than the Star Destroyer, since more of the Nebulon B's guns were centrally mounted and could fire to either side of the ship. While the Star Destroyer could only fire half of its own guns to either side. That's why Nebulon B's could fire more laser bolts at you than a Star Destroyer could.
@@timonsolus That and the Star Destroyer had the two shield generators on top. In a Y wing or B Wing it was easy enough to blow them up, switch to ion cannons, and disable the destroyer.
@@VictorLoganov : Absolutely, Star Destroyers were easy meat. 3 torpedoes on each shield tower, an X-wing could do it.
In canon, they were even used by rebel factions long before the Alliance was formed, at least 5 years into Imperial history. A Rebel faction ran by a former Republic intelligence officer had one alongside a Nebulon B alongside his modified Providence class cruiser in a campaign against Tarkin.
I have a fondness for the Nebulon-B2. Also you forgot to mention how the long 'neck' of the ship was a weakness and that concentrated fire could break it down the middle!
We see it a couple of times in the EU (IIRC in the Wraith Squadron novel about 20 or so torpedoes in that section makes the ship break in half). Then there's Rogue One where one basically disintegrates..
And the Nebulon B-2 is sorta weird as it's only appeared in one real setting and never outside of that. So hard to gauge. It makes sense out of universe - a highly successful design gets a solid upgrade made of it. So easy to accept. Stronger hull, shields, probably bit faster at sublight, few more guns..
@@michaelandreipalon359 Seems like a mistake by the level designers then.
It was that way for game balance. I mean, if you go by the way stats are in the game vs the canon (EU), they're dialed well down to give the player (who is just in a fighter) a chance.
The Corellian Corvette is supposed to be able to match an X-Wing at speed (it's called a blockade runner) but it goes at IIRC ~ 16 MGLTs in the game. It also has two turrets in the games whereas the 'canon' one has IIRC 4-6 light turbolasers and then 2-4 PD ones.
Going by pure 'hardpoints' an ISD is supposed to have ~ 120 weapon emplacements in canon, whereas in the game it has maybe ~ 20'ish. The games are done for play balance! Not canon
@@Wedgekree Most Corellian corvetes are 2 double guns, and 4 lighter singles.
Yes, but to hit the neck of the Nebulon B, you have to bring down the ship's shields first. Which takes a lot of hits to do.
I suspect the "medical bay viewport" was originally for a pivot turbolaser emplacement. We see guns like this firing through similar windows on the death star. Perhaps the forward hull had many more of these openings for guns, but the Redemption covered the openings with armor plate.
Love this ship. Back in the mid 90's I had AOL and there were Star Wars role playing chat rooms. One would host fleet battles where you could pick your ship and be part of a fleet. I always picked a Nebulon-B and smashed my face into every Imperial ship I could find, with predictable results.
The X- wing and TIE fighter games put the hangar on the opposite side of the size-changing window. But the window could have been a backup exit. (Fan mods for XWA put an extea hangar exit right where the head and "beard" meet the neck and use that to launch transports
Your consistent quality content and efforts to keep new and old SW fans educated (and my love of ramen) got my support. ❤
Long ago, in a neighborhood far away, I played a former Imperial Captain in command of the "Far Orbit" - a Nebulon-B turned Rebel Privateer (This was a module/scenario in the old D6 SWRPG that my GM built a campaign around.)
From what I can recall, the way I handled the fighter problem was by modifying it to install docking clamps on the outside of the ship. Basically lined them along the spine - only had room for 6 Z-95s.
Originally the hangar could hold 2 full squads of TIEs, but I could only fit 6 TIE-wings (hanging up) and a small shuttle in there, pre-modification.
Bonus was that the docked ships literally physically shielded the weakest point of the ship. Came in clutch in one battle, though it required many lucky dice rolls, lol
Wasn't your standard D&D style game - my friends played it more like a strategy wargame with some light roleplaying thrown in. I didn't run the Far Orbit for long - our second or third session was when I stole a Victory-Class - but every ship I've commanded since gets compared to the Orbit.
By the time the campaign ended (which was the Battle of Endor) I'd modified the Neb to hold a full squadron of A-wings internally. Cost the same as purchasing half the squadron.
Not really worth the credits, imo. Just have all your starfighters hyperspace capable. Too many eggs in one basket. I'm not about making life for my pilots "cushy"! I had a war to win.
