The Starhawk looks cool, but is it a dumb Capital Ship? | Star Wars Lore
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- The Starhawk is undoubtedly a cool capital ship, but does it really make sense to take apart useful ships in the middle of a war? That's what we'll discuss!
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“If it looks stupid but it works then its not stupid, but if it looks good but doesnt work then its stupid” - Sir Barkers Friend
43. If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky. - The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercinaries
Turning unfinished star destroyers to fight a ton of small battles with ISDs is VERY stupid
Who ever said that has never seen self destructing guns
I figured they were made out of 'destroyed' ISD's or maybe much older ones that were past their service life anyway. Also one of the Empires strengths was using slave labor for resource gathering en-mass. could be that the Star Hawk's required so much raw/processed material, that is was just easier to recycle the ISD's than establish new resource infrastructure which would most likely be difficult to do with more imperial facilities being liberated by the day after yavin
They were made out of unfinished ISDs
Pretty sure that IS the canon.
If France could stomach using Panzer IV's and Panthers after WWII I think the New Republic would use Star Destroyers.
Two things. I don't mind Republic using ISD parts to build new ships, but pretending that they didn't use ISD's at all. Is stupid.
They did in Legends if I recall right
The Dork Knight They did, one was the Mon Mathama Star Destroyer
The empire could’ve also used venators, they used them in the beginning but stopped later on even though, from what I know, there aren’t many improvements that could warrant replacing them completely
@@nebraskabecause The French didn't build the Maus
I had thought they used ISDs that were either too damaged or were still under construction to make the ships. Does canon really say that they took apart fully functional ISDs?
The only books they're mentioned in currently isn't really specific. But in canon the New Republic's goal was 90% disarmament
Yea that’s what I thought as well, take the extremely damaged one and those still in construction to make the Starhawk and not waste those in working conditions. I’m pretty sure fully functioning ISDs were converted to look more “rebel alliance” and less imperial like they did to the Corvus when it joined the alliance.
@@pablog5374 yeah cuz that would make more sense to me as well like you have a fully functioning ISDs but you have left over ISDs that are either too damaged or were still under construction well lets slap them together and make a new ship out of them boom starhawks, starhawks everywhere XD
@@supershadow102007 tbh that would make a lot of sense because after stuff like the battle of endor the new Republic would be able to easily find damaged star destroyers to rebuild into starhawks and it would also beef up the new Republic fleet making it easier to fight imperial reminents
Most star destroyers weren't fully functional by Endor and the months following.
Taking apart Star Destroyers can serve several purposes:
1. It gives the New Republic a new, strong capital ship with powerful components, that are clearly reliable and effective, with lots of materials that are widely available.
2. Fielding Star Destroyers is a BAD idea, both politically and militarily, as it doesn't fit into the New Republic's strategy, and also needs a lot of people to crew. Star Hawks can use their heavy armor to counter the Executors.
3. There are probably components left over from Star Destroyers in shipyards available.
Jerryrigging from off-the-shelf components is a surprisingly common trend today even in the aerospace industry. The Star Hawk is an effective counter to ISDs and Executors.
I do like the idea of them using left over components from captured ship yards or damaged star destroyers, but I don't agree with the fact that it doesn't fit into new republic strategy as the star destroyer could just as easily fit into a fleet as the star hawk or Mc-80 and I do think they could have reduced the crew size with other systems. Though I do like your reasons for why it would be a good idea for the star hawk to be used.
That's true during peace time, but when at war, you capture and use any material you can, especially when you face something like a faction that can field as many ships as the Empire.
I agree. If you have 2-4 star destroyers that would require an entire rebuild to get running again, it would make some measure of sense to instead repurpose them into 1-2 new capital ships. It reduces the space you need to use at valuable shipyards, allows you to easily keep parts uniform across the fleet, etc.
Also they look cool. That probably had something to do with it.
I'd like to add that eck's point about 'using their own weapon against them' is shadowed by the fact that the starhawks not only already do that but show that the new republic can take what they had and build something better with it - like they intend to do with the galaxy
I feel like using Star Destroyers would probably give them a bad image in the public eye, given those are the ships that had been used for oppressing the galaxy over the past 20+ years
"the EU has a better handling of the post Endor years" as if that needed any repeating, lol.
It really sucks because Disney had the chance to unify the variety of Legends material into one canon that would just work. Like with MCU and Marvel comics. They took a bunch of comics and made one story which most people really like, even if they skipped over a lot things.. The fact that the new SW canon stuff was not just going to be in movies and TV but also games, comic books, and novels should've made their job even easier in comparison to the MCU.
Instead they created a story which is radically different than much of the Legends material and which is worse than the Legends stuff in pretty much every way. They had a shot and they totally blew it. At this point it is pretty clear that unlike with the MCU (where there was a lot of respect for the source material) nobody involved in the new post-Endor SW stuff has any respect for the massive amount of EU material developed over previous decades.
Tbh both sides do a piss poor job in 1 part of it. The whole "endor" bit. How the rebellion fleet survives Endor straight up makes no sense regardless. They always use the whole "the loss of battle meditation" thing. Sure that would suck, except your still outgunned 10 to 1, your fleet is already nearly completely destroyed, all that would be left by the time the death star blew would be the Mon Cala cruisers, every other ship would have been shredded by star destroyers at point blank range.
@@cgi2002 I would imagine the disarray of Palpatine's death would've left the Imperial High Command unable to effectively coordinate a retreat away from the DSII's shockwave when it blew. Not to mention the immediate aftermath was infighting and Operation Cinder. Palpatine wanted to punish the Empire if it let him die. And then he came back when the galaxy was really far up its own ass trying to take by force what he once had by manipulation.
Of course it has
Really? I haven't even bought any European Star Wars novels!
What Eck says about the Star Destroyer being symbols of fear sums up pretty nicely why the New Republic would use Starhawks.
In canon the New Republic was really focused on their image and making sure they weren't perceived as the Empire (as seen with the disarmament act), so it would make sense for them to create their own ships just so people don't try and rise up against them.
Yeah, and i know ecks says its 'poetic' and all, but not everyone in the galxy is a poet
Good point. I still have trouble taking it in though not because of the point itself, but in just how quickly and, "cut and dry," the civil war went after Endor. To me, there's no way that a civil war of a galactic level with thousands upon thousands of planets taking part would end so quickly, and tied with a nice neat bow, like they did in canon. It's probably my bias having a say in this, but logically, Legends does it way better because an entity as powerful as the Empire that has no emergency measures in place if the Emperor or Vader were killed would leave a HUGE power vacuum so large that it would be quite plausible of the Empire fracturing into many factions all staking a claim to the throne. I know why Disney had to do it this way, but it just feels way too much like two little kids playing with their toys and making up their story and not caring how crazy or illogical it ends up. Yes that's nice for kids, but for something like this franchise........eh.
