yep single interdictor would be not match for full wing of y wings and x-wings. with only on squad tie fighters and weak anti fighter defense make it siting duck. the equivalent would be air craft carrier sailing alone with an out escort fleet. If they have had this ship at battle at Hoth it would be the first to targeted by ion cannon.
@@spark300c the ion cannon has limited range and once a drag net is established a single interdictor would be enough. The problem with alot of starwars battles is that nobody, especially the imperials, is commanding effectively. Squadrons of tie fighters should have been deployed to ensure nothing escapes. but because of pride or stupidly they stayed in their hangers and sitting on their thumbs when their ships get ionized. An interdictor doesn't need to be in orbit, just overlap its gravitational field with the planets enough over its escape corridor and they are screwed and the ion cannon is out of effective range.
Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruiser : "Oh no!,protect me,my fellow fleet ships!" Interdictor-class Star Destroyer : "Oh no...we're going to have Rebels smeared all over us!" Although not as protected as the base Imperial I Star Destroyer,the Interdctors were much more capable at self defence then the Immobilizers. Also,just to be clear,Alan made a mistake regarding the Battle Of Atollon,those were the heavy cruisers,not the star destroyers. As for the Hoth discussion,you first have to remember that Admiral Kendal Ozzel,after refuting that the Rebelion was even there(which Captain Firmus Piett knew would happen and set it up to occur within earshot of Darth Vader),proceeded to exit hyperspace too close to Hoth,altering the Rebels who got their defences up and running,news that Major General Maximilian Veers told Vader,resultig in Ozzels' death and Pietts' promotion. In short,the whole damn fleet was too close to Hoth,so whichever interdicting vessel anyone would suggest would first have to move rearwards to stay well away. Had the fleet not alerted the Rebelion,the Empire would've bombarded Hoth from space with ease,and an interidcting vessel would've simply secured any potential escape attempts.
@@WiglafWienerDogno he shaved he released another vid with him being shaved also this is new and he just shaved I got scared when I saw it for some reason
Except that's not how you use them, they don't go about on there own picking fights. They are either supporting a fleet of Star Destroyers or they are themselves protected by multiple carriers. Either way, although they are the Rebels primary target, they are not easy and open targets. Unless your commanders are incompetent, i.e. The Empire
The Interdictor class makes sense if you're trying to enforce a checkpoint or enclose a field of engagement. But it is a bit of a "glass cannon". Great analysis once again. I really liked how the show Rebels was able to show the lesser known ships of the Empire that weren't realized on screen for the films due to budget, time or technical restraints of the time.
Yet ironically a "glass cannon" was a much better choice for countering the Rebel forces than a slow, lumbering, logistically intense juggernaut like a Star Destroyer. In the Interdictor's defense *on paper* it was perfect to defeat the Rebellion. It had a missile jamming field as part of its tactical equipment which was perfect considering the Rebel's hefty usage of anti-ship missiles like Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, which turned Star Destroyers from symbols of Imperial might into giant Imperial coffins more than a hundred times. The Rebel fleet often used hit and run attacks to hit the Imperial fleet with no risk of counterattack and the gravity well generator was a near perfect counter. You can't go to lightspeed to escape if your hyperdrive is jammed, now can you? I think the problem altogether was awful coordination and just outright incompetence on the part of the Imperials, as well as sloppy and predictable Imperial tactics.
@@Gamerguy826 The issue was that the rebels waged Guerilla and Civil warfare. And since it indiscriminately pulls ships out, you can't really use it everywhere (people would be pisssssed) Plus the main issue was that if it became too widespread, it can just be countered by some software changes to the fail safe
Note that Alan made a mistake regarding the crappy show that was Rebels,those were the interdicting heavy cruisers,not star destroyers,at the Battle Of Atollon. Had Constantine not been an idiot and had those interdictors been the star destroyer variants,then the Rebelion would've lost. Although not as protected as the base Imperial I Star Destroyer,the Interdictor-class Star Destroyers were much more capable at self defence then the Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruisers. The main concern,of course,was the Trench Run Disease/Symtom the majority of Star Destroyers faced,which itself was partially solved by messing with the launched munitions using the gravity projectors,and can be fully solved with the many underutilised Imperial frigates and corvettes.
The real problem of this class was why Old Republic Era Interdictor become obsolete. New hyperdrives could ignore it. Problem was that it was forgotten until movie era begin, so for a time it did work as super weapon. Until Rebels realized that many ship has option to turn off security in hyperdrives. Milenium Falcon and Consular class defectively could do it.
One of my favorite little clips of SW: Rebels is the moment when the light cruiser slams into the top of the Interdictor and scrapes the length until it hits the bridge.
I always wondered why videos on RUclips that mentioned Interdictor type ship only ever mentioned the ones from the Imperial era and the ancient old republic ships. It's sad that the technology got buried and forgotten like it did, but it was probably a good thing, all things considered.
I think the Immobilizer-418 Cruiser is the best use for the technology. The tech has a highly specific use so putting it on a cruiser makes it more than mobile enough to get attached to specific squadrons on a mission per mission basis. A Star Destroyer already is a multi-purpose ship (flagship, battlecarrier and ground troop transport), so bolting another use on its hull will just make it less efficient.
Yeah, but the majority of the imperial navy's officers are nepo-children who want the prestige of commanding an ISD. There's no glory to be had in commanding a mere 'support vessel' like an immobilizer-418. At least the interdictor ISD variant retains enough firepower to defend itself without having to be screened by a whole fleet.
@@7ElevenTruther the children may want the command over a Star Destroyer all day long. Still but a fraction actually got the honor. Keep in mind that according to the order of battle only 24 ISDs were part of an entire sector group, which were supported by 1,600 smaller warships and consisted of 2,400 ships total.
100%. Still, it seems like if the usage of Grav wells became too widespread, it would get countered easily. Since you can really only use it in a planned ambush or a full frontal assault on a hidden base, it limits its use cases. Plus in both those cases you want to bring enough firepower that you can demolish the enemy(because with shit ton of firepower you also reduce your own damages) This imbalance ultimately means that any person who was pulled out of HS KNOWS they are fucked, and thus will disable their fail safe and just blitz through. Because even if they hit a object, they are still gonna die anyways in the ambush/attack. Plus they couuld have a chance to just hit the ship itself Now if you are talking about those who literally break the HS lanes, that is a different story. But those need power that can't be on a curiser
@@normalchannel2185 you're right. I might just interject that hyperdrive short circuiting is rather risky without plot armor. So only main characters should attempt it.
If you want the real story: The Interdictor-Class Heavy Cruiser was created by our team at West End Games in 1989. Sadly six years after the Battle of Endor(‘s Moon). As such, could do little to stem the tide of the thrice cursed Rebellion. Even after these many years I cannot help but wince at the memory of that image: the Executor, out of control, colliding with the unfinished Death Star and then disintegrating completely in the Battle Station's massive explosion. The loss of the ship itself had been bad enough; but the fact it was the Executor had made it far worse. That particular Super Star Destroyer had been Darth Vader's personal ship, and despite the Dark Lord's legendary-and often lethal-capriciousness, serving aboard it had long been perceived as the quick line to promotion. Which meant that when the Executor died, so also did a disproportionate fraction of the Empire's best young and midlevel officers and crewers.
First Death Star, the empire best 2% to 3% of the imperial fleet. Executor had the best of the 5% of the fleet talent. The second Death Star, gods will only know of the talent lost.
Literally the game Silica in a nutshell. Some people BURN through tanks and aircraft, and then become shocked when the commander runs out of money... Then the crab aliens pile on top of everyone, lol.
Aw! I liked your facial hair. In any case, great video, as always! I always preferred the idea that the gravity well projector actually projected a gravity well, rather than being a sensor trick.
i was wrong about u bro. i didn't really know if you were really with it, but i judged too soon. u know ur stuff, are faithful to the lore but a curator and creative as well. appreciate it, subbed after months of watching on and off
Something funny? the ancient leviathan class interdictor of the KOTOR era had no exposed external interdictor "bumps", was a fraction of the size and mass of the imperial interdictor, but could carry thousands of troops and 40 fighters, and was the workhorse of Revan and Malak's Sith fleet. honestly, the Leviathan was somehow LESS specialized while doing the same job and was used as a general workhorse cruiser. Given how mass shadow generator tech was used as a superweapon to end the Mandalorian wars, KOTOR-era interdictor tech was somehow more advanced than what the empire had! the empire had to make up the difference with a large, more expensive, more specialized vessel with much larger and more intensive generators. The Leviathan interdictor was a better vessel for its day than the latter imperial interdictor.
@@berniethekiwidragon4382 For a real world explanation, someone at Lucasfilm was either lazy or confused, took the stats for the Imperial Interdictor Cruiser and slapped it onto the Sith Interdictor. Some sources even claimed that the Sith Interdictor was made by Sienar Fleet Systems just like the Imperial one, despite the fact that the company was known as Republic Sienar Systems at the time. So yeah, the interdictor capabilities of the Sith ship is a retcon, as is the subsequent explanation for why the technology inexplicably fell out of favor for thousands of years. Take everything you read or hear about the Sith Interdictor with a heaping grain of salt.