Not that ANY of this applies here, as this was Legends.
I'm just commenting for the algorithm. You not having over a million subs yet is inexcusable.
I never realized how much of a slugger the Nebulon B was
Well, one of them was ballsy enough to trade broadsides with the goddam Executor.
Always loved the Neb-B. My headcanon is basicly that the Neb-B in imperial service is what EC Henrys version looks like, while the Rebels took the same approach with it that they did with many Dreadnoughts, also a rather slow ship, to refit them into the Assoult frigates, remove a lot of armor to make them go faster and be more agile. Thats why they look so rugged and spindly.
One strafe run on that little middle section will cripple the whole ship.
The ol' Neb-B has always been my favorite midsize ship in Star Wars. Such an unusual design, rugged as opposed to sleek. it's sort of the Star Wars version of a Klingon D7/K'tingaa class (one of my favorite ships from that franchise too). It's a shame physical models of this ship are so rare (I have one from the old Star Wars spaceship tabletop game on my desk, it's like 4' long).
I even built one in Space Engineers, 1:1 scale (with a few mods for more star wars-esque ship components). It even had a functioning hangar that launched up to 3 Z-95s!
Though small, the miniature from Star Wars armada is surprisingly detailed and I quite like it. The small size also makes it affordable.
The coolest thing I’ve ever seen a Nebulon do in that game is charge right at a Super Star Destroyer (THAT model is 24 inches long), blaze away, barely surviving return fire, then disengaging. That teeny hero survived the whole battle.
@@WillFredward7167 Hot damn dude. Vikings who never even heard of Star Wars must sing songs about that ship. I played tons of tabletop games back in the day and that sort of thing is the stuff of legend, like when I had one of my humble Space Marine Sergeants (albeit equipped with a Power Fist) clobber a Daemon Prince in melee combat. Game-winning moment.
To be fair, the EF76 Nebulon B2 **is** known for punching well above its weight class....
@@andyb1653 It was magnificent. It had one HP, pulled a crazy tight maneuver that put it directly behind the SSD, pointing its rear shields (all it had left) toward the dreadnaught’s underwhelming rear guns. Those shields lasted barely long enough for the ships to move beyond extreme turbolaser range of each other.
Perhaps the descendents of that crew one day left the star wars galaxy and became the ancestors of the Vikings. That’s some epic backstory.
@@WillFredward7167 Winning any decently-crafted tabletop war game requires a blend of gutsy tactics and good luck. Sometimes it comes down to one dice roll, no matter how good the plan was, and sometimes the dice just can't save a horrible plan no matter what happens. But when both are in one's favor, one can work miracles.
This lowly frigate (I hereby dub it the RMS Unbreakable, if I may be so bold) is, in my headcannon, now parked in a New Republic war museum somewhere in the Corellian System (where it very well may have first been built). Yes, the museum survived the First/Final Order's oh-so-temporary conquest too, for what THAT'S worth. "Somehow, Palpatine returned"-->"Whatever man we build space vans. Y'all deal with that... May the Force be with you I guess"
@@andyb1653 😂
I love how in the force unleashed 2, that the Nebulon-B is VASTLY oversized within VS how it is outside haha like the turbo train/lift that you ride on goes for at least 500 (understatement) metres and then you journey even further through the ship, with massive spaces, rooms and floors. They made it like a damn TARDIS. Huge hanger bays, gigantic turbo laser and many other spaces. Basically they fit a star destroyer within a nebulon-b. I love how ridiculous it is 😂
I do love how EC Henry made a full imperial nebulon b that also added a hanger along the mid section
Never forget, the absolute ballsiness the captains of these had, such as the one that went toe to toe with broadsiding vader's executor flagship, and the craziness crix madine has pulled throughout his career.
I know people have often been down on the Nebulon-B because of the spindly central section being an obvious target, but i always thought it might be a "honey pot." That it was much more heavily armored than might be expected, and that, combined with being a smaller target, actually made it a somewhat bad area of the ship to target.
I love how they went in that direction with Rogue One, the devastator targeted the spine and just severed it with turbo laser fire haha such a design flaw. But I still love this ship.
In any case, to hit the ship's hull directly, you have to bring down its shields first.