Fear or not, war doesn't give you the luxury of image. If you look even at Syria or Libya for example, the Syrian and Libyan rebels would often use Russian and Soviet military equipment which they captured from the Russian-backed governments they would be fighting against. ISIS literally rolled around in American Humvees and Abrams tanks which they captured from the Iraqi Army. Insurrections aren't concerned with the aesthetic of their equipment, all they care about is that the equipment works and does it's job.
To really put this in perspective, it was not at all unheard of of Israeli forces using Wehrmacht vehicles and small arms during the First Arab Israeli War or of both Nationalist and Communist forces in China to use Japanese tanks, planes and artillery to offset their own weaknesses in heavy weapons.
@@sempermilites87 The biggest plot hole/ explanation for the Empires quicker demise is 75% of ISDs and presumably the Imperial fleet is lost captured or destroyed between Scarif and Endor
Next there was no Operation Cinder in Legends to trigger mass defection/surrender
Lastly most of the surviving Fleet ends up at Jakku for destruction or flight to become First Order.
Whatever warlords in Disney are portrayed as having very limited resources a few ships and a planet or two.
The writers are kind of forced to make everyone stupid by what's going to happen in the Sequel trilogy.
@@Killzoneguy117 Yeah someone needs to tell Disney
They'd probably been better off modifying the ISDs for increased crew automation and a hangar suited for rebel starfighters
@Jonathan Salas Take a mind that it is BS, made up by teenagers who never actually read what happen in new canon. That absolutely did that. Though ISD's were too costly for regular operations, so only limited number stay in service after the war.
Increased automation, get rid of the storm trooper detachment, put massive fighter bay in their place, add shields, and weapons emplacements to the aft and central area. Basically take all that they've learned works to take out an SD and put it in place to correct the issues. While fitting more with the rebel/new republic doctrine.
@Harlock1776 chuck wendig needs to stick to his hot takes on twitter and stay far far away from writing lore
I don't blame Chuck Wendig, They had to make the New Republic retarded so they couldn't defend themselves against the First Order for the sequel trilogy
Maybe add in some proper point-defense turrets?
If you can reuse what the enemy cannot, that's being thrifty and efficient.
I think Eck's point is that reusing an ISD is much more efficient than tearing several apart and then reconstructing them. But of course, there are points to the contrary.
@@TKnightcrawlereh, but looking at what they needed ships for overall, making New Republic Star Destroyers (NRSD) to fight ISDs in the ton of numerous small pitches fights seems like a poor economic trade. Destroyer vs Destroyer is too even a matchup. Winning is close so the ships need constant repairs from damage, and loosing obviously is bad.
Why not instead make a the Starhawk for every 2 or 3 NRSD's you can make. However, Starhawks can stomp ISD's more reliably, and in much more unfair fights in the New republics favor. Less losses of resources and qualified crew overall
@@TKnightcrawler The problem is assuming they used functioning ones.
Looks like a shinier version of the Gravestone from SWTOR to me.
I clicked on the video thinking it was that 😂
It seems to me that disney is doing quite a bit of that. Havent had an origonal idea since 2001
Was about to comment the same thing, glad I wasn't the only one. Incoming video about Eck talking about Star Wars IP stealing from itself.
Never really liked the design of the gravestone. Preferred how the Imp ships looked.
That was a corvette
I always thought that the war went on 3 years after Endor. The rest of the Empire being destroyed in one year is ludricrous.
In legends it was closer to a decade
@@Jane_8319 almost 2, Pellaeon surrendered 19 ABY
The Empire was still kicking for almost two decades, that was insane to me. 2-3 years would be a better number. One year is way too short but a decade-plus is ridiculous.
Sounds much more plausible. Kind of sad, because this conflict would offer much content for video games, etc.
Not entirely, not when you take into consideration that Palpatine's Contingency was intended to be a giant scorched earth campaign
The Alliance using ISD sends a bad message - “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
so...move the bridge, reconfigure the defenses, and boom, you have a different ship class that is still an ISD, but doesn't look like one, instead of a kluge.
I just had a mental image of an ISD with a ventrally mounted bridge tower that is mostly for starfighter operations...
@@wilemelliott you have to distance yourself from the saber (sith) silhouette. All imperial ships have some of the saber element to them, distance from this design is huge for optics. Not just the bridge, the whole ship.
There might be a minority of humans who would think that way, but generally people know weapons of war are weapons of war. Nobody would give a shit as long as their side won.
I say "humans" because aliens obviously would have different psychology
@@notablegoat image is incredibly important. Especially in wartime, for morale and differentiation clearly seen by the general public.
Not to be taken for granted, it can win or lose wars.
IRL different pieces of military equipment used by oppressive regimes continued to be used after the regimes collapsed. For example, after Nazis Germany was defeated West Germany federal police forces used either actual Wehrmacht equipment or reproductions of Wehrmacht equipment for decades. Including, the Stahlhelm helmet, arguably the most recognizable piece of equipment worn by German troops during the war.
Not exactly a situation which is translates one-to-one into Star Wars. However, given how the Empire is a lot like Nazis Germany in space, one would think the downfall of that regime would be a key source of inspiration for writers/filmmakers/game designers fleshing out the downfall of the Empire.
To be honest I think that with the number of planets in the Star Wars galaxy vs the amount of ISDs (25000 I believe) most people in the galaxy probably have never even seen an ISD hovering over their planet or doing anything overt against the ordinary people. I think the Arquitens or TIE variants or other more numerous ships would be more asociated with the Empire and supression.
Saying that the ISD was a symbol of the Empire would be like saying the Dreadnought and subsequent big-gun battleships would only be symbolic of the British Empire. It's not because everyone else saw the design as the next step in ship development and copied them. The same could have logically happened with the NR, but unfortunately the new canon of post Endor is bereft of a lot of internal logic and consistancy.
Th Starhawk would work really well in Legends. And if the Galactic Civil had lasted longer in Canon they would have had more time to logically build them.
Imagine them participating in the Thrawn campaign?
@@sugdolomar Honestly, they would be really interesting, since the Starhawk is a battlecruiser, and able to go toe to toe with ISDs. They would be one of the main things Thrawn would target, especially since they can screw up fleet formations.