Star Forge (Rakata-Tech) was used to produce them. Remember, those guys made the Hyper-Drive only for other to re-discover via reverse-engineering it after their fall.
This discrepency when it comes to the amount of material one can put around the projectors is further expanded upon when one realises the Executor class had built in projectors inside the hull. If the 19 km behemoth can keep the projectors inside and still be fully functional,what exactly was stopping the Imperials from armoring the specialised vessels more?,did an unmentioned breakthrough occurred when they were building their Super Star Destroyers?,were they simply to big to be further armoured on a one kilometer sized vessel or less?
@@sentrysapper45 perhaps the interdiction capabilities can be taken with a grain of salt. Still, they were quite impressive for their time even if we assume couldn't interdict. in the KOTOR game a fleet a tiny fraction of the size of the trade federation blockade of naboo (we know this because in cutscenes the sith blockade fleet was so dispersed not one warship was within visual range of the other....a RARITY in SW!) could blockade a coruscant-style ecumenopolis such that even the ebon hawk, the millennium falcon equivalent of the world couldn't escape the planet without the right codes (lest the sith interdictor's gun blew them out of the space). one thing that isn't a retcon is they have effective targeting system that were excellent even for standards millennia later.
Idea, give your ships a scanner that can detect the gravity well and give the crew the choice. You would often know what is or isn’t an interdictor based on the situation.
Also the Interdictor's gravity wells had limited range. Two of them were unable to lock down the Atollon system. The Interdictor (at least in some sources) was unable to move while it's interdiction field was up or redirect the field easily. So fast ships could just outrun the field it was generating, get out of range, and jump out. So even a small misplacement of the field and the ship meant that it did not have coverage to completely cut off a hyperspace lane.
The Interdictor cruisers in the video game Star Wars: Empire at War were amazing for attacking/defending. It always helped in destroying the fleeing enemies. Underrated game that I hope one day gets a new release!
The game is still being updated specifically for modding support, which has absolutely gotten well enough for certain mods to feel like entirely new games. Pathing still shows how old of a game it is though, which leads to a lot of frustration. Still, interdiction in that game is simply OP. The mods I play give interdictors of some kind to all factions, so that no one is left out in the powerful tactic. They also change the AI so it doesn't even attempt to flee if there is an interdiction-capable craft on the field, but that is mostly so you can't abuse turning interdiction on/off repeatedly in order to take advantage of enemy ships attempting to flee within shooting distance.
However, during the clone wars it could have been extremely useful if known. Since the Empire was dealing with basically civil and guerilla war, while the Clone war was more of a traditional war. Plus they could have been used EXACTLY like how blockades are used IRL during the clone war to discourage planets from leaving and joining a side. However, the CIS would have also easily countered them (since 1: They had waay more resources than the rebellion, and 2: They could have easily just disabled the fail safe and sent hundreds of ships unmanned like arrows)
ALSO , i'm glad i invented a nullifier for the interdictor, it nullifies the gravity well effect and causes a feedback loop which destroys the gravity well generators
I see several issues. 1) First you need the ship in the area where the Rebels are going to be in the first place 2) You can’t have it “always on” as obviously that stops your ships and civilians from getting around too. 3) Just because they can’t go to hyperspace doesn’t mean they can’t just fly away far enough at sub-light speed (those pesky rebels almost certainly have their ships modified for maximum acceleration) 4) Obviously if the Rebels know it’s there it’s going to be targeted with extreme prejudice to ensure they can get away.
1. Like police and military do with spike traps,it requires advanced knowledge and preparation,but like having the vessel in the fleet or the spike traps in the police cruiser,it's ready to be used. 2. Although glossed over by so many games,the projectors work by projecting that gravity well in the path of hyperlanes,the Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruisers could keep it up for a few hours,the Interdictor-class Star Destroyers could do it for a whole day,and Thrawn would use the latter as a sort of emergency break to very carefully and precisely force his own vessels out of hyerspace close enough to ambush his targets,so it's actually pretty doable to not screw over your own forces should they coordinate correctly,and when used as customs vessels against suspected criminals,the net would be cast in the known lane,so any civies taking that lane better have their papers in check. 3. Welcome to Star Wars,where that is never the case,sublight speeds are never enough to get away from other vessels that are blasting as you,nor does that overcome the issue of the gravity well being projected in the path of the lanes,blocking those lanes is the whole reason why a blockade in Star Wars only ever concerned itself with one,if not a few,section(s) of a planet where those lanes meet the planet,sublight was just never enough,albeit it could've been quite easily had someone actually thought things through,and it was noted that due to the time needed to start projecting a well,if you lucky and swift enough,one could fly past the projection before it could take effect and escape into hyperspace,so sublight speed can work for those cases. 4. True,and Trench Run Disease/Symtom is an issue,but that's not an easy thing to achieve in general,more so in the rare occasion plot armour isn't present in the form of a dumb Imperial officer putting the asset at risk,and even less viable should the interdicting vessel be an Interdictor-class Star Destroyer...or the Executor,whilst the disease can be solved by both the use of the projectors to defeat munitions and further use of better anti-snubfighter assets,be it more point defence,dedicated frigates or corvettes,or even space superority snubfighters that actually do their jobs.
Ah yes the Interdictors. The ship people who complain on why the Holdo Maneuver wasn't more popularly used or why Hyperdrive equipped Missiles weren't a thing (while also ignoring the enormous cost these single-use weapons would be compared to everything else in the SW universe) always seem to conveniently forget are a thing. The fact of the matter is, if such weapons were gaining steam, Interdictors would also increase in numbers to counter them. Yes Interdictors are expensive to make. But their expensiveness is mainly simply because they weren't commonly made because there wasn't a large need for them. If there was, then research would have been done to make them stronger and cheaper to build.
"How expensive they'd be..." If that shit worked they'd have just hypered a Corellian corvette through the death star instead of bothering with the trench run. pfahaha It'd probably have been cheaper than the X-Wings and Y-Wings they lost
@@starshade7826 Except you're comparing apples to oranges there. Yes. An X-Wing would likely cost more than a potential hyperspace missile. But the X-wing, if it survives, can be used again. a hyperspace missile cannot be. But do you know what would cost a lot less than that missile? A Photon Torpedo. That they had plans showing would be enough to destroy the Death Star if they made the shot. You're assuming the mass of a Corellian Corvette would be enough to destroy the Death Star. It likely wouldn't be. At least not completely because the relative sizes of the two ships are drastically different unlike the capital ships in TLJ. You're also assuming that said Corvette would be able to be launched at the Death Star without being destroyed. You can't just enter hyperspace from anywhere. You still have to enter it where the routes are present. That's why the Death Star had to move around the planet to get in range. As soon as the Empire saw the Corvette trying to move into position to take out the Death Star. they'd have all their Tie's focus on destroying it before it would have a chance. The main reason the Holdo maneuver worked was because the First Order was toying with them for so long and had incompetent commanders. Tarkin, while definitely overconfident in the situation, wasn't anywhere near as incompetent. And again, you're also assuming that there wouldn't be an interdictor present. There was no interdictor in the film because that sort of tactic wasn't used. If it had been something that was used in battle, you can bet there would be some present Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying the Holdo Maneuver existing is a good thing (it's not). Just that there's no reason for people to research that procedure to make weapons for it knowing there's an entire class of ship, that's technically existed for millennia at this point, that can make it completely worthless. Not just ineffective or a higher chance of failure. A near guaranteed failure. Especially since said ships can at least have another function of holding people in place if hyperspace missiles aren't a concern.
@@RobertHinchey Even if a corvette couldn’t destroy a Death Star, it would certainly damage it significantly, if the Holdo Maneuver is anything to go by. According to Wookiepedia, hyperspace lanes aren’t exactly routes you need to take in order to go into hyperspace. You can jump wherever you want, the lanes are simply paths that guarantee you won’t hit anything if you take it. Considering how the Interdictors didn’t seem to be used much after the events of Rebels, it’d be safe to assume the Empire wouldn’t use them often.
The first point to be made about the Holdo manuver,period,was that attempting to do so,even if the safety got turned off,mean either going slow enough that your mass would not be enough to smash the vessel in question,or you'd go into Hyperspace and actually not hit the target. Because a few times,we've seen vessels hyperspace one way into a lane just for the reinforcements to show up in the exact opposite direction(IE Rebels jumping away mere moments before a Star Destroyer showed up in the exact same area they had left[or in Rogue Ones' case,Darth Vaders vessel leaving hyperspace right in front of the Rebels who were about to jump to hyperspace]),so clearly there's some sort of unexplained tomfoolery regarding where in space a vessel is. What we do know is the the Supermacy would'bve either been completely intact,as shown in a video somewhere on RUclips,or if it was sliced as it was,its' 19 km length,60 km width,and 3.975 km height would've allowed it to keep functioning...which is canon,they explictly mention this to be true,the First Order only scuttled the vessel later because they deemed it not-economically viable to repair,calling it a lost cause. They should've pulled a page out of old Klingon desperation and simply used what was left,simply seal shut the gap and reuse whatever they could from the smaller half.
When it comes to space battle hacks, the Interdictor was a true game changer. But I feel like the rebels would have eventually figured a way to destroy them by sending as many Y-Wings and B-Wings to destroy as many of them as they can as the opening salvo of every battle. Like you said, Alan, these weren't very powerful frigates and could be destroyed in short order by a sustained concentration of bomber and turbo laser attacks.
