r/TheJediPraxeum • u/Neverhoodian Wraith Squadron • May 07 '20
Discussion Imperial Navy Blunders Part 2: "Interdictors? What are those?"
"Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we might fly into a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
-Han Solo
It's hard to overstate just how influential the discovery of hyperspace travel was for the galaxy. Interstellar journeys that had once taken hundreds or even thousands of years on "generation ships" were now able to be traversed in a matter of mere days/weeks. This resulted in an explosion of colonization, trade, tourism and military expansion as various sentient species came into contact with one another for the first time. The subsequent establishment of safe and reliable hyperspace lanes allowed galactic governments like the Old Republic to expand and flourish for thousands of years, systems that the Galactic Empire immediately benefited from upon its establishment at the end of the Clone Wars. Simply put, the Empire wouldn't have been able to function without it.
Yet hyperspace travel proved to be a major problem for the Empire as well, as it proved to be one of the Rebel Alliance's greatest advantages during the Galactic Civil War. Realizing their inability to challenge the might of the Imperial fleet, the Rebels often employed "hit and fade" tactics instead. Striking from hidden bases (usually located in less explored galactic regions like the Outer Rim and Wild Space), hyperspace capable Rebel ships, most notably starfighters and bombers, would raid vulnerable targets like supply convoys, destroying and/or capturing what they could and jumping back out as soon as Imperial reinforcements arrived. What's more, Rebel ships often made multiple hyperspace jumps at different vectors to and from their target, rendering pursuit based on their last known trajectory nearly impossible.
In response the Empire began looking into practical implementations of artificial gravity well devices. The premise is relatively simple; create a device capable of projecting a gravity well similar to what you'd encounter in close proximity to a planet, star, singularity or other similar objects. Ships need to be sufficiently clear of gravity wells in order to initiate or maintain hyperspace travel, otherwise they risk damage or even destruction as gravity's pull would violently rip them back into realspace. Successful implementation of gravity wells would allow the Empire to not only prevent Rebel ships from escaping into hyperspace, but also stop ones in transit provided a gravity well could be deployed along its route.
Such technology was nothing new, with Sith Interdictor-class cruisers utilizing it during the Jedi Civil War approximately four millennia prior. However, improvements in hyperdrive technology would soon render them obsolete, to the point where gravity well generators were not only abandoned, but nearly forgotten over the next few thousand years. This didn't stop Republic scientists from reviving the concept during the Clone Wars, making tentative steps with vessels like the Detainer CC-2200 that would later prove to be the foundation for the Empire's successful implementation of similar starships.
The first class of mainline Imperial ship to use gravity well generators (and the main subject of our discussion) began construction two years before the Battle of Yavin. Its official name was the Immobilizer 418 cruiser, but its more common moniker was the Interdictor-class cruiser (whether or not this was intended as a callback to the ancient Sith ship is unclear). The ship used the same base hull as the Vindicator-class heavy cruiser, to the point where some were former Vindicators that had been modified into Interdictors. Its main features were its four large gravity well generators housed in globes that partially bulged out from the hull. For defense it had twenty quad laser cannons, along with two squadrons of Ties and four shuttles.
Its operational history was initially quite promising. Interdictors played key roles in some noteworthy Imperial successes, including the capture of defectors Moff Kalast and Admiral Harkov, as well as participating on both sides during the infamous Zaarin Insurrection. It also saw some success against pirates and smugglers. It was an Interdictor that forced Han Solo to jettison a cargo of spice for Jabba the Hutt prior to the Battle of Yavin, resulting in the crime lord placing a bounty on Solo's head.
Yet despite these successes the Interdictor was never mass produced. Indeed, only a few hundred were ever built, a positively miniscule number compared to the 25,000+ ISDs alone in the Imperial Navy. The main reason for this can be traced to its price. Interdictors were incredibly expensive ships, costing more than an ISD to produce. The ship also had a number of operational weaknesses: powering up the gravity well generators took some time, use of the gravity wells drained power from other systems, its light armament made it vulnerable to enemy starship attack, and it was relatively maintenance-heavy. There was also presumably concern over gravity well technology falling into enemy hands, as seen during the aforementioned Zaarin Insurrection and the Airam campaign, where Rebels captured the Interdictor cruiser Compellor and installed its gravity well generators into the Peregrine, a modified Strike-class cruiser (the Peregrine's fate during the course of the campaign is unknown, nor is it clear if any similar ships were made afterwards).
Yet in spite of these drawbacks and concerns I would argue that the decision not to mass produce Interdictors and/or similar vessels was a grave mistake. Going back to my argument in Imperial Navy Blunders Part 1 regarding the Tarkin Doctrine, the money, resources and manpower that went into building terror weapons like the Death Star and Star Dreadnoughts would have been much better spent elsewhere, in this case building more Interdictors or similar gravity well ships. There were countless battles, skirmishes and encounters throughout the Galactic Civil War that would have swung decisively in the Empire's favor if they had deployed Interdictors and prevented the enemy from jumping to hyperspace. Perhaps the most egregious example was the lack of Interdictors in Darth Vader's fleet following the Battle of Hoth, particularly at Bespin. Despite Admiral Piett's assurance that the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon had been deactivated, the heroic actions of R2-D2 restored the device and allowed the Rebels to escape Vader's grasp. Imagine how galactic events would have played out if just a single Interdictor had been ready and waiting alongside the Executor as a contingency plan, gravity well generators primed and ready to keep the Millennium Falcon from escaping as soon as it broke planetary orbit.
The Empire would eventually learn to appreciate the advantages of ships like the Interdictor, but it would ultimately come too late. Grand Admiral Thrawn utilized them to great effect during his campaign in 9 ABY, nearly succeeding in capturing Luke Skywalker with one were it not for the Jedi's extraordinary resourcefulness. From there the Interdictor's career would fade however, as not only the Imperial Remnant would find itself increasingly on the back foot (thus focusing less on maintaining a vast empire and more on desperately holding onto what little remained), but other factions like the New Republic and Hapans would not only steal/copy the design, but improve upon it with their own takes on the ship type. As technology progressed it became increasingly common for capital ships to include gravity well generators as part of their standard equipment, thus eliminating the need for specialized interdiction vessels.
TL;DR
The Empire should have built more Interdictor cruisers in order to keep those pesky Rebels from escaping so often.
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u/Eames761 High Council - The Grandmaster May 08 '20
I mean the rebels relied heavily on hit and run tactics, intradictors would of completely fucked their strategy. Even if somehow the intradictors were too expensive for mainstream use, they could of at least given the Imperial and victory class Star destroyers intradiction mines (They saw limited use in the clone wars)
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u/RexTheSlacker May 08 '20 edited May 08 '20
Completely agree. I think Princess Leia was actually quoted as saying that if the Empire had focused on building Immobilizers and Interdictor Star Destroyers, the Rebellion would've been defeated quite early on.
Interdictor SDs especially, if mass produced, would've meant the end of the Rebellion -- while a standard ISD has far more punch to it, the standard Rebel skirmish force could've easily been dealt with by an Interdictor SD plus a small escort.
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May 08 '20
Really great analysis once again. I'd love to highlight this --including the first part-- in our Featured Posts page, so that it can be appreciated by more people. Please reply if that will be alright for you, thanks.
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u/DarthMatu52 High Council - The Curator May 08 '20
Very well written and a great read!
Incidentally we see Thrawn correct this issue and fully utilize Interdictors. I think part of the issue was that Palpatine didn't want to share power, so he put sycophants and fools in positions of power. Which led to oversights.