Taking apart functional, if inefficient within your doctrine, ISDs to make a Starhawk? Yeah, no. Save that for after the peace when you've got hundreds or even thousands of them laying around in mothball or working their way towards the ship breakers.
Capture an outlying Imperial shipyard with a half dozen ISDs in various stages of completion or repair, that are now cut off from the supply of parts needed to finish them? Or scavenge a bunch of half wrecked ISDs from the site of the latest major fleet action? Now there I can see the logic of turning them into a Starhawk. Especially if you cannibalize as many working star destroyers out of it first, before welding whatever's left together until you get something vaguely resembling a warship.
The short answer is that the StarHawk is a plot device for one battle (Jakku). In other words, Aftermath is junk.
IRL it's not easy to take a bunch of other ships apart to make one other ship. The US navy can't take apart it's old destroyers and suddenly build an aircraft carrier out of the parts. Sure reusing components saves time on manufacturing but just figuring out how to fit all these parts together would be a nightmare. I'd think it'd be a lot easier to just start from scratch on a design than to start with a bunch of scraps.
Refits, even major ones are a real thing. Ships can get cut in half and have hundreds of feet added on but Starhawk is so radically different than a ISD that a refit just wouldn't do.
@@Rampant16 The US Navy and the IJN back in WW2 would commonly take old battleships and convert them into carriers. This worked well as largely both ship classes were roughly the same size to begin with. Conversion was largely take the turrets off, take the superstructure off, and then build the new superstructure with flight deck and new command tower.
ISD to Starhawk was probably not that hard, if you look at how ISDs were typically depicted being assembled they were built in blocks, coming to their final shape when the outer armor was assembled. Looking at the pictures of Starhawks being assembled and really the only custom work that needed to be done was the exterior. All the internal components blocks salvaged from ISDs would have easily been assembled around the new skeleton.
And when you have taken control of the orbital shipyards with a bunch of partially assembled ISDs or a bunch of prefab component blocks set up for the construction of the next ISD then repurposing is easy.
Just had a thought, it took them 3ish years to write the aftermath trilogy. It took the empire in universe time 1 year to collapse. It took longer to write the book then for the actual collapse of an empire...
It looks cool doesn’t that make it an effective capital ship by the tarkin doctrine
Tarkin doctrine is shit though so that isnt really a problem
yes
Tarkin Doctrine was for policing planets and subjugating populations from a unassailable position of power. It wasn't built to engage in actual war. The Empire was a police state with the equipment and mindset that each planet was a prison and each individual on it an inmate. It was not designed or fit to fit in any kind of conflict that was more than one-sided.
No. The tarkin doctrine requires you to be imposing and/or scary. You’re thinking of the lesser known heroes’ doctrine, where if your ship looks cool, the one piloted by your heroes will surmount any and all challenges placed before it.
Hera is in Command of an Acclamator!?! Thats super Cool
The design reminds me of the Gravestone from SWTOR.
I thought it was the gravestone in the thumbnail
That’s what I said when it was first introduced lol
Thank you!
I always figured the Starhawk was a way of turning unfinished, old, and/or damaged ISDs into a working capital ship, without just creating more ISDs (which, while powerful, were something the Imperial Remnant factions were very familiar with, and also had a lot of flaws and weaknesses). My guess is that 1 Starhawk is a more valuable asset to the New Republic than 2 ISDs would be, also, but not to the degree that it would justify the work in scrapping "pristine" ISDs to make them.
Theory: they had to cannibalize some captured ISD’s for parts to maintain the ones they chose to crew. Some parts and hull segments weren’t needed as often, so they started kitbashing the leftovers to make new designs. Maybe also a dash of something something captured Kuat Drive Yard concepts something to handwave the short development time, even if you were to claim the ships at Jakku were prototypes.
That theory does depend on shield bulbs, for example, being less critical of salvage items than, say, sublight drive or hyperdrive parts.
My theory is the New Republic used the spoils from the Battle Of Kuat
One year is not that long, but the Clone Wars was only three years and saw huge developments and construction short periods of time. Keep in mind that apart from the potential infighting, a lot of the core world fleets were held back by the provisional government and pretty much became bargaining chips when they made peace. The forces towards the outer rim eventually established a more unified leadership, but between the chaos of operation cinder and the lack of a clear command chain it would have been easy for the organised rebellion to ambush them and cripple their supply chains.
In universe, the New Republic should have just done upgrades of captured ISD's, get the Mon Calamari to fix the shield vulnerability and add in their targeting sensors as well - which will enable Turbolasers to tag snubfighters like they were Lasercannons.
Add in more dedicated Lasercannons as well.
A change of mission profile will help as well, no longer carry a deployable base and massive ground forces inside and that frees up a lot of capacity. Which can be used to carry and service snubfighters or utilised for extra upgrades like more power for systems and maybe carrying a _lot_ of missiles.
And fix the bridge by making an internal bridge and using the current bridge location as a very heavy weapons mount with 360° coverage - although that would be a major refit and take longer.
Give it a quick paint job in Rebel Alliance colours and away you go.
Disney cannon is such a mess, I always thought that they used damaged star destroyers to create these ships as it really would make alot more sense to do so then just wasting time and resources scrapping a perfectly good ship to make another ship but hey it's Disney so it's a Micky mouse operation anyway
In canon the New Republic's goal was 90% disarmament
@Jonathan Salas It was suppose to be show how allot of non-Empire supporting people wanted Peace for a longtime since they had been in war for around 25 years and they didn't expect First Order came from secret and get blown up by First Order's Starkiller Base since the universe is really large.
"I always thought that they used damaged star destroyers"
Because they did.
@Jonathan Salas They aren't. They move funds and equipment to local militia. Not throw ISD's on sun. But edgy teens would spread they lies anyway.
TheRezro can’t exactly call us edgy teens when the aweful sequels show us how much of a failure the new republic is and hat there was no planets with militias
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Ritsuko is best girl
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Still me: *confused third impact style screams*
Federico Del Sarto *congratulations*
I really do think that a repainted and more automated version of a star destroyer with a modified fighter complement and personal crew modifications like extra shields or interdiction technology that could be added would be enough change for the new republic to use it, not disassembling star destroyers and piecing them together in a different way,
in a way this is like how the space shuttle was a big failure, it did not meet to the designers standards, had to be nearly completely disassembled and reassembled after every use, so its claims to reusability was all a lie, and just like the NASA shuttle program, the need to disassemble star destroyers to make a star hawk would be super expensive, compared to just refitting some systems and adding some paint...
The interdictor class star destroyer was already a thing. It wasnt particularly powerful cause of how much space and power the field takes.
