This class originally needed 605,745 individuals to crew each vessel, which caused problems prior to the Empire's initial victory over the New Republic during the Blitzkrieg as there were simply not enough personnel on hand to crew the ship. By the Yuuzhan Vong War, the ship underwent a refitting and was upgraded with more advanced weaponry by the Royal Navy. It was also equipped with an axial superlaser designed to devastate a world, penetrating even the strongest planetary shields and capable of destroying most ships instantly. The Sovereign boasted 500 heavy turbolaser cannons, 500 turbolaser batteries, 75 ion cannons, 100 tractor beam projectors, and 5 gravity well projectors. In terms of scale, the Sovereign was meant to be a successor to the previous Super Star Destroyer designs. The mere presence of the vessel in many cases was enough to get enemy forces to surrender. However, it was still far larger than most other warships that it encountered and served as a symbol of the Emperor's power. The new class was smaller, possessed a slower hyperdrive, and had less crew. The Sovereign was a smaller cousin of the Eclipse-class Star Dreadnought, which had been destroyed during Operation Shadow Hand.