The Lancer frigate is a capital combat starship built for one purpose: to fight Rebel starfighters. The destruction of the Death Star by a few X-Wings and Y-Wings showed the Empire just how vulnerable it was. Shortly after its cataclysmic defeat at Yavin, the Empire commissioned the building of the Lancer frigate. Imperial strategists feared many attacks by Rebel starfighters, although not all that many occurred. But during those that did, the Lancer proved it was a worthy adversary for the X-Wings and other fighters.
Lancers are 250-metres long and are armed with twenty Corellian AG-2G quad laser cannons. These have been calibrated to deal with fast-moving fighters, and are mounted on elevated towers. The towers allow the cannons a greater field of fire which, when combined with an advanced tracking and targeting system, can prove deadly to Alliance fighters. The lasers are divided into banks, each of which feeds off a single power generator. To keep the Lancer’s weapons working to their optimum levels, backup gunners have to ensure that the power levels are balanced.
All these weapons are good against starfighters, but are useless against capital ships. The frigates have to rely on the Destroyers and other ships for support in large combat engagements. But Lancers are not as good as they make out to be. Rebels have often found that if they have even a small lead over the frigates, they can outrun them and hyper to a safer system. This is because Lancers have a low sublight speed, which is not aided by poor hull and armour plating. This means that the frigates cannot take too much damage from capital starships, and so they are normally targeted just for fun by Rebel cruisers.
One of the main reasons that Lancers do not play as prominent a role in the Imperial Navy as perhaps they should, is that they cost as much as any other heavy combat cruiser. In the end the Empire used the frigates for attacks against Rebel starbases, although these were rare as the Empire could not usually keep track of the Rebels. Lancers were not in plentiful supply when they first appeared, and not every convoy benefited from their protection.
When in major assaults, the frigates are put to good use with their larger counterparts. Star Destroyers and Dreadnaughts have few weapons that can deal with small fighters, so the Lancers are called in. All the starships pour a withering rain of fire on the hapless Rebels; the Destroyers taking out the main base and other capital ships, the Lancers targeting the X-Wings and other fighters. This method is very effective, although Thrawn devised another method which proved devastating.
Thrawn saw the usefulness of the Lancers, and made them an integral part of his Navy. The frigates were used to rip apart New Republic fighter squadrons, and then they started to take out the main bases’ weapons and systems. The main capital ships would then arrive and finish the job.