The allegiance battlecruiser is basically what you want. Only issue is it has no fighters. Or the tector class. Which is just an imperial 2 with no hangar and more guns. Alternatively you can go with the praetor II. Technicaly a SSD but the smallest SSD by far that fills in tge gap between a ISD and something like the executor. Bellator also is similar but even bigger
@ this scarcity is simply due to the empire not wanting to build many of them and preferring the more well rounded imperial too them. They can still be built. Theres literaly 10s of thousands of ISDs. Sell them.
Earlier, I remember an explanation that had the Starhawks constructed out of salvaged pieces of ISD's. They were a standardized pattern for making ships out of hulls roughly 40 - 60% intact.
Star Wars legends: only a few things to disagree about, you can link most of the content together with lots of new ships
Star Wars Disney canon: illogical but here, have one new capital ship that only took one year to design, produce prototypes, allocate the resources, take shipyards, disassemble some star destroyers, and assemble the new ship without any noticeable flaws
A few things? Lmao
One year? They had four since Yavin to get working.
A few? That’s a stretch my dude 😂 there were plentyyyy of ridiculous, and even idiotic shit in Legends.
Silent Drew no they didn’t the rebellion didn’t make this the new republic did
Andre Ransom not really since certain stuff people point out half the time as flaws wasn’t even canon like the old marvel comics or the what if scenarios, wasn’t really til stuff like palpatines return and the new Jedi order books when thins started getting out of hand
“Thrashes a Star Destroyer through a asteroid field” XD
Something that might be fun for a community thing or art challenge or whatever is a full movie based on the choices of one. It introduces the chimera (I think I could be wrong) and it may introduce mara Jade (again I could be wrong). It also talks about threats from the unknown regions (other than the yuzang vong) and is really interesting. It’s also a good read
Legends had a perfect examination of the post-Endor war, with the scrappy rebel starfighter pilots skirmishing the Imperials to attrition and slowly becoming a dominant bureaucracy. Disney really messed it up.
Palpatine's Contingency plan explains it quite nicely
VtotheAtotheDER ReconstructingTheDeathStar yes, but that means the Eternal Sith fleet should have consisted of hidden old I,Petipa star destroyers.
My going hypnosis is the rebels at some point were able to capture a shipyard where server ISDs where docked or a scrap yard (Such as the one see in Fallen Order) and Frankenstein'ed the Star Hawk with other tech the Rebels had in the works. Kind of how they showed in Rebels how they got the Y-Wings from the Empire that where in the middle of being decommissioned.
It would also be interesting if other Star Hawks had different looks based on this idea, basically making them the Uglies of capital ships.
*bashes through door*
"Phew, made it under 50 comments! Let's starts the show."
I cant remember where I read this but I thought Starhawks were made from ISD parts. Once the Republic got hold of former imperial shipyards, there were a lot of ISD spare parts left in the logistic chain. Instead of scrapping them all out, the Republic designed a new ship that used many of the leftover resources. It recycled parts and saved years of R&D reinventing a "brand new" ship.
While I do think it is inspiring to see the thing that once terrorized you now liberating you. The one thing better than that for me would be seeing the thing that terrorized you captured ripped to pieces and turned into a murder machine like the starhawk.
I kind of despise the Starhawk design. I was really disappointed that they took _that_ long to deliver a design of it, and it came out looking like that.
Bro the design isn’t even original. Look at the gravestone from SWTOR
@@mtp0304 ...Oh my god, it's a worse gravestone.
My personal headcanon rewrite for this has the Starhawk sort of follow the Jaeger development from Pacific Rim. Basically it started way before Endor when the rebels were still scavenging what they could and of course, they'd come across old SDs either as floating hulks or whatever. Maybe some older Venators. Now the rebels didn't have access to Kuat Driveyards so they mostly scrapped what they came across. The original SH design was from a bored engineer that was doodling, a higher up happened to noticed the drawing and saw some promising usage out of the hulks they already knew where around. The ones after the battle of Jakku are basically like "propaganda pieces" that look pretty on the outside and had its flashiest bits working but everything else was a jurry rigging nightmare to give MacGyver a seizure. This is mostly because the rebels had to refit and combine all of these broken ISDs into the SH with much more limited facilities.
Built from Endor salvage makes sense, tearing apart functional ships with a war still going on doesn't.
New canon never said functional. They were unfinished ISD's in shipyards. Essentially destroyer husks, and getting the material to finish them was too expensive.
Do you think that a group of people want to us a ship that resemblance tiranny and fear? The last problem they want is that the people of the galaxy think they are just the same as the Empire.
I have a mod for Empire at War that adds a bunch of post battle of endor ships, and as cool as a lot of them are, there's just something awesome about seeing ISDs with giant Rebel Alliance symbols painted on them.
Looks like a giant rip off of the Gravestone from The Old Republic
I was thinking the same
I was about to say that :) Good thing I am not the only one who actually has eyes xD
It does
Nah the gravestone was diffrent
@@orbaitv5991 well yeah, but you gotta admit it looks like the gravestone
I agree with your analysis regarding captured start destroyers and stripping and making a new capital ship from the parts. Instead of repair the star destroyers and putting them back into service. The other thing is if the Starhawks only role is is to destabilise an imperial star destroyer orbit then its not considered a multiple role vessel.
The fact that the nebula destroyer still isn't canon is the ultimate sin
To be honest the Aftermath trilogy really should just be ignored or overruled at this point. It is a terrible book and while it has some okay ideas they are executed really poorly.
Bad writer not overseen properly.
Be nice, but Jakku was clearly meant to be a centerpiece for this era. Disney isn't gonna disassemble that under any circumstances.
1. The starhawk may be more suited to the Hit-And-Run tactics of the Alliance than a stardestroyer is. Heavy forward firepower and bulk would be best suited for this type of strategy, rather than the spread out nature of ISDs.
2. A heavy tractor beam would be capable of: Disrupting enemy formations, pinning (and thus preventing any escape) target vessels, capturing resources. For a fledgeling state such as the Alliance, such technology makes perfect sense. They simply lacked the resource gathering capacity of the Empire and the infrastructure to utilize those resources in the same manner.
3. In hit and run tactics, your legs are perhaps your most vital tool. The shape of the Starhawk seems to be aware of this, offering a great degree of protection from the front (and from the sides as it appears to be capable for broadside combat as well.)
4. It's a great usage of spare/obsolete/scuttled ISD's that otherwise may not be best suited for combat or even capable of it anymore.