They should have been stationed wherever the Empire felt the need to permanently station ISDs for protection of valuable sensitive areas from hit and run attacks such as at Scarif, orbital shipyards, etc. Other use case is when launching an attack such as was pointed out in the video.
Against pirates or smugglers or Outer Rim militias, something like an Immobilizer would be fantastic: your 1-2 TIE squads give cover while your ion cannons render them helpless for boarding. Pair it with an old dreadnaught or a flotilla of other light cruisers and you're golden. Against veteran, plot-armored Rebels in more modern ships, not so much. Sacrifice your escorts to save your interdictor: given their relative values to yours it's the only rational thing to do. Your cruiser is like half the cost of a full star destroyer, takes as long to build, and is full of specialists that require post-academy training to operate its fancy gizmos. The costs, the economics is what thwarts the Empire in the end. In the old Legends, it seems that the tech spread much more widely; I remember one book where the New Republic used an Interdictor to conduct a surprise inspection on a corporation dumping hazardous waste on some planet. What stuck in my mind then was that the Home One was assigned to this duty, which would be as if the EPA had a carrier strike group at its disposal. The plot meant that they ended up pulling out an enemy Star Destroyer, which must have made Akbar's day.
Just like any specialized tool, there are very specific use cases for the Interdictor. I imagine that at Hoth the very dense asteroid field made the Interdictor pretty much useless though… but the Empire likely had them at Endor, where the Emperor was planning to wipe out the Rebellion, once and for all.
The astroid field was not orbiting Hoth itself,had Ozzel not been an idiot and had either an Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruiser or an even better Interdictor-class been with the fleet,the Empire would've had plenty of time to bombard the planet from orbit whilst the interdictor(s) would've secured any possible exits. And yes,the Empire most certainly had interdicting capable vessels at Endor...one confirmed,that is,the Executor herself had projectors in her hull,a built in aspect of her class.
One way I think rebels could have dealt with Interdictors was if they got their hands on some Aggressor Class Star Destroyers. These were a unique type of warship that was featured in the Star Wars Empire At War: Forces of Corruption video game, and they were the premier capital ship of the Zann Consortium. Somehow, Tyber Zann, the leader of this criminal syndicate was able to get his hands on a bunch of stolen plans for Imperial Navy ships, which included the Aggressor. This type of star destroyer was equipped with two powerful fire-linked guns fixed to the forward hull which fired a large ion pulse followed by an enormous, spiraling plasma shot. The ion shot disabled the shields so the plasma shot could do maximum damage. From a distance, these ships were very effective at doing serious damage to slow moving enemy capital ships, and could have been an effective way to counter Imperial Interdictors. However, it should be noted that while the Aggressor's powerful main cannon could devastate an Interdictor with just one shot, they weren't good for ship-to-ship combat. Apart from the main cannon, they were only armed with a single turbolaser battery on either side of their wings, which means they were weak at fighting most conventional warships up close, and were especially vulnerable when dealing with enemy bomber squadrons. So, had the rebels employed these rare and powerful vessels, they would have needed to be protected by other warships, and should always come with an escort of regular capital ships, frigates and starfighters.
I think the idea of using the IDSD as only an anchor point to pull ships out of hyper space is a flaw. You think it can be used for only one purpose. If you can create enough gravity well to pull something out of hyperspace you can generate enough to drag something through hyperspace too. Meaning you could blockade a whole planet with few er ships by just dragging satellites or astroids through with you. You could essentially also stop a planets gravity slowing the planet down. Thats a huge super weapon if you made it strong enough
It sounds like Thrawn would probably have defeated the Rebels and secured the empire’s hold for at least a few more decades if not for the incompetence of one officer and a Jedi/Mandalorian strike team.
To be fair, was there ever a space battle where the opposition deployed space whales to attack? No, that probably has never happened in the recorded history of the galaxy.
They failed because of the grosse incompetence of the Imperial Navy. Thrawn used them very successfully. I had a dream once back when Phantom Menace was being filmed and they spoke of the idea of a Live Action Series called Starwars: Underworld. I imagined some Hutt or other crime lord in their ship in hyperspace talking with someone when suddenly through the viewports we can see the ship lurch out of hyperspace. They look out the viewport and see an Interdictor sitting in the distance, they run across to the other side as they scream out orders and see out the other viewports two ISD’s and then a sudden green flash. Jump to a third person perspective out in space we see the two ISD’s silently blast the ship into slag. Jump to the bridge of an ISD, we see the captain conversing with another crime lord on holonet who tells him the credits have been paid to his personal account.
Both times we see them destroyed in Rebels, they were commanded by captains who were too arrogant, who thought they knew better, and suffered for their hubris.
The whole thing about the rebels overcoming the false gravity wells. This is why the confusion around using this in Last Jedi always annoyed me, especially the "why not use this all the time" narrative. Because it's hardwired into hyperdrives to NOT do this. You basically have to rebuild the whole thing, which actually shunts you into another dimension, hyperspace, from the ground up. It's all quadruple redundant to prevent objects traveling at FTL from ramming things, like populated worlds, even accidentally, forget on purpose.
I feel like people who say Star Wars-galaxy seems technologically stagnant, doesn't really take into account that most advances in technology will looks very minute from interation to iteration. Like with the gravity well-generator. Advances to that tech. is just a more advanced grav.well generator. It will look and function very similarly. I also get the impression they look at very limited aspect of SW-society when they say that. It is like saying technology on earth has been stagnant because we have been using guns for 500+ years...
I would love a strategy game where you could actually use strategies used in star wars lore as well as impliment strategies thought of irl. Like dont get me wrong the mod thrawns revenge for empire at war forces of corruption is great and fantastic, but you can only do so much in it sadly. The team that was making Yuuzahn Vong at War was implimenting ways to do just that into the game, but sadly most of them left to work on a new game. So we only ever got a beta skirmish release of there mod.
But that was a major oversight for someone who prides themself on being able to evaluate and predict people and their strategies. He would study his opponents carefully so he could know their most likely course of actions, but never concerned himself with how his own commanders would behave. That is one of the first considerations when choosing officers to serve directly under you... studying their files and checking their service history.
@casbot71 It's an opinion I've held about Disney canon Thrawn for a long time. He breaks down his opponents so meticulously, yet suffers from serious blindness when it comes to his own side. Governor Pryce, Admiral Konstantine, Skerris... it's a major oversight on his part.
I mean Thrawn did specifically warn Konstantine "no theatrics" and was "punishing" Konstatine for earlier failures. Thrawn was hoping Konstantine was sufficiently humbled enough that he WOULDN'T be dumb enough to pull that kind of stunt. Of course, he did, and Thrawn's master plan went up in smoke all because of one cocky officer. It also goes to show that even the most well-laid plans simply cannot account for your own side not following orders. Extreme tactical maneuvers require enormous discipline and trust out of the entire chain of command. And, simply, the Empire was too full of nepo-babies to be able to effectively pull off those kinds of stunts.
@GeneGear Thrawn should have, in this case at least, applied Vader's HR policies instead of giving Konstantine yet another chance to F up by not following orders. Or just remove him from his command and choose the most stable competent team player officer from the next rung down to take over command of the Interdictor. With a warning that if they don't follow Thrawns orders and also pull any self aggrandising stunts like Konstantine did, then Thrawn will transfer them to work directly under Lord Vader. Word would have gotten out by now about Vader's methods of maintaining discipline.
When he says stuff like "public opinion basically turned against this kind of weapon" I wonder if that's just fluff or if it's actually stated in an Expanded Universe book or something
At this point, I'm convinced that Allen was a historian who studied/recorded the events that happened in the Star Wars galaxy, somehow became immortal, and traveled to our galaxy when things got the worse they could get long after the events of the sequel trilogy.
I love your way of producing these videos. I'm not even a very big Star Wars fan, but i watch them, in their entirety, pretty much every day. Well done.
Before watching the video ima guess it's due to little to no star fighter screening. These things should be in the far back or at least the middle of the formation and have countless anti star fighter ships as an escort. One star destroyer, an interdictor and an escort of fighters and anti star fighters should be enough for most early rebellion conflicts
Once again, the true weakness and failure of the Empire: a critical lack of picket ships. Even the Arquitens was more of a small brawler than a picket, and was simply not that good against fighters. The Empire did have the Gozanti-class cruiser, but that was more of a supply ship. Even in Legends, true anti-fighter dedicated picket ships were more of a post-Empire kind of deal.
Will having the Interdictors and the TIE-Defenders worked well for the Empire for the time being? After all, the leaders of the Rebels Alliance will figured things out eventually but until then, the Empire will be the one with the upper hand in the conflict until the Imperial military have been forced to adapt to the changes the Rebels brought to the table.
Whooooah im early on this on. I just wanted to let you know that you are one of the awesome creators out there. Hats off to you. Good sir. Hope you enjoy your day.
Same in the old Star Wars: Rebellion game. 2-3 interdictors per sector fleet, back of the formation, shielded by 1/4 of the fighter group and a pack of Lancer frigates.