@@aidantrojan3710I always thought that the frigate was not the Devastator’s target since it was aiming at the Profundity and the poor Nebulon B was just unfortunate enough to be positioned in a way where it absorbed the entire opening barrage
@thiccchungo1041 what you have to try and remember is that these ships have vastly superior capabilities and technology than what we know of or even really see. Their targeting computers are actually very precise, you can see in the movies/tv shows etc that in the very large crew pits they have many officers just for the guns and turrets. It stands to reason that would have automatic fire capabilities as well as individual crew members for different guns and firing arcs. It wouldn’t be a very practical strategy to just open fire with every gun onto a particular area. There would most definitely have been several technicians/gunners targeting the frigates and smaller blockade runners surrounding the cruiser. We know from canon sources that Star Destroyers and other large ships have a very immense effective firing range. A target as small as the spine of a Nebulon-B would have had to have been a purposefully strategic shot target. At least in my head haha
I always thought it wasn’t that good based on the design seeing the narrow bridge holding the thing together but it doesn’t seem that bad
“For once it would be nice to destroy a starship we didn’t pay for!” - Imperial star destroyer captain while fighting Rebel Nebulon Bs
Anyone who played X-Wing back in the ‘90s know that these ships were a pain in the ass to take down.
Yeah, the shields had to be brought down the hard way, no shortcuts.
I think Yoda has the best answer as to how a nebulon-b carries 24 fighters.
"Size matters not"
These ships showed up everywhere on both sides in the X-Wing computer game, though their ubiquity was likely due to the game's very limited ship variety. My headcanon is that at least some of the vessels encountered in that game were stand-ins for other midsize capital ships like Dreadnaughts and Bulk Cruisers.
Correct. The Nebulon B in X-Wing was overpowered in terms of shield strength and especially hull strength. I modded it in my copy of the games to bring it down to exactly half the strength of the Star Destroyer in both categories.
I have one major problem with the Nebulon-B: that long, exposed pylon, which presumably contains vital power, control and communication lines, since it connects the stern, which has the engines and main reactor, with the rest of the ship, which contains the bridge, most of the weapons, the hangar, long-range sensors and communication systems, everything else basically. Therefore, in theory, if you could sever or at least severally damage the pylon, you would leave the vessel almost, if not completely, crippled.
I’ve always loved this ship, ever since I was a little kid. I don’t know why I guess it’s just how it looks. But after reading a lot of legends lore I just fell more in love with it.
What I love about the Nebulon B is that it's a support ship for X-wings because of it's massive sensor array, helping it prevent surprises.
My personal headcannon is ECHenry's take with the Nebulon Bs in rebel hands being "a highly modified and stripped down version"
I miss these kinds of videos
You gotta love EC Henrys interpretation of what it looked like in Imperial service. Would love for him to restore the Nebulon C.
I once in kerbal space program built a long range ship based on the nebulon b was honestly quite fun watching it just sail through the stars
Fractal Sponge's Imperial Nebulon-B neatly solves the TIE hangar question.
When thinking about the supposed hangar bay (before a medical suite replaces it), there might be potential hangar doors at the rear of the forward section, to the right of where Luke & co are, facing backwards to the rear of the ship, underneath the spine (would also potentially provide head-on cover for landings and launches during battle, too). The existing viewport would then be considered an add-on or part of the suite, not a docking bay/port.
For small craft like an A-Wing, you could potentially land/launch a fighter there, carry it forward to where the medical suite was later installed, and potentially have a sub-deck below there for storage. And a further one-to-two deck areas to Luke & co's left, past the viewport. So that's half a squadron right there (albeit with only a three-solo-launches-at-a-time capability).
And, yeah, docking on the spine would be the only other places you could fit more in an obvious way. But depending on how those are attached/accessed, you could potentially fit fighters below, above, and to each side of the docking tube, and probably up to 3 deep at a minimum (and probably a lot more if they're really crammed in there, though that might be overkill). So another squadron or two could be accounted for that way.
This, of course, would require no medical suite, etc and be pretty much a dedicated carrier variant (would probably need to increase crew quarter capacity by perhaps swapping out a sensor module or two for rooms- though they could probably squeeze some tight-quarters bunk beds in the existing/remaining space, if necessary).
I was thinking about fighter storage while playing the X-Wing game back in 1993. The idea I came up with is this:
TIE Fighter hexagonal flat wing panels are 'plug and play', and can be attached or detached in seconds. So in the Nebulon B's hangar, the TIE Fighter ball cockpits are stored in 3 vertical tubes in the centre of the forward superstructure, while the flat wing panels (not including the wing struts) are rotated 90 degrees and stored flat in 6 narrow chutes on each side of the 3 vertical tubes (overlapping each other to save vertical space).