5. The ISD was a bad design in the first place with a lot of weaknesses that could be exploited and were CERTAINLY known in better detail by the Empire. A smart commander would be able to exploit this familiarity and potentially get an edge of the (likely) not as familiar rebel crews. The Starhawk seems to remove most of these weaknesses and where it doesn't, it adds redundancy.
6. Morale is everything. These ships were more imposing, they were new, and they were powerful. Imagine already losing hope as your empire was collapsing, and then running into a monster of a ship you have never seen before that outmatched you in every single way. You can't even run since it's got you pinned in its' tractor beam. If they offered you the chance to surrender it would be a LOT more tempting now.
7. These could be optimized for less manpower. the Home-1 had 5000 crew, the ISD 2 had 36,000, despite similar volume.
Remember, the doctrine of the Alliance is quality over quantity. This is the opposite of the Empire. ISD's do not suit the needs of the Alliance.
generally I'd say the Starhawk is a pretty solid design for the kind of combat it'd almost certainly be seeing.
I don't know if its done on purpose but the Starhawk desing reminds me of the Hammerhead corvet from the Old Republic, so in a sense it's kind of symbolic how the rebels put an end to the empire and with it, they create an NEW hammerhead desing for a NEW republic with the remain of the empire
Legends will always be Canon.
past me when decanonization of the EU was announced: Well, at least they have a blank sheet to tell really cool, really new stories..
Sequel Trilogy: everything is a lame copy of what had been before.. + a time frame of 30 years where seemingly almost nothing happened..
"Legends" is a buzz word created by Disney to acknowledge those things as not canon. Instead of "Legends" say pre-Disney.
Optics and propaganda can actually be very powerful in wartime - they can undermine or bolster morale on either side, and that can be enough to turn decisive conflicts.
The answer is Kuat Drive Yards.
The starhawk is essentially the capital ship size version of the Nebulon series frigates.
Kuat Drive Yards was not only a major manufacturing facility for standard ISD ships, they are also responsible for the nebulon series of ships.
My guess is the new Republic took control of Kuat and either found the starhawk designs, or were able to easily upscale the nebulon into a capital ship by using the ISD parts already available at Kuat.
This would have allowed them to utilize a stockpile of standardized ISD components without ruining any captured ships, and would also possibly account for the truncated time period between battles and the appearance of this new capital ship.
I’d say the Starkhawk is the New Republic’s answer needing to actively remove the imperial presence across through conventional battles rather than the hit-and-run tactics of the rebellion. It also directly counters star destroyers which are the flagship of the Imperial-fist; not only ruining the imperial remnants militarily but also symbolically as it shows the galaxy that they have little to fear from the Empire anymore.
Will the resistance do the same to the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, destroying them and building a bigger and more advanced Starhawk MK.3 after the events of Episode IX?
Starhawks are 60% more massive than an Imperial-class. Following this logic of Size, a Starhawk mk3 will have more than 4,600 meters.
Wookieepedia says: "There are 2 variants, the Mark I Starhawk and the Mark II. The Starhawk was a type of battleship in service with the New Republic Defense Fleet. Like all the ships constructed at the Nadiri Dockyards, they were constructed from disassembled captured Imperial spacecraft."
Tbh, the Empire being destroyed a year after Endor is waaaay to fast. The whole system's ideology would have definitely resulted in panic, fracturing, and a whole lot of infighting with their command structure fractured. Throw in the growing Rebellion and the resulting war that would erupt probably would have dwarfed the Clone Wars. (Not to mention the Empire fleeing the Galaxy seems like a very cowardly move for a system built upon its image of dominance).
It would have made much more sense if the Empire had fractured after Endor and whittled itself down in a crazy galactic civil war for years until Jakku cemented the Alliance as the preeminent power of the Galaxy. Then, tired of fighting and with most of their more violent leaders dead from the fighting the Empire fragments basically surrendered to or joined the Alliance and were either absorbed into it or disbanded as the galaxy began cleaning up and rebuilding. Leaving whomever wanted to keep fighting to flee the known galaxy and eventually become the First Order.
I think the sequel trilogy would have been much more interesting if instead of the bland SW galaxy that was basically the same as it was before it was instead set in a galaxy rebuilding itself after years or decades of war. With the New Galactic Republic controlling most of the galaxy, tentatively allied with the remaining Imperial remnants that had not reintegrated. The First Order could then come in, fracture the republic with their Starkiller Base (tm), and reignite the conflict as it allies with or absorbs the Imperial remnants and tries rebuild the Empire. That, would have been far more interesting than the uninspired worldbuilding of the sequels.
Nice vid Eckhart! As others in the comments said, the Starhawk reminds me of Swtor's Gravestone.
If the ISD where partly destroyed, or past their service life then yes I could see the reason why the build the star hawk, but if they took fully functional ISD that could have just as, or more easily tweaked or added a paint job then that is just the New Republic being cocky. Either way it seems a little odd that they came up with this new ship design and constructed a few ships so soon after endor, it should have taken them a lot longer to do these things.
I might have a theory on how they captured so many ISD's made so many Starhawks by Jakku. It's simple: The battle of Kuat Drive Yards. You even said by the end of the Battle of Kuat a squadron of B-Wings took down an entire ISD with no issue and the Empire had to result to using shuttles. So, I can see after the Battle of Kuat, the New Republic taking the ISD wrecks to build new Starhawks at their ship yard if not having them built at Kuat.
You forget that the star hawk was also a new rep design which is why the new Republic committed to it. Imagine how the galaxy reacted to holovids of the battle of jakku with the fall of the empire lead by new Republic ships built and designed by the new Republic and helps establish them as an independent state.
I have to wonder if the Starhawk was something that the Alliance had already designed and had started to put some together with stolen components and then got a windfall of parts that could be used to complete them quickly.
Here's a thought. Following the battle of Yavin, many worlds of the galaxy were inspired to join the Alliance, or at least grew sympathetic. Rendili could have been one such faction, pretending to remain indifferent on the surface, but secretly holding the Starhawk in its back pocket, depending on how the Civil War turned out. As Endor crept closer and the Rebellion spread, Rendili began putting the finishing touches on the plans, and as the war drew to a close, and with Imperial defections on the rise, the first few Starhawks were coming off the line just in time for the battle of Jakku.
Empire: Nooo you can’t just destroy our ships that took decades of previous ship doctrine to create and tax payers’ money and make a new ship out of it in one year
New Republic: Haha the last Super Star destroy go boom
The thing is, creating a new ship would take decades. Only people without any knowledge about engineering could assume that designing a ship is just drawing how it looks in SW_Photoshop.
Remember the Eclipse
@Harlock1776 If only Episode IX followed Colin Trevorrow's script; it would've been converted into or served as a base template for the Eclipse-class.