Play Thrawn's Revenge. You'll want some form of interdiction regardless of faction. Being able to stop jump-out is invaluable at crushing any small defense fleets and preventing the enemy consolidating into a bigger threat. Any faction will try to retreat if you're significantly stronger.
Liked this video as well and once again I agree with you on all points that the Interdictor isn't the one size fit all solutions to the rebels hit and run tactics. That being said, I find it questionable that no interdictors were used at Hoth to trap the rebels or at least prevent most of them from escaping. The real life reason is of course, the interdictor wasn't created yet and only came out in TIE fighter game in 1994, or 14 years after Empire Strikes Back movie came out. Like your X-Wing video though, I think you missed out another reason why interdictors are rare in addition to their specialized role. Remember your video on why ISD commanders are mostly inept? Basically almost everyone in the Imperial Navy is jockeying for position for ISD, but no one is competing for other smaller ships especially of the frigate class, which are just as important and sometimes more cost effective than the immensly powerful (on paper anyway) but extremely expensive ISD. So I think there are lack of competent officers for smaller vessels like Interdictors just because they aren't ISDs. Also there is also the damn flawed Tarkin doctrine which only values ISD and result in anything else being less produced. I didn't watch Rebels, but based on that battle, if the Interdictors had competent captains, they would have done everything in their power to just stay alive and not allow either their ship to enter a pitch battle (as that idiot admiral did) or allow infiltrators to destroy them. Granted it was mandalorians who did it and we all know how awesome those guys are. Quite a flaw to Thrawn's otherwise impeccable attention to detail. I guess even he didn't foresee that admiral being stupid enough to charge into battle, or forsee the Mandalorian intervention. Still, I am almost a fanatical fanboy of Thrawn ever since I played TIE fighter in 1994, and later read the Timothy Zahn Heir to Empire novels.
IMO one of the easiest way to deal with this have the safety on a switch and turn up the sensitivity so it drops you out further away. once you drop out and if you find its not a hazard turn the safety off and jump into hyperspace. also one could crank up there ships sub-light speed and get out of range then jump.
Warning,Alan has made a major slip up regarding the terrible show that was Rebels,those interdictors at the Battle Of Atollon were NOT star destroyers,they were cruisers,had Constantine not been an idiot and had those interdictors been the star destroyer variants,then the Rebelion would've lost.
Once again, it isn't a failure of design; it's the fact that Vader betrayed Palpatine at Endor. If the Rebels lost Endor, their high command would've been killed or captured, and rebel holdouts across the galaxy would lose their resolve and hide or surrender. Hell, if Luke didn't have the Force, he'd fail in trying to destroy the Death Star, and Tarkin would've won. The Empire was practically designed from the ground up to win. The Empire losing was down to three things: betrayal from the top, since many Rebel leaders and military men were former Imperials who were trained by the Empire and knew their operations by heart. Betrayal of the Emperor by Vader which decapitated the Empire and led to it collapsing in civil war. And Luke's faith in the Force allowing him to destroy the Death Star. Take away any of these three, and the Empire would've won decisively.
This whole concept of artificial gravity wells for stopping hyper drives falls flat on its face when everyone could in theory just set his hyperdrive software to ignore them. It's like if the police were to set up red lights to stop criminals.
I would imagine that several of these would have been useful to counter the Dovin Basals of the Vong.... disrupting their gravity drives and weapons. 🖖😎
grand admiral Thrawn : skill issue ...as artistically as it can be sai it can be used for short tactical jumps , enemy interdictions , blockades , reconassaice craft launch mechanisms and more if you can think more artistically
in real life the universe is practically empty. you have a much better chance of winning the lottery a couple times than running into something by accident at hyperspeed.
I feel like if these would have been used in say the battle of yavin or Endor when the empire expected the rebellion to attack it could have been very useful
As good as interdiction technology was there are always ways around it. Just look at the impressive Bakura-class destroyers. Which had the ability to escape interdiction fields.
I would not think that disabling safety measures would be that easy, the movie i shall not name should not have let that happen. A system like that, should atleast, be so hardwired into the engines that you literally have to re engineer the engines to make it happen. Even if starship hyper drives are not mandated to make them that way, its probably cheaper to not have an on/off switch and again the drive would have to be hot wired via open heart surgery. As a prototype it worked pretty hell, good enough to start designing a refined version, however most of the empires budget was spent on two deathstars and a score ISDs. For it to be useful, a total overhaul of spending and doctrine is needed.
Question: Would have the events from Empire/Return of the Jedi played out the same if Vader had an Interdictor and properly used/protected it? But, on the other Hand, it would also change if Ozzel was somewhat competent...
Why didn't they install gravity domes on the super star destroyers? They should have more than enough power, and those ships were near invincible even on their own. Guess the writers never thought about it... or they actually had the generators installed, it was just not mentioned anywhere.
On a real world level, this reminds of the kamikaze, so effective and demoralizing until they were taken into account and readied for. On one fictional plane, it reminds of the Breen starship-breaker from the very end of the Dominion War, which was a game-changer for perhaps a week or three before Starfleet engineers countered it, though at the cost of the original NX-Defiant. On another, more humorous one, it's potential side effects recalls the super-magnet Wile E. Coyote tried to use on the Road Runner, only to get repeatedly slammed with ever-bigger pieces of metal. I don't know if the original developer could have been heeded even without a hidebound academic structure - she sounds like not just a maverick but an asshole maverick, ala the 'Humanity Sucks' Doctor in Godzilla KOTM 2019. You can be brilliant, but if absolutely nobody likes you, you'll get nowhere fast.
I get that slamming your ship in hyperspace into a celestial body is bad for the ship, but what about the object it collided with? What prevents everyone from turning off the safety systems and using small vessels as weapons against planets?
So it's been awhile, but if I remember correctly, celestial bodies like planets or stars generate mass shadow that extends into hyperspace, and that tunnel is larger than the physical planet itself, so if a ship were to collide with the shadow, it would essentially tear itself to pieces in hyperspace before actually colliding with the planet. Something along those lines, anyway.
its always so crazy to me that the entire galaxy was completely stagnant for thousands of years no new technology no inventions no progress in any naval regards
Poor Thrawn. Every time he loses, it's because somebody did something stupid, or due to the universe itself bringing Phineas and Ferb levels of plot contrivance...
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Interdictor: "Haha. Now I have you trapped in normal space."
Rebels: "Oh no. I'm not trapped here with you. You're trapped here with me."
yep single interdictor would be not match for full wing of y wings and x-wings. with only on squad tie fighters and weak anti fighter defense make it siting duck. the equivalent would be air craft carrier sailing alone with an out escort fleet. If they have had this ship at battle at Hoth it would be the first to targeted by ion cannon.
@@spark300c the ion cannon has limited range and once a drag net is established a single interdictor would be enough. The problem with alot of starwars battles is that nobody, especially the imperials, is commanding effectively. Squadrons of tie fighters should have been deployed to ensure nothing escapes. but because of pride or stupidly they stayed in their hangers and sitting on their thumbs when their ships get ionized. An interdictor doesn't need to be in orbit, just overlap its gravitational field with the planets enough over its escape corridor and they are screwed and the ion cannon is out of effective range.
@@eddapultstab2078 sure it would have be out of obrit to be out range of ion cannon since it large one it had long range
Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruiser : "Oh no!,protect me,my fellow fleet ships!"
Interdictor-class Star Destroyer : "Oh no...we're going to have Rebels smeared all over us!"
Although not as protected as the base Imperial I Star Destroyer,the Interdctors were much more capable at self defence then the Immobilizers.
Also,just to be clear,Alan made a mistake regarding the Battle Of Atollon,those were the heavy cruisers,not the star destroyers.
As for the Hoth discussion,you first have to remember that Admiral Kendal Ozzel,after refuting that the Rebelion was even there(which Captain Firmus Piett knew would happen and set it up to occur within earshot of Darth Vader),proceeded to exit hyperspace too close to Hoth,altering the Rebels who got their defences up and running,news that Major General Maximilian Veers told Vader,resultig in Ozzels' death and Pietts' promotion.
In short,the whole damn fleet was too close to Hoth,so whichever interdicting vessel anyone would suggest would first have to move rearwards to stay well away.
Had the fleet not alerted the Rebelion,the Empire would've bombarded Hoth from space with ease,and an interidcting vessel would've simply secured any potential escape attempts.
@@NareshSinghOctagon That's not what wookiepedia says. Do you have a source that clarifies that? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time they're wrong.
Allen has turned back into a real boy just in time to give another great vehicle and tactical breakdown
I thought this was like a 6 year old video. He looks like a fresh faced 19 year old.
Is it not an older video?
He's looking to me like he just wants to drop a new hip hop album.
@@WiglafWienerDogno he shaved he released another vid with him being shaved also this is new and he just shaved I got scared when I saw it for some reason
Inderdictor: pulls rebel squadron out of hyperspace
Rebel squadron: "NEW TARGET, AQUIRED."
Inderdictor: "No! Wai-
Except that's not how you use them, they don't go about on there own picking fights. They are either supporting a fleet of Star Destroyers or they are themselves protected by multiple carriers. Either way, although they are the Rebels primary target, they are not easy and open targets.
Unless your commanders are incompetent, i.e. The Empire
@@jimgillespie9739the interdiction class ships WEREE very good.