So to launch TIE Fighters, the cockpits and wing panels are brought up to the small hangar deck in automatic hoists, like the shells in a WW2 battleship, and then very quickly assembled on deck by robotic arms, while the pilots board the TIE cockpits and power them up. It takes less than a minute to hoist, assemble, man and launch a flight of 3 TIEs.
i think the fighters attached to the hull like how droid fighters clung to the skeletal structure of the munificant.
I've been watching Eck's videos for like five years now and this is the first time I've heard where the cut scene with the assault frigates, gunships, and nebulon b vs ISDs was from. Force Unleashed II. Had no idea before now, but I've been watching it on repeat in various videos for forever.
The nebulon B2 from TIE fighter I think is the ultimate version of the ship.
thanks for making this one of my favorite frigates.
Surprised you didn't shout-out EC-Henry's Imperial Nebulon-B for a contrast to the Rebel version.
@@michaelandreipalon359 To be fair a couple of EC's designs have been canonized (unless I'm thinking of a different fanartist)
@@michaelandreipalon359 Dang, that IS who I was thinking of. My bad. And yeah theft of fan art is an issue, not just in Star Wars either... It'd still be an honor though, even if it's only the fans themselves who respect you. That's what's most important, really. Corporations gonna capitalism, but if the fandom likes your stuff then you've actually done good work. That applies to fanartists AND the so-called professionals.
If the primary duty was cargo ship escort, then you really don't need that much speed. You just have to minimally be as fast as your convoy, maybe a little faster to get distance between yourself and the convoy to engage the attackers.
I could see a convoy of 10 cargo and 6 or 8 neb paired up for mutual support
Real space probes often have weirdly thin/fragile looking bits
I guess they intended for the Neb B to look strange for some good reason TBD later. But we never got a good reason
I GMed the West End Games Star Wars RPG,and I adventure where my group stole a Nebula B from a out of the way Imperial dry dock. I also based most of how I used the Nebula B in the RPG from the X-Wing PC game. It was frightening with it's guns,and it could turn on a dime.
Thx for your hard work brother 💪
I recall that in the original RotJ book, there was even mention of a Nebulon B used for SAR of pilots and crew that ejected from their fighters and ships. Imagine having that job in the middle of a fleet engagement with a Death Star pot shotting all around!
Eck, have you seen the vid by EC Henry on his version of the Imp Neb-B? It had a whole lot of hull plating to make it more solid and angular.
I always love that doggo in the outro ❤️
Because as "poster boy" of rebel capital ships in the movies, authors kept piling on "cooler and bigger" details about it on attempts to flesh it out and halfway through they forgot why they started it?
In Rogue Squadron 2 for the GameCube, Rogue squadron is often commanded from or flying escort for the Redemption, and during those missions there's several instances of a tube system being used to dock fighters and the Millennium Falcon to the spindly center section.
On the subject of the Neb-B's fighter squadrons, I think EC Henry's take makes the most sense.
The only Nebulon-B Frigate that I remember being as an enemy was the FGR Redemption from Star Wars X-Wing Alliance, the Redemption was a resupply vessel for the ISD Corrupter under the command of Admiral Garreth Holtz
@@michaelandreipalon359 yes i stand corrected. The FGR Monitor, my bad there, thanks
Sometimes I think that the Nebulon B frigate is 'small', but then I realize that the front pod of the frigate is roughly the same height or a bit taller than Fenwick Tower in Halifax.
TFU2's rebel ship was originally meant to be thr Assault Frigate, they changed at the last minute, so using it as a guide to the inside of a Nebulon is very messy
Well, it is an Assault Frigate in the Wii version.
In the other versions, it's an EF-76 that has clearly been scaled up, three or four times.
And all the interiors within are huge - even the medical bay, and service tunnels.
The novelization treated it as a more vanilla frigate, though, plus more proportional.
@@chrissonofpear1384 Yeah, the interior is even too big for an Assault Frigate which is only about teice as long and maybe 4x as thick around the middlem
Have you seen EC Henrys Nebulon B version that he made for the Emperial Service?
That one looks awesome and I still wish I had a printed model of it. As well as I wish it would be an official design.