@@ImperativeGames I would not be surprised if the Rebellion and Mon Calamari had blueprints and designs for next gen starships and were sitting on them due to lack of material and funds.
A bunch of unfinished star destroyers is a nice huge chunk of raw and refined material
@@zachpayne3572 That's actually similar to the building construction.
Picture it in your head: creating plans for the new building, with the idea in mind that you will deconstruct existing buildings - as soon as you capture them.
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It's theoretically possible, but only if you deconstruct the buildings to the smallest objects possible, like bricks. Starting from the top of course, and getting the right machinery first. And you need very good plans for every building you deconstruct. And you have to throw out a lot of resources.
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Only a stupid and uneducated (or crazy) leader would order that.
The era that you are talking about post Endor would be fantastic for writers to create incredible almost “wild fire” like tactics between people losing their minds Imperial supporters and the scrambling new republic. That would make a great couple movies honestly. with the Rouge One feel
I think to some degree the starhawk fits the rebels for the following reasons: 1) as we saw in rebels many people hated the sight of imperial warships and using them, will making military sense, was probably a hard sell. 2) next while it does seem a bit impractical to use so many ships to build one they did have a good amount of broken ISD’s 3) the rebels really had nothing to stand up to super star destroyers in a traditional fleet battle, or as far as I understand, nothing that could quickly take one down. I think from a story view it shows the rebels becoming the new republic by beginning to stop fighting like a gorilla force. 4) the ship in the hologram seems to be missing large sections, it could be either a prototype or maybe they can function without those sections and as parts become available they get refit with more equipment as an upgrade.
I read somewhere that the ISDs they used to build Starhawks were ones that were destined for the scrapyard anyway.
think it's also important to realise that the ISD-I was about 25 years old by this point and the tech was probably outdated. it probably made more sense to completely rebuild the systems in a new ship with salvaged components than to try and modify the systems of an Imperial ship. also arguably the New Republic knew they probably would have trouble in direct fleet battles with Imperial navies and would instead favour uncomventional tactics rather than just trying to slug it out; thus, the tractor beam, which could literally pull a ship out of orbit or immobilise other capital ships so starfighters could wreak havoc.
I'd say it was build from ships that had lost power beyond repair to the point where some one made this ship...in order to field test new designs and stuff well thats my opinion
I liked the advantages and disadvantages you listed in this video.
One explanation I can see for the Starhawk is that the Rebel Alliance/fledgling New Republic is, as you pointed out, significantly smaller and undermanned compared to even the Imperial Remnants. They wouldnt necessarily have the crew sizes necessary to field entire fleets of ISD's - but, by scrapping a few damaged ones they may have captured and combining them into a single vessel they could hypothetically make fewer but stronger ships that dont require a crew in the hundreds just to fly.
5:16 Actually it's more that they took some shipyards with half-finished ISDs and reasembled the parts into a ship that better suited their needs. So it wasn't a case of taking fully assembled ISDs and scrapping them into Starhawks, but of building Starhawks out of ISD parts that hadn't been already built.
Although, even if it was fully functioning Star Destroyers , it is somewhat logical to disassemble them.
The SD isn't just a ship but a symbol of the empire and the Tarkin Doctrine . The NR using them would be like the Allies parading with Swastikas in ww2 .
I also agree the symbolism argument, I would argue that there was a time how ever long ago that the ISD style ships were seen as a sign of hope to a lot of outer rim worlds so maybe the rebels wanted to make repairs to the Star destroyers’ reputation. Great great great video by the way!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
It is a horrible argument.
Total agree the time from Endor to Jakku is very short, which makes it hard believe... unless of course the Starhawk was in development before Endor?
Legends makes much more sense strategically. Where would the NR get the shipyards to completely disassemble, then build new warships when the Mon Cal shipyards would be frantically building new Mon Cal Star Cruisers?
I think they captured star destroyer production facilities which were set up to make star destroyers so they repurposed them to make star hawks
Thank you for putting so much effort into all of your videos, it really shows!
The New Republic focusing too much on optics would fit in well with the narrative of them not being a terribly effective governing body during the time between the OT and ST. And how they were so easily bowled over when the First Order showed up
According to FFG SW RPG "Starships and Speeders" P.143 (I don't take these books as gospel but they are rather well written):
Length: 2400m
Height: 900m fwrd. Bow
Assembly time about 6 months
Enlistement: 33650 officers and enlisted crew
Troops: 7500
Cost: 60,000,000 Credits
36 T-65 X-Wings, 24 RZ-1 A-Wings, 12A/SF-01 B-Wings and numerous shuttles, landing craft and untility vehicles
From the armament discriptions in the book it is likely that this ship was supposed to jump in, grab serval smaller vessels (up to 6) or one about the same size under circumstances even one size bigger. I guess it would then use it's tractor beam array to hold and direct the captured vessel in a position that makes use of the heavily fortified bow and the form to keep teh rest of the ship out of fire, while fighters keep enemy fighters at bay and when that danger is dealt with use teh fighters to deal extra damage as well. Sure the tractor beam array is no gravity well but that can be seen positive and negative, positive you own ships can jump as well, negative enemies not locked down can also do that.
As for the symbolism bonus, I believe there is something to that, but imperial ships were not really known to be build with the health etc. of their respective crews in mind, for the empire people were expendable etc. I think this would've been used as an oppurtunity to solve some of those design issues as well.
I completely agree and this bothered me from when I first heard about the Starhawk. I've seen it mentioned or suggested that Starhawks were made from salvaged or critically damaged ISDs, which would make FAR more sense than scrapping, processing, then reassembling perfectly functional vessels. Given the number of Star Destroyer remains likely being a byproduct of ongoing battles with the Empire the New Republic would still have a plentiful supply of resources for their new vessels.
As a counter to the suggestion that ISDs would be too crew intensive to be viable it would likely be easier to retrofit Star Destroyers with some of the new technologies that went into the Starhawk, increasing automation to reduce crew requirements and implementing other functional improvements similar to the Dreadnought to Assault Frigate conversions from the EU.
So by Jakku, the New Republic has built maybe four of these out of maybe a dozen Imperial Star Destroyers. And they likely don't build very many more after Jakku, so we are talking maybe a dozen Star Hawks total? Built from the equivalent of an Imperial Sector Fleet before the New Republic stops. It seems like something you would do when you are trying to build better ships than your enemy, but the fastest way to do that is to use incomplete Imperial hulls and build a new ship out of them, since you do not yet hold the means of production on a galactic scale, just some shipyards were you can turn materials into warships. You instead take captured materials, or stolen materials and make due. Which is possible for spaceships, since you don't have to worry about hull forms like naval vessels, and Thrust is thrust. Given that the Empire managed to build seeming a thousand Imperial Star Destroyers per year on average, four ships doesn't seem like a lot.