The empire just tended to constantly underestimate rebels when they are trapped.
@@calebdonaldson8770 that happened all the time. It was why the Empire used them less and less. Only Thrawn loved to use them and he used them well.
The Interdictor class makes sense if you're trying to enforce a checkpoint or enclose a field of engagement. But it is a bit of a "glass cannon".
Great analysis once again.
I really liked how the show Rebels was able to show the lesser known ships of the Empire that weren't realized on screen for the films due to budget, time or technical restraints of the time.
Yet ironically a "glass cannon" was a much better choice for countering the Rebel forces than a slow, lumbering, logistically intense juggernaut like a Star Destroyer.
In the Interdictor's defense *on paper* it was perfect to defeat the Rebellion. It had a missile jamming field as part of its tactical equipment which was perfect considering the Rebel's hefty usage of anti-ship missiles like Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, which turned Star Destroyers from symbols of Imperial might into giant Imperial coffins more than a hundred times.
The Rebel fleet often used hit and run attacks to hit the Imperial fleet with no risk of counterattack and the gravity well generator was a near perfect counter. You can't go to lightspeed to escape if your hyperdrive is jammed, now can you?
I think the problem altogether was awful coordination and just outright incompetence on the part of the Imperials, as well as sloppy and predictable Imperial tactics.
@@Gamerguy826 The issue was that the rebels waged Guerilla and Civil warfare. And since it indiscriminately pulls ships out, you can't really use it everywhere (people would be pisssssed)
Plus the main issue was that if it became too widespread, it can just be countered by some software changes to the fail safe
A road block without weapon emplacements is just a target for car bombs.
Note that Alan made a mistake regarding the crappy show that was Rebels,those were the interdicting heavy cruisers,not star destroyers,at the Battle Of Atollon.
Had Constantine not been an idiot and had those interdictors been the star destroyer variants,then the Rebelion would've lost.
Although not as protected as the base Imperial I Star Destroyer,the Interdictor-class Star Destroyers were much more capable at self defence then the Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruisers.
The main concern,of course,was the Trench Run Disease/Symtom the majority of Star Destroyers faced,which itself was partially solved by messing with the launched munitions using the gravity projectors,and can be fully solved with the many underutilised Imperial frigates and corvettes.
The real problem of this class was why Old Republic Era Interdictor become obsolete. New hyperdrives could ignore it. Problem was that it was forgotten until movie era begin, so for a time it did work as super weapon. Until Rebels realized that many ship has option to turn off security in hyperdrives. Milenium Falcon and Consular class defectively could do it.
One of my favorite little clips of SW: Rebels is the moment when the light cruiser slams into the top of the Interdictor and scrapes the length until it hits the bridge.
I always wondered why videos on RUclips that mentioned Interdictor type ship only ever mentioned the ones from the Imperial era and the ancient old republic ships. It's sad that the technology got buried and forgotten like it did, but it was probably a good thing, all things considered.
I think the Immobilizer-418 Cruiser is the best use for the technology. The tech has a highly specific use so putting it on a cruiser makes it more than mobile enough to get attached to specific squadrons on a mission per mission basis.
A Star Destroyer already is a multi-purpose ship (flagship, battlecarrier and ground troop transport), so bolting another use on its hull will just make it less efficient.
Yeah, but the majority of the imperial navy's officers are nepo-children who want the prestige of commanding an ISD. There's no glory to be had in commanding a mere 'support vessel' like an immobilizer-418.
At least the interdictor ISD variant retains enough firepower to defend itself without having to be screened by a whole fleet.
@@7ElevenTruther the children may want the command over a Star Destroyer all day long. Still but a fraction actually got the honor. Keep in mind that according to the order of battle only 24 ISDs were part of an entire sector group, which were supported by 1,600 smaller warships and consisted of 2,400 ships total.
100%. Still, it seems like if the usage of Grav wells became too widespread, it would get countered easily. Since you can really only use it in a planned ambush or a full frontal assault on a hidden base, it limits its use cases. Plus in both those cases you want to bring enough firepower that you can demolish the enemy(because with shit ton of firepower you also reduce your own damages)
This imbalance ultimately means that any person who was pulled out of HS KNOWS they are fucked, and thus will disable their fail safe and just blitz through. Because even if they hit a object, they are still gonna die anyways in the ambush/attack. Plus they couuld have a chance to just hit the ship itself
Now if you are talking about those who literally break the HS lanes, that is a different story. But those need power that can't be on a curiser
@@normalchannel2185 you're right. I might just interject that hyperdrive short circuiting is rather risky without plot armor. So only main characters should attempt it.
@@Alpha_Digamma lol
If you want the real story:
The Interdictor-Class Heavy Cruiser was created by our team at West End Games in 1989. Sadly six years after the Battle of Endor(‘s Moon). As such, could do little to stem the tide of the thrice cursed Rebellion.
Even after these many years I cannot help but wince at the memory of that image: the Executor, out of control, colliding with the unfinished Death Star and then disintegrating completely in the Battle Station's massive explosion. The loss of the ship itself had been bad enough; but the fact it was the Executor had made it far worse.
That particular Super Star Destroyer had been Darth Vader's personal ship, and despite the Dark Lord's legendary-and often lethal-capriciousness, serving aboard it had long been perceived as the quick line to promotion. Which meant that when the Executor died, so also did a disproportionate fraction of the Empire's best young and midlevel officers and crewers.
Imperial PTSD !!!
First Death Star, the empire best 2% to 3% of the imperial fleet.
Executor had the best of the 5% of the fleet talent.
The second Death Star, gods will only know of the talent lost.
Interesting story, thanks for sharing! Also I liked how you used the word Thrice. That is a great punk rock band!
That's insanely good lore
That’s a Captain Pellaeon quote from Heir to the Empire if memory serves…
If there's one thing we can learn, it's "Never give idiots tactical weapons."
I was E.O.D. in the Navy and totally agree. Wish we could go back to a simpler way of fighting
Titus, who ignored Kallus' warning not to underestimate Ezra Bridger, and Constantine, who ignored Thrawn's warning that he was being baited.
Literally the game Silica in a nutshell. Some people BURN through tanks and aircraft, and then become shocked when the commander runs out of money...
Then the crab aliens pile on top of everyone, lol.
Aw! I liked your facial hair. In any case, great video, as always!
I always preferred the idea that the gravity well projector actually projected a gravity well, rather than being a sensor trick.
i was wrong about u bro. i didn't really know if you were really with it, but i judged too soon. u know ur stuff, are faithful to the lore but a curator and creative as well. appreciate it, subbed after months of watching on and off
Something funny? the ancient leviathan class interdictor of the KOTOR era had no exposed external interdictor "bumps", was a fraction of the size and mass of the imperial interdictor, but could carry thousands of troops and 40 fighters, and was the workhorse of Revan and Malak's Sith fleet. honestly, the Leviathan was somehow LESS specialized while doing the same job and was used as a general workhorse cruiser. Given how mass shadow generator tech was used as a superweapon to end the Mandalorian wars, KOTOR-era interdictor tech was somehow more advanced than what the empire had!
the empire had to make up the difference with a large, more expensive, more specialized vessel with much larger and more intensive generators.
The Leviathan interdictor was a better vessel for its day than the latter imperial interdictor.
I wonder how one can explain away the discrepancy. Perhaps the technology and knowledge was lost in the intermediate years?
@@berniethekiwidragon4382 For a real world explanation, someone at Lucasfilm was either lazy or confused, took the stats for the Imperial Interdictor Cruiser and slapped it onto the Sith Interdictor. Some sources even claimed that the Sith Interdictor was made by Sienar Fleet Systems just like the Imperial one, despite the fact that the company was known as Republic Sienar Systems at the time.
So yeah, the interdictor capabilities of the Sith ship is a retcon, as is the subsequent explanation for why the technology inexplicably fell out of favor for thousands of years. Take everything you read or hear about the Sith Interdictor with a heaping grain of salt.
Star Forge (Rakata-Tech) was used to produce them. Remember, those guys made the Hyper-Drive only for other to re-discover via reverse-engineering it after their fall.
This discrepency when it comes to the amount of material one can put around the projectors is further expanded upon when one realises the Executor class had built in projectors inside the hull.
If the 19 km behemoth can keep the projectors inside and still be fully functional,what exactly was stopping the Imperials from armoring the specialised vessels more?,did an unmentioned breakthrough occurred when they were building their Super Star Destroyers?,were they simply to big to be further armoured on a one kilometer sized vessel or less?
@@sentrysapper45 perhaps the interdiction capabilities can be taken with a grain of salt.
Still, they were quite impressive for their time even if we assume couldn't interdict.
in the KOTOR game a fleet a tiny fraction of the size of the trade federation blockade of naboo (we know this because in cutscenes the sith blockade fleet was so dispersed not one warship was within visual range of the other....a RARITY in SW!) could blockade a coruscant-style ecumenopolis such that even the ebon hawk, the millennium falcon equivalent of the world couldn't escape the planet without the right codes (lest the sith interdictor's gun blew them out of the space). one thing that isn't a retcon is they have effective targeting system that were excellent even for standards millennia later.
Idea, give your ships a scanner that can detect the gravity well and give the crew the choice. You would often know what is or isn’t an interdictor based on the situation.