I like his idea that the Rebel version is a stripped down version.
PS: The window part that is supposed to be the medical bay looks way to large to me. That window should be much larger then we see it in the scene. I mean it should have been large enough to fit a T-Fighter through it and those things wings are high. 2-3 times of a normal person I would say.
I think this was just a practical edit they made without considering the size differances.
A frigate is basically the workhorse of a fleet that can be used for all kinds of tasks.
They're one of the two basic types of ships that make up a fleet, the other one being battleships (which are specifically for fighting naval battles).
There can be of course other ship classes and over time there will be a natural evolution that leads to diversification. For example, if you equip and upgrade a frigate so it can operate independently and without being supported for an extended amount of time, it becomes a cruiser.
But if you only have two kinds of ships, you'll want one that specializes in winning battles and one that does everything else.
Why are there animated dogs with little hats crewing the ship?
The Nebulon B was the hardest ship to destroy in the original X-Wing game. The Star Destroyer was a cake walk compared to it. Miss the old days.
Yes - the Nebulon B's shields had to be brought down the hard way, no shield domes atop the bridge to knock out. Plus the frigate could actually fire more guns to either side than the Star Destroyer, and on top of that, was a much smaller target.
I remember, back when I was a kid, I, for some reason, did NOT like the Neb-B. Idk why either. I don't know what put put me off whenever I first saw this ship in Empire Strikes Back. However now I absolutely love the ship. I love it's history, it's design, everything. not sure what changed in me, but something did, and I'm glad it happened!
I would LOVE to order Vite Ramern, but I live in Australia, and the shipping cost is the same as the product itself.
5:50 A docking tube is just a wide hallway that it uses to transfer materiel and personell between the ship and other ships or stations. It can't hold a ship, it only attaches to one.
"Nebulon-B Frigate here." - Nebulon-B Frigate
Love ship lore/spec vids! Keep them coming 😊
My head canon was always that the long spindle allowed modular mission specific sections to be added as needed. Including big boxy hangers on either side.
I was thinking about hangar space while playing the X-Wing game back in 1993. The idea I came up with is this:
TIE Fighter hexagonal flat wing panels are 'plug and play', and can be attached or detached in seconds. So in the Nebulon B's hangar, the TIE Fighter ball cockpits are stored in 3 vertical tubes in the centre of the forward superstructure, while the flat wing panels (not including the wing struts) are rotated 90 degrees and stored flat in 6 narrow chutes on each side of the 3 vertical tubes (overlapping each other to save vertical space).
So to launch TIE Fighters, the cockpits and wing panels are brought up to the small hangar deck in automatic hoists, like the shells in a WW2 battleship, and then very quickly assembled on deck by robotic arms, while the pilots board the TIE cockpits and power them up. It takes less than a minute to hoist, assemble, man and launch a flight of 3 TIEs.
The Nebulon B that Mon Mothma uses in _Dark Forces_ has a reasonably sized hangar that Kyle Katarn parks the Moldy Crow at least twice during the story.
oh man i cant wait for the nebulon D, also the existence of the B and C implies the existence of a Nebulon A
George mentioned that it should look like an outboard motor laying down
Have you seen EC Henry’s fan design of the imperial Nebulon B?
It's metal AF I love it
The section for the Neb I believe were supposed to be modular so it could be changed out relatively quickly and each section would look someone different and take up different amount of space. A hanger would be mostly empty except for maybe some fuel pods and ammo storage. A med bay would take up most of the space with beds, med droids, Bacta tanks and other medical items so it would be more enclosed than a hanger bay.
Neb-B is probably my favorite frigate in Star Wars.
Love the shots from Rogue Squadron 2 and 3!
Have you seen EC Henry's version of the fully plated up imperial version? It looks so good and that axe shape really makes it look mean.
My favorite canon ship. Though I would love if they gave detailed specs on The First Order's Nebulon-Ks and a combat standard Nebulon-C
First order would have had the Arquitens I suppose
@@sumukhvmrsat6347 One of the short stories released around Episode VII lists several ship classes used by the First Order that we never see in the movies. Including Nebulon-K Frigates and making the Lancer class Frigates canon.
The nebulon-b frigate is one of my most favorite rebel ships besides the cr90 corvette and mc80 home one and my most favorite frigate in star wars
Don't forget the "Far Orbit Project", An old-school Nebulon-B that did become a pirate/privateer.