The New Republic would want to cannibalize ISDs not use them for the same reason Palpatine got rid of the GAR. To very clearly distance themselves from the previous regime. Militarily it be might not make the most sense but politically it does.
I think the simplest explanation is optics, but from the perspective of whoever was involved with the decision to put them into Aftermath (Wendig? The Story Group?) I simply don't think they trusted the audience to know that a side using Star Destroyers might not be the bad guy.
You could make the Starhawk's timeline make sense, though. Maybe it was the brainchild of some young Corellian engineer who wanted to create a ship to rival the ISD and then sell it to the Rebellion, and designed it with the intention of using spare, non-working ISDs to provide the raw materials. Honestly, for a rebellion that wasn't supposed to have much in the way of spare anything, they probably couldn't easily repair any ISD that wasn't covertly captured, so the Starhawk might be a decent compromise.
I'd prefer to see the use of captured weapons, as it's a mainstay of actual history, but I do like the ship. I think I can live with it.
I think some of the general issues of Canon are starting to be patched up, with Shadow Wing in Alphabet Squadron kind of reminding me of Legends stuff. It felt like Shakara Nuress was trying to set herself up as a warlord, for example. There's also mention of Shadow Wing destroying a captured ISD, so we know it's something the New Republic was attempting at least. I got the impression it was simply difficult finding enough crew, based on how Shadow Wing didn't have much trouble in the example that was mentioned.
That said, having a big war - ending battle like Jakku so soon in the timeline is a bad move I think, and these details I mentioned feel like damage control as a result.
My guess is the New Republic used ISDs in both ways, depending upon how intact they were (both structurally and in defected crew); The most damaged ones would be converted into Starhawks to be used in later operations in more populated sectors where they'd be more visible as distinctly non-Imperial ships.
ISDs ready to fight with full crews could be quickly redeployed against the Imperial Fleet and military installations, where they'd mostly be seen only by loyalist Imperials (who might find fighting rebel ISDs demoralizing).
Well there are a few arguments for the Starhawk over the two-three ISDs (even if it is to give up fully constructed ships) these arguments follow: Technical, Tactical and operational uses as well to a certain degree the strategic use.
Technical: the Starhawks have more effective fire power, more effective shields and has a faster hyperdrive than the ISD. Not only that but the ship is bigger, making it possible to upgrade and service the ship better, and it has a more effective hanger (in that the rebel fighter/bombers are generally bigger than the Tie's, yet the Starhawk carries the same number). The Starhawk also have new weapons like the much more effective traktor beam system. On the overall point while perhaps not being better as three ISD's the Starhawk is absoultely a more impressive ship than one ISD, and is likely a match for two.
Tactical: The Starhawk gives the Alliance a significant boost. With the stronger shields similar or greater firepower and faster speed, the Starhawk can not only decide when and where it wants to engage the enemy ISD's, it also have the power and endurance to fight it out in protracted battles. This means that the Starhawk (unlike the ISDs) can much like the fighters, make fast attacks, break imperial formations, and then hunt down enemy capital ships should they try to flee. This means the Starhawk is not only strong skips of the line, but frankly are more effektive ships in both patroling space, and quick respons missions. In the time after the imperium, the Starhawk would be able to do all the jobs of the ISDs, but better with a more flexible fighter wing, and as command ships for system patrols. While being fewer in numbers, the need for permanent pressens in the post-empire republic will surely be less, with a bigger focus on lesser patrol ships where the Starhawks would be command and respons ships... While this didn't happen, the implications for the Starhawks speaks of a much smarter and more flexibel peacetime navy. And a more formidibal ship for big battles.
On the Operational level, the Starhawk offers some significant benefits over the ISD's. The principal benefit is the reduction of crew. Being 50% bigger than the standart ISD, and having some 3000 crew less, it also hints at better crew quaters, better internal space and so on. That the crew size is smaller has a number of important effects.
1: it means that more elite crews can be made. 2: that should some of the ships be build from destroyed/crippled ISDs the reduced crews that defection always will have, is less of an issue for the allience. That the Starhawk also will be able to work in effective "hunter killer" groups means that the Starhawks will be adding a level of flexibility to a campaing more on par with what the Alliance uses its ships for than the Imperium.
On the overall strategic level we can conclude that the Starhawks are briliant ships, that really fill out a need for the Alliance while at the same time using assets that would be less good at the time (like damaged, partial destroyed or unfinished ISDs). That no more were build, has less to do with them being better ships, and more to do with the needs... After all why spend the time and energy of building new Starhawks in "peacetime" when one can just use the ISD's... But during a major galactic war, the Starhawk closes a lot of problems for the Alliance. That they apparently also are quick to build if one has some spare ISD's, means that the project really should have been allowed to be made into a significant number of ships, for a smaller number of crews and more elite crews.
All in All, I would argue that the Starhawks are not only cool ships, they are formidable ships that plays to the Alliances strenghts, while covering some of the real shortcommings. Finally the Starhawk is a more practical ship. That it wasn't build in big numbers, can only said as a reaspons to the ending of war and demilitarisation.
I could certainly see them just super quickly grabbing as many destroyed ISDs as possible, which would allow for the Starhawks to be built fairly quickly. And the Rebellion was always focused on their image, so maybe they use the captured ISDs in other, less visible operations?
Yeah a galaxy wide empire fell in one year pretty quite unbelievable
So, if I recall correctly! In WW2, in order to develop a new tank, it took well over 6 months to design in R&D and a further 6 months of testing before it could even get to the factories for production. And then you had to organize factories to produce tanks. I am making a bit of an assumption using tanks in WW2, but frankly space ships design would be infinitely more complex, and I am sure using existing ships probably helps...but I find it highly unlikely that the Starhawk could have even been functional let alone battle ready in less than a year unless there had been considerable research done before Endor...
I always assumed they made Starhawks out of partially constructed ISDs at ship yards they captured and that the reason for them -- especially w/r/t the huge tractor beam -- was to have a ship that could go toe to toe with an SSD. They only just barely managed to destroy the Executor at Endor, and then only because it fell into the Death Star II's gravity well.
It's not like they were making a ton of these things; they were still relying on Mon Cal cruisers as the backbone of their fleet.
I got an idea, well several. Nebula class vs starhawk or a doctrine that the new republic can use with nebula, starhawk and endurance and small ships.