Also the Interdictor's gravity wells had limited range. Two of them were unable to lock down the Atollon system. The Interdictor (at least in some sources) was unable to move while it's interdiction field was up or redirect the field easily. So fast ships could just outrun the field it was generating, get out of range, and jump out. So even a small misplacement of the field and the ship meant that it did not have coverage to completely cut off a hyperspace lane.
Dude without any facial hair you look like 10 years younger.
The Asian Perk
I was wondering what was different about him… didn’t click till I saw this comment
@@ShadowReaper-pu2hx I would say it goes for people of European descend too, thou you need beard or mustache not just light facial hair.
"Fatal Trimming Error"
Fr I had to check the date because I thought this was an old video lmao
The Interdictor cruisers in the video game Star Wars: Empire at War were amazing for attacking/defending. It always helped in destroying the fleeing enemies. Underrated game that I hope one day gets a new release!
The game is still being updated specifically for modding support, which has absolutely gotten well enough for certain mods to feel like entirely new games. Pathing still shows how old of a game it is though, which leads to a lot of frustration.
Still, interdiction in that game is simply OP. The mods I play give interdictors of some kind to all factions, so that no one is left out in the powerful tactic. They also change the AI so it doesn't even attempt to flee if there is an interdiction-capable craft on the field, but that is mostly so you can't abuse turning interdiction on/off repeatedly in order to take advantage of enemy ships attempting to flee within shooting distance.
Why does Alan look like he just came back from a audition for Vampire Diaries
That's not Allen, it's a dolphin in a Allen skin suit.
No, he had us going the entire time, he has been in league with the dolphins and ewoks
…Dolphen
Like the 80s inspired electronic pop music you use in your videos.
However, during the clone wars it could have been extremely useful if known. Since the Empire was dealing with basically civil and guerilla war, while the Clone war was more of a traditional war. Plus they could have been used EXACTLY like how blockades are used IRL during the clone war to discourage planets from leaving and joining a side.
However, the CIS would have also easily countered them (since 1: They had waay more resources than the rebellion, and 2: They could have easily just disabled the fail safe and sent hundreds of ships unmanned like arrows)
ALSO , i'm glad i invented a nullifier for the interdictor, it nullifies the gravity well effect and causes a feedback loop which destroys the gravity well generators
I see several issues.
1) First you need the ship in the area where the Rebels are going to be in the first place
2) You can’t have it “always on” as obviously that stops your ships and civilians from getting around too.
3) Just because they can’t go to hyperspace doesn’t mean they can’t just fly away far enough at sub-light speed (those pesky rebels almost certainly have their ships modified for maximum acceleration)
4) Obviously if the Rebels know it’s there it’s going to be targeted with extreme prejudice to ensure they can get away.
1. Like police and military do with spike traps,it requires advanced knowledge and preparation,but like having the vessel in the fleet or the spike traps in the police cruiser,it's ready to be used.
2. Although glossed over by so many games,the projectors work by projecting that gravity well in the path of hyperlanes,the Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruisers could keep it up for a few hours,the Interdictor-class Star Destroyers could do it for a whole day,and Thrawn would use the latter as a sort of emergency break to very carefully and precisely force his own vessels out of hyerspace close enough to ambush his targets,so it's actually pretty doable to not screw over your own forces should they coordinate correctly,and when used as customs vessels against suspected criminals,the net would be cast in the known lane,so any civies taking that lane better have their papers in check.
3. Welcome to Star Wars,where that is never the case,sublight speeds are never enough to get away from other vessels that are blasting as you,nor does that overcome the issue of the gravity well being projected in the path of the lanes,blocking those lanes is the whole reason why a blockade in Star Wars only ever concerned itself with one,if not a few,section(s) of a planet where those lanes meet the planet,sublight was just never enough,albeit it could've been quite easily had someone actually thought things through,and it was noted that due to the time needed to start projecting a well,if you lucky and swift enough,one could fly past the projection before it could take effect and escape into hyperspace,so sublight speed can work for those cases.
4. True,and Trench Run Disease/Symtom is an issue,but that's not an easy thing to achieve in general,more so in the rare occasion plot armour isn't present in the form of a dumb Imperial officer putting the asset at risk,and even less viable should the interdicting vessel be an Interdictor-class Star Destroyer...or the Executor,whilst the disease can be solved by both the use of the projectors to defeat munitions and further use of better anti-snubfighter assets,be it more point defence,dedicated frigates or corvettes,or even space superority snubfighters that actually do their jobs.
Ah yes the Interdictors. The ship people who complain on why the Holdo Maneuver wasn't more popularly used or why Hyperdrive equipped Missiles weren't a thing (while also ignoring the enormous cost these single-use weapons would be compared to everything else in the SW universe) always seem to conveniently forget are a thing.
The fact of the matter is, if such weapons were gaining steam, Interdictors would also increase in numbers to counter them. Yes Interdictors are expensive to make. But their expensiveness is mainly simply because they weren't commonly made because there wasn't a large need for them. If there was, then research would have been done to make them stronger and cheaper to build.
The Dildo Maneuver...😜
"How expensive they'd be..." If that shit worked they'd have just hypered a Corellian corvette through the death star instead of bothering with the trench run. pfahaha
It'd probably have been cheaper than the X-Wings and Y-Wings they lost
@@starshade7826 Except you're comparing apples to oranges there.
Yes. An X-Wing would likely cost more than a potential hyperspace missile. But the X-wing, if it survives, can be used again. a hyperspace missile cannot be.
But do you know what would cost a lot less than that missile? A Photon Torpedo. That they had plans showing would be enough to destroy the Death Star if they made the shot.
You're assuming the mass of a Corellian Corvette would be enough to destroy the Death Star. It likely wouldn't be. At least not completely because the relative sizes of the two ships are drastically different unlike the capital ships in TLJ.
You're also assuming that said Corvette would be able to be launched at the Death Star without being destroyed. You can't just enter hyperspace from anywhere. You still have to enter it where the routes are present. That's why the Death Star had to move around the planet to get in range. As soon as the Empire saw the Corvette trying to move into position to take out the Death Star. they'd have all their Tie's focus on destroying it before it would have a chance. The main reason the Holdo maneuver worked was because the First Order was toying with them for so long and had incompetent commanders. Tarkin, while definitely overconfident in the situation, wasn't anywhere near as incompetent.
And again, you're also assuming that there wouldn't be an interdictor present. There was no interdictor in the film because that sort of tactic wasn't used. If it had been something that was used in battle, you can bet there would be some present
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying the Holdo Maneuver existing is a good thing (it's not). Just that there's no reason for people to research that procedure to make weapons for it knowing there's an entire class of ship, that's technically existed for millennia at this point, that can make it completely worthless. Not just ineffective or a higher chance of failure. A near guaranteed failure. Especially since said ships can at least have another function of holding people in place if hyperspace missiles aren't a concern.
@@RobertHinchey Even if a corvette couldn’t destroy a Death Star, it would certainly damage it significantly, if the Holdo Maneuver is anything to go by.
According to Wookiepedia, hyperspace lanes aren’t exactly routes you need to take in order to go into hyperspace. You can jump wherever you want, the lanes are simply paths that guarantee you won’t hit anything if you take it.
Considering how the Interdictors didn’t seem to be used much after the events of Rebels, it’d be safe to assume the Empire wouldn’t use them often.
The first point to be made about the Holdo manuver,period,was that attempting to do so,even if the safety got turned off,mean either going slow enough that your mass would not be enough to smash the vessel in question,or you'd go into Hyperspace and actually not hit the target.
Because a few times,we've seen vessels hyperspace one way into a lane just for the reinforcements to show up in the exact opposite direction(IE Rebels jumping away mere moments before a Star Destroyer showed up in the exact same area they had left[or in Rogue Ones' case,Darth Vaders vessel leaving hyperspace right in front of the Rebels who were about to jump to hyperspace]),so clearly there's some sort of unexplained tomfoolery regarding where in space a vessel is.
What we do know is the the Supermacy would'bve either been completely intact,as shown in a video somewhere on RUclips,or if it was sliced as it was,its' 19 km length,60 km width,and 3.975 km height would've allowed it to keep functioning...which is canon,they explictly mention this to be true,the First Order only scuttled the vessel later because they deemed it not-economically viable to repair,calling it a lost cause.
They should've pulled a page out of old Klingon desperation and simply used what was left,simply seal shut the gap and reuse whatever they could from the smaller half.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if you trust your astromecks calculations. Hit that ignore gravity well button.
Starwars Chiss: have their home world become an ice ball.
40k Vallhallans: “first time?”
When it comes to space battle hacks, the Interdictor was a true game changer. But I feel like the rebels would have eventually figured a way to destroy them by sending as many Y-Wings and B-Wings to destroy as many of them as they can as the opening salvo of every battle. Like you said, Alan, these weren't very powerful frigates and could be destroyed in short order by a sustained concentration of bomber and turbo laser attacks.
They should have been stationed wherever the Empire felt the need to permanently station ISDs for protection of valuable sensitive areas from hit and run attacks such as at Scarif, orbital shipyards, etc.
Other use case is when launching an attack such as was pointed out in the video.
