Imperial-built ship firing orientation

[Cdodders]

I have noticed that a lot of Imperial built ships (stand down ISD and ISD2) broadside their targets, even though their design calls for head-on. The wedge shape was to allow for most if not all broadside weapons to fire forward, making head-on the preference for attacks ie maximum firepower coupled with small cross section. Venator, Vindicator/Enforcer, Victory have been observed doing this, plus a few others

[Corey]

This is actually a common misconception, although it gets brought up enough we'll probably just change it for everything anyways. We already gave in for the ISD.

Like with several other Star Destroyer classes, the designers did not take advantage of their wedge shape to give the heavy cannons the ability to focus on targets in the forward firing arc that were level with the ship.[4][25] This could have been accomplished either by superelevating the aft turrets, or merely by spacing the turrets apart over a longer distance of the ship's length.

So, basically, the shape didn't allow it. Completely changing the orientation of the ship allowed for most of it, which would also be true of most other ships.

This is especially true of Venators and VSDs.

[Brutoni]

So, basically, the shape didn't allow it. Completely changing the orientation of the ship allowed for most of it, which would also be true of most other ships.

This is especially true of Venators and VSDs.

Well... unless you simply orientated the imperial fleet so that the engagement was off axis in the Z plane. For the Imperials obviously they need to remember "The enemy gate is up!"

[tlmiller]

Sadly that is how Imperial ships were designed.  Their main batteries (those flanking the command tower) were at the same Z-axis level, so would absolutely NOT be able to fire full forward at the same time, but could all aim straight up at the same time without issues.

[Corey]

Enough people have (erroneously) complained about it that we're changing it.