SW EU Cloaking Devices

[DSG2k]

This thread is for those who wish to discuss Expanded Universe cloaking device references, since there seems to be demand for it from here.

For instance, the double-blind cloaks and assorted cloaks that can or cannot be fired through, and so on, are of interest here. Composition of stygium, anyone?

[stitch626]

I find the double-blind cloak an interesting development. It provides the same advantage to the enemy that it provides to you. I wonder what tactical use it would serve, besides hiding and hoping the enemy goes away.

[DSG2k]

I find the double-blind cloak an interesting development. It provides the same advantage to the enemy that it provides to you. I wonder what tactical use it would serve, besides hiding and hoping the enemy goes away.

Couldn't you fire out of it? It's a trade-off, but sometimes it might be nice.

[stitch626]

It might work. It would be a blind fire, and if your in a slow ship, you open yourself up to an attack. SO its a big tradeoff.

[Tyyr]

Firing out of a double blind cloak would be idiotic. The most beneficial part of the cloak is preventing your opponent from knowing you're there. Well fire out of it and they know you're there then. Thrawn got away with it because it was a very carefully planned event, firing "through" the planetary shield. You might pull that off against a fixed installation but you'd be better off just dropping the cloak instead of trying to pretend you're still invisible. In any other situation all you're doing is warning your opponent to your presence. The odds of you tanking a random shot out of a double blind cloak and actually hitting something smaller than a planet are virtually non-existent.

[Captain Seafort]

Pellaeon tried to use the tactic in "Spectre of the Past", in an experimental exercise to see if it would work to try and give the Remnant a hope against the New Republic. It failed. Miserably.

[Aaron]

Aye, IIRC the reason why it worked was because Thrawn had a pet Jedi. Otherwise it was just a worthless curiosity. I think Thrawn (or was it Pellaeon) that mentioned that very fact.

I suppose one could use it with a high tech version of the inertial guidance system used on subs and some missiles. If that would transfer well to a space ship, I have no idea.

[Sionnach Glic]

Pellaeon tried to use the tactic in "Spectre of the Past", in an experimental exercise to see if it would work to try and give the Remnant a hope against the New Republic. It failed. Miserably.

Thrawn did much the same thing, though with greater success.

He had a cloaked Dreadnought drop out of hyperspace and slip into a planet's atmosphere, presumably the course had been calculated before-hand. He then dropped an ISD out in orbit of the planet, and demanded that the planet surrender. Naturaly, the planet threw its shields up and felt quite safe from a lone ISD. Thrawn, claiming to have some sort of new super-weapon that could punch through shields, ordered his ISD to fire a shot. Using his pet insane Jedi, he managed to coordinate it so that as soon as the ISD's turbolaser bolt hit the shield, the Dreadnought (still cloaked) fired one of its own turbolasers. This made it look as though the bolt had passed cleanly through the shield. Needless to say, the planet surrendered quite quickly.

[Captain Seafort]

I'm not talking about the tactic Thrawn used at Ukio, but an attempt to use the cloak in ship-to-ship combat. By SotP/VotF, cloaks appear to have become standard equipment aboard ISDs. Pellaeon attempted to use a device that predicted opponent's manoeuvres based on their past actions to guide his weapons. In the exercise he let the attackers make two runs at the Chimaera, then cloaked the ship and handed weapons control to the prediction device, the theory being that it would allow the ship to take out it's attackers while manoeuvring under cloak to avoid being hit itself. It was a complete failure. Even in the initial exercise, with the attackers under computer control and the Chimaera sitting still, she only hit one attacker out of eight. It was the failure of that test that confirmed his belief that the Empire needed to sue for peace.

[Sionnach Glic]

Interesting. I'll need to read those books again - it's been quite a while.