ISD/VSD Question

[Ra]

Non-canon speculation. I know what's canon about the ISD, but I wanna pose a question.

Alright, we know that, supposedly, the Imperator-class Star Destroyer can't land planetside. She's too damn big, and has to use dropships to land the pheared Stormies and AT-AT's.

Yet ROTS got me to thinking. A Venator-class Star Destroyer, which is about five hundred meters shorter (Ven: 1137 m, Imp: 1600), is more than capable of atmospheric flight and surface landing, which is more than even the contemporary Victory Flight-II can boast (only the Flight-I can fly in-atmosphere, IIRC).

So, could it be possible for the ISD to theoretically land planetside? Would the ship be able to do this at all, or would she have to require modification to include repulsorlifts?

And ESB comes to mind. How did General Veers get his army down there? By a colossal (and unseen) dropship class? What are your thoughts on all of this?
- Ra

[Robert Walper]

Well, I go solely by the movies for Star Wars, canon policy debates and assertions ignored. Which means (for me) given the technology displayed in AOTC and ROTS, chances are ISDs can in fact land like their predecessors, and this is the primary means by which they deploy large scale ground forces.

[Ra]

Yep, that's generally what I was thinking as well. The massive size of the AT-AT would basically dictate that, as well as the fact that the ISD allegedly carries a prefab military base aboard.
- Ra

[Cynical Cat]

The canon explanation is that they carry massive landing barges to deploy forces to the surface. Considering that the much larger Tantive IV fits into the docking bay, it works.

[The Cleric]

They would require modification. I'd think that the engines could do it, but you'd be backing it into the planet, cooking whereever you're trying to land. Remember, the Lusankya took off from the planet with the help of the repulsor bed. And remember what they said about the engines doing to the planet in that book?

[Lord Pounder]

IIRC there was a comment in one of the late NJO books about the EV needing to stay in orbit because the planet would find an ISD offensive. This certainly suggested to me that an Imp Star can at least enter atmosphere, if not land.

[Ra]

Awesome. Then, even if it couldn't land, per se, an ISD could at least make a very low-altitude pass to deploy troops and such. The Imps might also have special berths to land their destroyers, similar to the one that held a Venator in ROTS.

Such a structure could have anti-grav bracing for the ship, like the ones that allowed a TradeFed core ship to land, too. I'm bringing that up because such a large vessel might not be able to support its own weight while landed. Just an idea I thought about.
- Ra