Crossover Battles: Lucrehulk-Class Battleship vs. PMSS Sirius

Welcome to another episode of Crossover Battles. In this series, we compare and contrast 2 similar combatants from different universes to see which will kill the other better. In this episode, we’ll pit a Lucrehulk-class battleship from Star Wars against PMSS Sirius from the Honorverse. But before we can do that, we need to take a look at their stats first. Starting with:

Contestant 1: Lucrehulk-Class Battleship

In this corner, we have the Lucrehulk-class battleships of the Trade Federation of the Star Wars universe!

The Lucrehulk-class battleships were the primary capital ships of the Trade Federation, and later, the CIS. Most of them are not actually purpose-built warships. They’re converted and modified civilian cargo haulers. Albeit huge cargo haulers, but that actually helps the class. The large cargo holds allow them to carry vast amounts of troops and vehicles (up to 5 million tons worth). It also allows them to carry up to 1500 Vulture-class droid starfighters, making them good carriers as well.

Each Lucrehulk measures just over 3 km in diameter, and over 1 km in height. Despite that enormous size, they were still capable of accelerating at 300 g in space and could fly in the atmosphere at 500 kph (~310 mph). They were powered by 3 main reactors in the stern of the ship, with a backup reactor in the central spherical bridge.

Pre-Clone Wars, the Lucrehulks only had basic self-defense armament in the form of quad turbolaser batteries (grouped into 3-gun batteries) lining the hull’s equator, with limited fields of fire. Their armor and shields though were so strong that no amount of starfighter-grade blaster and laser cannons could penetrate them. Save for the cargo hatches at the ends of the “arms”. A pilot could literally fly their starfighter into the ship through those hatches and kill her from the inside. Now that’s a major defense flaw.

During the Clone Wars, all Lucrehulks received major upgrades to firepower, shields, and armor; likely making use of the massive cargo holds to fit the power systems in. Long-barreled turbolasers and heavy turbolasers accompanied the quad turbolasers. Each Lucrehulk was now so powerful that it took a flotilla of Republic Star Destroyers to bring down her shields and kill her. Not bad for a converted merchantman.

Contestant 2: PMSS Sirius

In the other corner, we have PMSS (People’s Merchant Service Ship) Sirius from the universe of the Honor Harrington novels!

PMSS Sirius is a Q-ship of the People’s Navy of the People’s Republic of Haven, captained by the late Johan Coglin and a crew of 1,500. Unlike other Q-ships though, she is a purpose-built warship that just outwardly resembles an Astra-class freighter. That gives her certain advantages over her converted merchantmen sisters.

Like the Astra-class she mimics, Sirius measures 1,213 meters long; 200 meters wide, and 194 meters high. Unlike the Astra-class though, Sirius is able to pull much higher levels of acceleration than the Astra-class’s 412.3 g. Considering that a light cruiser with a 520 g acceleration was only just able to outrun Sirius, her true acceleration is somewhere between those 2.

Like all Honorverse ships, Sirius uses a phased array gravity drive (or impeller drive) for propulsion and shielding. The wedge consists of 2 bands of highly stressed gravity above and below the ship, open at both ends, with the bow end being much wider than the stern. The wedge is impenetrable by any and all known weaponry. The only way to attack the ship is down the throat, up the kilt, or through the sides where only a weaker sidewall is possible.

Sirius demonstrated her impressive firepower during the First Battle of Basilisk. Unfortunately, we never get to see the full extent of her weaponry. What we do see are an unknown number of graser (gamma-ray laser) mounts and a total of 6 stern chaser missile launchers. Each missile is basically a tiny 80-ton impeller drive ship with its own wedge, but since it doesn’t have to worry about killing its crew, it can accelerate at 46,000 g for about 180 seconds before burning out its drive. It mounted a laser warhead that worked by focusing a nuclear explosion into a bundle of lasing rods, generating a cluster of extremely powerful grasers. The effective detonation range was 25,000 km. In Star Wars terms: think of it as a proton torpedo that fired ultra-heavy turbolasers at its target when it detonates.

The Battle

Before we can start the fight though, we need a word from a certain announcer:

We need to establish some ground rules for this fight…or rather, space rules. The crews of both the random Lucrehulk and Sirius have to be of the same skill level for it to be a fair fight. As we saw with Captain Johan Coglin and his XO Lieutenant Commander Jamal before their untimely demise at the hands of HMS Fearless, they were exceptionally competent. Arrogant perhaps, but otherwise very skilled.

As for the battlefield, space is the only option. Honorverse starships were never designed for atmospheric flight, so it’d be pointless to try to have Sirius fight the Lucrehulk in the air. Plus, in space, no one can hear you blow up. Both ships will also start off out of each other’s weapon range. Otherwise, this would be a very short fight either way.

Scenario: Space

From the outset, we can see that PMSS Sirius has the advantage in more ways than one. With her greater acceleration compared to a Lucrehulk, Sirius can dictate the range of any engagement. She can always outrun the Trade Federation battleship, keeping out of range of her turbolasers.

Being modeled after a 7.6 million-ton freighter, Sirius has massive missile magazines. Even with just her chase launchers, she can fire salvo after salvo, whittling down the Lucrehulk‘s shields until they give and expose the armor to fire. Star Wars ships have notoriously bad point defense, and this battleship is no exception. At which point, it’s only a matter of time before the Trade Federation’s pride and joy is nothing more than a broken hulk.

The one thing the Lucrehulk has going for her is her 1,500 Vulture-class droid starfighters. We don’t know how fast the droids are, but it’s safe to say that they’re faster than their mothership. It’s entirely possible that those 1,500 droid starfighters could form a mobile point defense network, shooting down incoming missiles from the Sirius to protect their mothership while they close in on Sirius.

Even when taking the droid starfighters into account though, the Sirius still wins. She likely has the magazine space to engage those 1,500 Vultures first; the range on her graser mounts to outrange the Vultures‘ own blaster cannons, and the acceleration to stretch out the time it takes for them to chase her down. Once the Vultures are gone, the Lucrehulk is once more vulnerable. I firmly give this win to PMSS Sirius.

Conclusion

PMSS Sirius emerges victorious from this Crossover Battle with a Lucrehulk. Likely completely unscratched too. I honestly didn’t think it’d be this lopsided. Turns out, having long-ranged and effective missiles and coming from a universe used to effective point defense really tips the balance in favor of the Havenite Q-ship. Maybe the Star Wars universe could stand to learn a thing or two from Honorverse. At the very least, it’d mean fewer Death Stars getting blown up by farm boys in X-wings.