I can see using a new capitol ship for both optics but more for practical reasons. Newest technology, visual distinctions (we know that the star wars galaxy relies heavily on visual targetting) and the use of star destroyer parts. The big questions come in with what we just don't know. We don't know if the Starhawks were assembled from damaged or fully functional Star Destroyers. We don't know how fast they can be built. We just aren't told.
We do know that Palpatine and Tarkin preferred personnel intensive ships using low cost technologies in order to field as many as possible and employ as many people as possible into the Empire. Without those restrictions, using the newest automation technologies, it could be possible to take partially assembled or damaged and salvaged star destroyers and build them into something more advanced in a short period of time. But, again, its not even mentioned. I'm going to chock this up to the writers and editors simply not being interested in the practical engineering aspect of their creation.
I think that Starhawks were in production way before Endor, and the ones seen at Jakku are just the first batch. I also think that most of the Star Destroyers werent taken down, they fled to the unknown regions and recycled into resurgent class battle cruisers
No doubt the timeline is too short but I always figured they would have had a lot of raw material from the battle of Endor. Also this is one of the first times we’re seeing new ideas and pushing boundaries and I don’t wanna discourage that!! Just explore the timeline more, muddy the water so there’s some sort of imperial remnant and warlords and it’ll feel better.
could you do a video on what was underneath the jedi temple. the temple was built atop a sith shrine that was built millennia before the empire, and yet the temple is on the city surface, so what is in that space
Also just wanted to say I love your vids man keep it up
The star hawk feels like more af a final touch. Like say you got a fleet you think will be great, throw the star hawk on like the cherry on top. Just need to make sure it’s well defended
I suppose the star hawk may have been meant as a Dreadnaught Killer. A single or even a few ISDs would get mulched by a single super star destroyer, but the Star Hawk can punch way above its weight class to take one out. Remember the only SSD we have seen taken out was through sheer dumb luck. The alliance probably figured they needed an answer to the SSD and slapped one together.
Starhawk - if an Omega-class destroyer and Nebulon-B frigate had child
Makes more sense to retrofit ISDs by cutting the crew compliment down by using more automation/driods, add fighter space and antifighter weaponry and maybe cut down on some turbo lasers. That would probably compliment Rebilion fleets better. Its way easier abd cost effective to retrofit ships too. Its what we do today after all.
I mean in History, especially WW II it was pretty common to use for example captured tanks. The would just paint big Symbols (the US star, German cross etc.) on the tanks to prevent friendly fire. Much like what the NR in Legends did with the Lusankya. No one would have disassembled multiple captured Pzkfw. VI (Tiger I) tanks to build an even bigger tank, it just doesnt make sense. As the Tiger 1 was perfectly capable of fighting any other German tank, much like the ISD's in Star Wars. It would have been a waste of rersources and that is something you can't afford to do in a war. So I think that the Canon NR disassembled ISD's that were probably already more scrap metal then a war ship.
For clarity there were only few of those and they were made from ISD's in construction after capture of Kuat. People simply reed too much in standard SW "we simply don't see them". Like did you know that at least one Venator was still in service during battle of Yavin? Or that Kuat was protected by Mandator II Dreadnought during Republic?
@@TheRezro I'm aware that the Empire used Venators in roles such as fighting pirates or to patrol smaller outer rim systems. And yes Kuat used the Mandator I as a guard Vessel and would later give them to the Republic during the Clone Wars. Also the Mandator II was developed during the Clone Wars and they did protect core worlds of the Republic.
In my personal canon, the StarHawks will have a bigger and more logical role:
Giving the number of battlecruisers that the Imperial Remnants all across the galaxy will have after the disruption of the Empire and the death of Palpatine, the New Republic will desing and build the StarHawk battlecruiser in order to counter it´s imperial counterparts (mainly the Predator MK2)
For this role the StarHawk will be bigger (4,660 m long) more heavily armed, but will mantain the rest of its characteristics, and will require 4 to 5 ISDs to be build. This canon is based around Legends canon with the inclusion of some ships and other few cool stuff of Disney´s canon
Well the nebulon b is supposed to be an imperial ship, but we never actually see the empire using them. I get the need to keep the factions completely separate in the ships that they use. Also I'd suggest that some clever rebellion engineer came up with a ship design specifically to counter super star destroyers, and the only way they were going to be able to build it on the schedule they needed to build it was to repurpose whole subsystems from an existing ubiquitous ship. Whole Galaxy is full of Star destroyers. So if you can take three Star destroyers and make a ship that can do the work of five or ten Star destroyers in this specific task, that's worth the work.
I'd guess the ISD parts of the Starhawk were only used to enhance an established design.
If the Rebels took over an Imperial shipyard, they would have come into several incomplete starships and factories producing stuff like shield generators to be added to ships as modular components.
Each Starhawk is probably a unique build along a general blueprint, like Mon Call ships are.
Could the have been a direct counter to SSD’s? The alliance got lucky a few times but they didn’t seem to have a reliable way to deal with a properly supported SSD. A couple Star destroyers would eventually get chewed up, but a starhawk was tough enough to get close. Then at worst hold it in position for other ships to get into better firing positions, at best they could throw it into something. Two of them coordinated might be able to rip a SSD in half.
Honestly the idea of rebuilding ISDs into ships that fit with Alliance doctrine and specifications is not a bad one, and it's something that has been done IRL where certain weapons or vehicles get captured by a nation en masse.
A great example of this is the Soviet SU-85i tank destroyer. In the aftermath of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union had a LOT of captured German Panzer IIIs lying around that were a bit obsolete. So they converted an entire factory line and devoted it solely to taking those tanks, taking the turret off, sticking an armored box with a big 85mm gun on it, and relabeling everything in Russian. They took German vehicles and remade them to Russian standard to fight the Germans. But what the Soviets ALSO did is press larger more capable Panzer IVs and Panthers into service as-is. No worrying about "optics", nothing more than a hammer and sickle on the side to identify them, no further changes needed. Because they worked, and were needed now.
Germany actually had a project that still baffles some historians to this day that's a bit like the Star Hawk: They captured hundreds of BT tanks from Soviet forces while marching to Moscow and, rather than repurpose them like they had French and Czech tanks or give them to their smaller allies, went through the time consuming process of melting those tanks down to make more steel for panzers. There were other programs too that included converting incomplete French ships into carriers, but those never got off the ground because of labor shortages and the Kriegsmarine basically having to panic-spam U-boats to keep in the game.
So no, the idea of the Star Hawk is not bad. It's just that, as Eck said, the timeline is stupid and makes no sense.