[vundercind]

In the original trilogy, we don’t see a Rebel fleet until Empire (only at the very end), and it’s mostly light gunships (apparently) but it’s got a lot of fighters flying around, and they must be servicing those and housing the pilots somewhere.

We don’t see the rebel fleet in action until Jedi, and it does seem to be carrier-heavy.

As for the independently-operating fighters: they have to land somewhere, the pilots can’t just live in them and they need to fuel, receive maintenance, and re-arm. That’s either planetary (or equivalent) bases, or carriers, much like pacific WWII air operations were a mix of island airstrips and carriers (lots, and lots, of carriers).

That’s all for the original trilogy. What we have in addition, however, is a limited look at the inter-trilogy insurgencies and nascent rebel alliance, in a variety of movies and TV shows (e.g. Rebels). Those do seem fairly heavy on carriers, from what we get to see, plus light gunships.

[sdrothrock]

I agree with the bases -- we do see that multiple times, but we don't really see as much scrambling from carriers in the same way that we see them scrambling from planetary/lunar bases, which is what makes me hesitate about characterizing this as a fast carrier DOCTRINE.

I definitely remember gunships and troop transports, but my memory is just failing me when I try to think of carriers. I guess this is left over in the legends canon now, but much of the rebellion's fleet having been repurposed from civilian transports/cruise liners also serves as a good explanation as to why they wouldn't have many carriers as well.

[vundercind]

The big Mon Calamari cruisers, the closest thing we see them field to ships the size of Star Destroyers, and plainly the backbone of the fleet they deploy in Jedi, seem (though our evidence is limited) to have a lot more space dedicated to hangar bays than the Destroyers do, and not to have the kind of firepower needed to stand up to Star Destroyers in a straight fight—I think casting them as something akin to gun-armed fleet carriers of WWII, like the Royal Navy’s Illustrious Class, isn’t too wild an idea.

[edit] though, I do think that line of argument’s a bit weak. I could see going either way on the question of whether the Mon Cals slot better into the “fast carrier” paradigm or are better regarded as filling the role of heavy cruisers or battlecruisers. Not a lot of Star Wars ship designs slot quite so clearly into a fast carrier designation as the Republic’s primary Clone Wars warships.

[XorNot]

You could infer we're seeing the results of the Rebels being funded for insurgency operations by their benefactors. Without large carrier ships, while relatively expensive hyperdrives on fighters might not be cost-effective, they'd also be the only survivable assets the Rebellion could field. A squad of X-wings is perfect for a hit and run strike mission because it can actually pull off the mission. You could've supplied the Rebels with ten times as many Tie fighters and they'd be completely unable to use them since they wouldn't have large carriers able to move them around (also whether or not they're shielded is AFAIK one of those "not really explained" things in the movies - we never really clearly see much of a survivability difference between a Tie and X-Wing once someone has a lock, other then X-wings usually have heroes in them).

[TheCoelacanth]

They also may have even more of a shortage of trained pilots than of fighters since they were willing to give a fighter to a random farm boy who happened to show up for a battle.

While the Empire can afford to throw away pilots, the Rebels need to give their pilots every chance to escape from a failed battle.

[sillywalk]

> a random farm boy who happened to show up for a battle.

To be fair Luke did "bullseye womprats in his T16", and his friend and rebel pilot Biggs could've vouched for him.

[science4sail]

> they were willing to give a fighter to a random farm boy who happened to show up for a battle.

My impression was that Luke's X-Wing was his reward for saving Leia - in the same scene we see Han leave the Rebels while carrying a sizeable amount of money.

[sdrothrock]

Very well stated! I completely agree with this and this is why I feel like the rebels don't actually have a carrier doctrine as proposed by the article.