Against pirates or smugglers or Outer Rim militias, something like an Immobilizer would be fantastic: your 1-2 TIE squads give cover while your ion cannons render them helpless for boarding. Pair it with an old dreadnaught or a flotilla of other light cruisers and you're golden. Against veteran, plot-armored Rebels in more modern ships, not so much. Sacrifice your escorts to save your interdictor: given their relative values to yours it's the only rational thing to do. Your cruiser is like half the cost of a full star destroyer, takes as long to build, and is full of specialists that require post-academy training to operate its fancy gizmos. The costs, the economics is what thwarts the Empire in the end.
In the old Legends, it seems that the tech spread much more widely; I remember one book where the New Republic used an Interdictor to conduct a surprise inspection on a corporation dumping hazardous waste on some planet. What stuck in my mind then was that the Home One was assigned to this duty, which would be as if the EPA had a carrier strike group at its disposal. The plot meant that they ended up pulling out an enemy Star Destroyer, which must have made Akbar's day.
Just like any specialized tool, there are very specific use cases for the Interdictor. I imagine that at Hoth the very dense asteroid field made the Interdictor pretty much useless though… but the Empire likely had them at Endor, where the Emperor was planning to wipe out the Rebellion, once and for all.
The astroid field was not orbiting Hoth itself,had Ozzel not been an idiot and had either an Immobilizer 418 Interdictor-class Heavy Cruiser or an even better Interdictor-class been with the fleet,the Empire would've had plenty of time to bombard the planet from orbit whilst the interdictor(s) would've secured any possible exits.
And yes,the Empire most certainly had interdicting capable vessels at Endor...one confirmed,that is,the Executor herself had projectors in her hull,a built in aspect of her class.
Always thought Interdictors should be similar to victory ones, long range missiles and point defense to support the fleet surrounding it
And, of course, that interdictor *immediately* becomes the focus of *everything* the enemy can throw at it.
One way I think rebels could have dealt with Interdictors was if they got their hands on some Aggressor Class Star Destroyers. These were a unique type of warship that was featured in the Star Wars Empire At War: Forces of Corruption video game, and they were the premier capital ship of the Zann Consortium. Somehow, Tyber Zann, the leader of this criminal syndicate was able to get his hands on a bunch of stolen plans for Imperial Navy ships, which included the Aggressor.
This type of star destroyer was equipped with two powerful fire-linked guns fixed to the forward hull which fired a large ion pulse followed by an enormous, spiraling plasma shot. The ion shot disabled the shields so the plasma shot could do maximum damage. From a distance, these ships were very effective at doing serious damage to slow moving enemy capital ships, and could have been an effective way to counter Imperial Interdictors.
However, it should be noted that while the Aggressor's powerful main cannon could devastate an Interdictor with just one shot, they weren't good for ship-to-ship combat. Apart from the main cannon, they were only armed with a single turbolaser battery on either side of their wings, which means they were weak at fighting most conventional warships up close, and were especially vulnerable when dealing with enemy bomber squadrons. So, had the rebels employed these rare and powerful vessels, they would have needed to be protected by other warships, and should always come with an escort of regular capital ships, frigates and starfighters.
I think the idea of using the IDSD as only an anchor point to pull ships out of hyper space is a flaw. You think it can be used for only one purpose. If you can create enough gravity well to pull something out of hyperspace you can generate enough to drag something through hyperspace too. Meaning you could blockade a whole planet with few er ships by just dragging satellites or astroids through with you. You could essentially also stop a planets gravity slowing the planet down. Thats a huge super weapon if you made it strong enough
It sounds like Thrawn would probably have defeated the Rebels and secured the empire’s hold for at least a few more decades if not for the incompetence of one officer and a Jedi/Mandalorian strike team.
and then he got thwarted by space whales and that same jedi and mandalorian again!
@bostonrailfan2427 "I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
To be fair, was there ever a space battle where the opposition deployed space whales to attack? No, that probably has never happened in the recorded history of the galaxy.
@@bostonrailfan2427There's also him being assassinated by his Noghri bodyguard in Legends.
Thanks for another great episode. I’m always learning something new.
They failed because of the grosse incompetence of the Imperial Navy.
Thrawn used them very successfully.
I had a dream once back when Phantom Menace was being filmed and they spoke of the idea of a Live Action Series called Starwars: Underworld.
I imagined some Hutt or other crime lord in their ship in hyperspace talking with someone when suddenly through the viewports we can see the ship lurch out of hyperspace.
They look out the viewport and see an Interdictor sitting in the distance, they run across to the other side as they scream out orders and see out the other viewports two ISD’s and then a sudden green flash.
Jump to a third person perspective out in space we see the two ISD’s silently blast the ship into slag.
Jump to the bridge of an ISD, we see the captain conversing with another crime lord on holonet who tells him the credits have been paid to his personal account.
Both times we see them destroyed in Rebels, they were commanded by captains who were too arrogant, who thought they knew better, and suffered for their hubris.
Didn't help that those were the heavy cruiser versions and not the star destroyer versions.
Bro is tired of serving demicracy. He wants to work for the Empire. Humanity first.
The whole thing about the rebels overcoming the false gravity wells. This is why the confusion around using this in Last Jedi always annoyed me, especially the "why not use this all the time" narrative. Because it's hardwired into hyperdrives to NOT do this. You basically have to rebuild the whole thing, which actually shunts you into another dimension, hyperspace, from the ground up. It's all quadruple redundant to prevent objects traveling at FTL from ramming things, like populated worlds, even accidentally, forget on purpose.
Can’t believe this guy changes location for every video
I thought it was an older video when I saw that clean, young face. I had to check the date twice.
Dayum is it just me or does our boy Al look extra handsome today? 🎉
I think the arms race between better interdictions and stronger quantum tunnels would favor the Empire with their super large ships and economy.
I feel like people who say Star Wars-galaxy seems technologically stagnant, doesn't really take into account that most advances in technology will looks very minute from interation to iteration. Like with the gravity well-generator. Advances to that tech. is just a more advanced grav.well generator. It will look and function very similarly. I also get the impression they look at very limited aspect of SW-society when they say that. It is like saying technology on earth has been stagnant because we have been using guns for 500+ years...
I would love a strategy game where you could actually use strategies used in star wars lore as well as impliment strategies thought of irl. Like dont get me wrong the mod thrawns revenge for empire at war forces of corruption is great and fantastic, but you can only do so much in it sadly.
The team that was making Yuuzahn Vong at War was implimenting ways to do just that into the game, but sadly most of them left to work on a new game. So we only ever got a beta skirmish release of there mod.
Real reason: The plot demands it doesen't
Canon reason: Imperial incompetence
Hey, Thrawn made a mistake! He put the wrong officer in charge of the Interdictor Star Destroyer. Even brightest leaders screw up now and then.
But that was a major oversight for someone who prides themself on being able to evaluate and predict people and their strategies.
He would study his opponents carefully so he could know their most likely course of actions, but never concerned himself with how his own commanders would behave.
That is one of the first considerations when choosing officers to serve directly under you... studying their files and checking their service history.
@casbot71 It's an opinion I've held about Disney canon Thrawn for a long time. He breaks down his opponents so meticulously, yet suffers from serious blindness when it comes to his own side. Governor Pryce, Admiral Konstantine, Skerris... it's a major oversight on his part.
I mean Thrawn did specifically warn Konstantine "no theatrics" and was "punishing" Konstatine for earlier failures. Thrawn was hoping Konstantine was sufficiently humbled enough that he WOULDN'T be dumb enough to pull that kind of stunt.
Of course, he did, and Thrawn's master plan went up in smoke all because of one cocky officer.
It also goes to show that even the most well-laid plans simply cannot account for your own side not following orders. Extreme tactical maneuvers require enormous discipline and trust out of the entire chain of command. And, simply, the Empire was too full of nepo-babies to be able to effectively pull off those kinds of stunts.
@GeneGear Thrawn should have, in this case at least, applied Vader's HR policies instead of giving Konstantine yet another chance to F up by not following orders.
Or just remove him from his command and choose the most stable competent team player officer from the next rung down to take over command of the Interdictor.
With a warning that if they don't follow Thrawns orders and also pull any self aggrandising stunts like Konstantine did, then Thrawn will transfer them to work directly under Lord Vader.
Word would have gotten out by now about Vader's methods of maintaining discipline.
When he says stuff like "public opinion basically turned against this kind of weapon" I wonder if that's just fluff or if it's actually stated in an Expanded Universe book or something
Ships could also escape by turning off the hyperdrive safeties, making a short jump, turning the safeties on, and escaping.
AND its a good thing i found malaks fleet of interdictors then, just like i found that fleet of drednaught heavy cruisers too........
At this point, I'm convinced that Allen was a historian who studied/recorded the events that happened in the Star Wars galaxy, somehow became immortal, and traveled to our galaxy when things got the worse they could get long after the events of the sequel trilogy.
1:52 so they had an astropath?
I love your way of producing these videos. I'm not even a very big Star Wars fan, but i watch them, in their entirety, pretty much every day. Well done.