I remember playing Star Wars Rebellion (the video game) growing up, and I pretty much was unbeatable against my friends… until I noted that the Nebulon B had a perfect balance of turbolasers and point defense lasers, making it the only vessel tough against both fighters and capital ships. After that, I never could win as my opponents would only use Nebulon B frigates and I couldn’t counter it unless I used… Nebulon B frigates as well.
Yes, the neblon B frigate, although initially an imperial build ship and to combat rebel raids, proved itself to be of massive use to the rebel alliance as a multi purpose frigate, that in various configurations can build roles from frigate, medical ship, command ship and communications centre ship.
In the Star Wars RPG, both the original West End Games offering and the D20 offering, I developed the Nebulon-Carrier. Take the fighter boxes off of wrecked Quasar Fire class carriers. Stack one atop another, then attach 1 pair on either side of the central shaft of a Nebulon-B. Add more support structure behind them, including maintenance bays, and replace the internal hangar space with quarters and facilities for the pilots, hangar deck crew, and mechanics. The fighter complement is 48 per "box", 96 per side, for a total of 192 fighters. That's 16 squadrons, or, 4 fighter wings. This is the Star Wars RPG equivalent of a Super Carrier. The Nimitz of Star Wars.
I’d like to see a series on Disney+ sort of like Vehicle Flythroughs and Biomes, but that shows stuff like how the Empire used the Nebulon ships and and what an Imperial convoy would look like, and that kind of thing.
There was an RPG sourcebook or something I stumbled on a couple years back that detailed the hangar bay being on the starboard side with a retractable door and covering two decks, with plenty of room for 24 TIE Fighters. Ever since then I've never questioned the fighter capacity.
'The Far Orbit Project' by West End Games. Deck plans, overview of both Imperial and Rebel use, as well as a really fun pirate/privateer campaign set in the Core Worlds... a few of the reasons it's my favorite Star Wars RPG sourcebook. And yes, it touches on all the 'issues' brought up about the Nebulon-B's fighter capacity.
@@chrisbyrnes8758 Right, that was it! Honestly, I kind of wish EC Henry would take a second pass at his Imperial Nebulon-B idea and incorporate the Far Orbit deckplans while still doing something about the very non-KDY-like jagged design that looks like it's been stripped down.
When I play ST:EAW the Nebulon-B is a great mid-range support frigate that can handle most other ships in the game. As a frigate, it has a multi-role capablity like transport, medical, supply carrier, interceptor, and so many more.
If you check the cutscenes in "The force unleashed 2" the nebulon b flagship is absolutely gigantic especially compared to the Rogue Shadow, which I believe should have been comparable in size to the Millennium Falcon. Maybe an in-universe explanation is that particular nebulon b is some sort of giga-sized version.
The long spindle looks like an attachment point for stuff like containers and such.
I feel like the Hanger bay on the starboard side that was extensively shown in the X-wing computer games explains the docking capacity quite well.
That "two squadrons" is also a question of "what size starfighters are we talking about?" A-Wings are so much more compact than most other rebel fighters and TIEs don't seem especially large but that many Y-Wing... yeah, no.
My first foray into Star Wars as a kid wasn't the movies, but the X-wing game (as in the first one that ran on freaking DOS, even before Tie Fighter). In that game, the Empire used way more Nebulon-Bs than the Rebels did, in exactly the way the game's manual established them: as convoy escort ships. So it was no surprise to me when other materials came out detailing that it was definitely an Empire-produced ship that the Rebellion just "Creatively Acquired" in large enough numbers.
My head canon says that it's built so that addition structures can be added behind the front of the ship such as a dedicated fighter hangar. But the rebels have removed those capabilities since it would just be a waste of eqipment to leave them installed functional when the frigate is being used in an offensive manner against larger Star Destroyers.
I can tell you from in game experience (TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance) that the Nebulon B is a major PITA to kill without capital ship support. The way the lasers are placed means you always have at *least* 3 of them can hit you no matter what direction you come from. Add a warhead launcher that has a launch/lock range TWICE that of your normal fighter.
"Yes, it can carry 2 squadrons of TIEs"
"Where...?"
...
Something I like about the Nebulon-C in canon is that it runs with the idea that the B looked run down. The Nebulon-C just is a run down piece of junk because they're up to the Nebulon-K.