Before watching the video ima guess it's due to little to no star fighter screening. These things should be in the far back or at least the middle of the formation and have countless anti star fighter ships as an escort. One star destroyer, an interdictor and an escort of fighters and anti star fighters should be enough for most early rebellion conflicts
Once again, the true weakness and failure of the Empire: a critical lack of picket ships. Even the Arquitens was more of a small brawler than a picket, and was simply not that good against fighters. The Empire did have the Gozanti-class cruiser, but that was more of a supply ship. Even in Legends, true anti-fighter dedicated picket ships were more of a post-Empire kind of deal.
Will having the Interdictors and the TIE-Defenders worked well for the Empire for the time being? After all, the leaders of the Rebels Alliance will figured things out eventually but until then, the Empire will be the one with the upper hand in the conflict until the Imperial military have been forced to adapt to the changes the Rebels brought to the table.
Omg smooth face Alannnnn.
Looks good brody
Love how you manage to have accommodation all over the world.
I was distracted the whole video with you’re smooth face
The interdictor could make a better police vessel than a military one.
Please make a video on 200 FO Stormtroopers vs 200 Clone Troopers
Whooooah im early on this on. I just wanted to let you know that you are one of the awesome creators out there. Hats off to you. Good sir. Hope you enjoy your day.
The rebels had some pretty good engineers and people working for them so i could see them getting around the gravity feild
Interdictors are only as effective as the fleets that are escorting them.
Only female force users? Swtor and the Thrawn book "Alliances" wants a word with you^^
When i play the empire in EAW i always use an interdictor in my main fleet, because the rebels always try to run away
Same in the old Star Wars: Rebellion game. 2-3 interdictors per sector fleet, back of the formation, shielded by 1/4 of the fighter group and a pack of Lancer frigates.
Also, it always hangs back away from the bulk of the fighting.
Play Thrawn's Revenge. You'll want some form of interdiction regardless of faction. Being able to stop jump-out is invaluable at crushing any small defense fleets and preventing the enemy consolidating into a bigger threat. Any faction will try to retreat if you're significantly stronger.
Liked this video as well and once again I agree with you on all points that the Interdictor isn't the one size fit all solutions to the rebels hit and run tactics. That being said, I find it questionable that no interdictors were used at Hoth to trap the rebels or at least prevent most of them from escaping. The real life reason is of course, the interdictor wasn't created yet and only came out in TIE fighter game in 1994, or 14 years after Empire Strikes Back movie came out.
Like your X-Wing video though, I think you missed out another reason why interdictors are rare in addition to their specialized role. Remember your video on why ISD commanders are mostly inept? Basically almost everyone in the Imperial Navy is jockeying for position for ISD, but no one is competing for other smaller ships especially of the frigate class, which are just as important and sometimes more cost effective than the immensly powerful (on paper anyway) but extremely expensive ISD. So I think there are lack of competent officers for smaller vessels like Interdictors just because they aren't ISDs.
Also there is also the damn flawed Tarkin doctrine which only values ISD and result in anything else being less produced.
I didn't watch Rebels, but based on that battle, if the Interdictors had competent captains, they would have done everything in their power to just stay alive and not allow either their ship to enter a pitch battle (as that idiot admiral did) or allow infiltrators to destroy them. Granted it was mandalorians who did it and we all know how awesome those guys are.
Quite a flaw to Thrawn's otherwise impeccable attention to detail. I guess even he didn't foresee that admiral being stupid enough to charge into battle, or forsee the Mandalorian intervention. Still, I am almost a fanatical fanboy of Thrawn ever since I played TIE fighter in 1994, and later read the Timothy Zahn Heir to Empire novels.
IMO one of the easiest way to deal with this have the safety on a switch and turn up the sensitivity so it drops you out further away. once you drop out and if you find its not a hazard turn the safety off and jump into hyperspace. also one could crank up there ships sub-light speed and get out of range then jump.
Man did you shave or what!?!? because you look completly different than what i remember and a lot younger to say the least
Chopper's insatiable blood lust.
Warning,Alan has made a major slip up regarding the terrible show that was Rebels,those interdictors at the Battle Of Atollon were NOT star destroyers,they were cruisers,had Constantine not been an idiot and had those interdictors been the star destroyer variants,then the Rebelion would've lost.
3:30 lol, I'm not buying that that scientist researched anything more than cornstarch and Carnival cruises 👌🏻
No joke I thought this was a older video there for a sec before I checked the time and turns out it has only been out for 20 hours 😂😂
Not even, it's only 12😂😂😂😂
Once again, it isn't a failure of design; it's the fact that Vader betrayed Palpatine at Endor. If the Rebels lost Endor, their high command would've been killed or captured, and rebel holdouts across the galaxy would lose their resolve and hide or surrender. Hell, if Luke didn't have the Force, he'd fail in trying to destroy the Death Star, and Tarkin would've won.
The Empire was practically designed from the ground up to win. The Empire losing was down to three things: betrayal from the top, since many Rebel leaders and military men were former Imperials who were trained by the Empire and knew their operations by heart. Betrayal of the Emperor by Vader which decapitated the Empire and led to it collapsing in civil war. And Luke's faith in the Force allowing him to destroy the Death Star. Take away any of these three, and the Empire would've won decisively.
This whole concept of artificial gravity wells for stopping hyper drives falls flat on its face when everyone could in theory just set his hyperdrive software to ignore them. It's like if the police were to set up red lights to stop criminals.
I would imagine that several of these would have been useful to counter the Dovin Basals of the Vong.... disrupting their gravity drives and weapons. 🖖😎
Alan! You look good with and without a beard sir!!!!!!
grand admiral Thrawn : skill issue ...as artistically as it can be sai
it can be used for short tactical jumps , enemy interdictions , blockades , reconassaice craft launch mechanisms and more if you can think more artistically
nice video
This seems like a very old video of Allen when he was younger, or the lighting has made him look 20 years younger, or this could be an AI Allen.
I really gotta ask… 3:20-7:00…what song is playing in the background?????
It really makes me curious if the First Order and the Chiss Ascendency made an alliance with each other until the F.O. was ready to reveal themselves?
good thing my ships use federation warp drives then
in real life the universe is practically empty. you have a much better chance of winning the lottery a couple times than running into something by accident at hyperspeed.
Do the next video on the victory class star destroyer
Hiding your military strength could only ever work in fiction. Irl your enemies would call your bluff in 5 seconds
I feel like if these would have been used in say the battle of yavin or Endor when the empire expected the rebellion to attack it could have been very useful
As good as interdiction technology was there are always ways around it. Just look at the impressive Bakura-class destroyers. Which had the ability to escape interdiction fields.
I would not think that disabling safety measures would be that easy, the movie i shall not name should not have let that happen. A system like that, should atleast, be so hardwired into the engines that you literally have to re engineer the engines to make it happen. Even if starship hyper drives are not mandated to make them that way, its probably cheaper to not have an on/off switch and again the drive would have to be hot wired via open heart surgery.
As a prototype it worked pretty hell, good enough to start designing a refined version, however most of the empires budget was spent on two deathstars and a score ISDs. For it to be useful, a total overhaul of spending and doctrine is needed.
Question: Would have the events from Empire/Return of the Jedi played out the same if Vader had an Interdictor and properly used/protected it? But, on the other Hand, it would also change if Ozzel was somewhat competent...
Why didn't they install gravity domes on the super star destroyers? They should have more than enough power, and those ships were near invincible even on their own.
Guess the writers never thought about it... or they actually had the generators installed, it was just not mentioned anywhere.
Is it me or does the baby face make Alan look like hes 21 lol ?
I just realized the irony of having a character voiced by a Japanese-American intentionally ram his ship into another.
Maybe they didn't have the Chimera on their side? 🤔🤔
On a real world level, this reminds of the kamikaze, so effective and demoralizing until they were taken into account and readied for. On one fictional plane, it reminds of the Breen starship-breaker from the very end of the Dominion War, which was a game-changer for perhaps a week or three before Starfleet engineers countered it, though at the cost of the original NX-Defiant. On another, more humorous one, it's potential side effects recalls the super-magnet Wile E. Coyote tried to use on the Road Runner, only to get repeatedly slammed with ever-bigger pieces of metal. I don't know if the original developer could have been heeded even without a hidebound academic structure - she sounds like not just a maverick but an asshole maverick, ala the 'Humanity Sucks' Doctor in Godzilla KOTM 2019. You can be brilliant, but if absolutely nobody likes you, you'll get nowhere fast.
Allen's whole face looks like Superman's upper lip in Justice League!
Woah you shaved! Is this the last of Hippy Allen? 😂
I get that slamming your ship in hyperspace into a celestial body is bad for the ship, but what about the object it collided with? What prevents everyone from turning off the safety systems and using small vessels as weapons against planets?
So it's been awhile, but if I remember correctly, celestial bodies like planets or stars generate mass shadow that extends into hyperspace, and that tunnel is larger than the physical planet itself, so if a ship were to collide with the shadow, it would essentially tear itself to pieces in hyperspace before actually colliding with the planet. Something along those lines, anyway.
its always so crazy to me that the entire galaxy was completely stagnant for thousands of years no new technology no inventions no progress in any naval regards
Poor Thrawn. Every time he loses, it's because somebody did something stupid, or due to the universe itself bringing Phineas and Ferb levels of plot contrivance...
What is the song around 4:31
Yes, what is it?
@@jimmysmith2249glad we agree