While the Sith after Darth Bane stressed stealth and screcy, the ancient Sith challenged the Old Republic in a war that carried the Sith armada to Coruscant itself. This armada consisted primarily of troopships and the Sith battleship, a massive, heavily armored strike cruiser built to withstand the best the Republic could throw at it. Though the Sith were ultimately defeated and only one battleship escaped (eventually resurfacing on Yavin 4), for a short time Sith battleships were the most fearsome power in the galaxy.
Though fairly small, slow, and ungainly by modern galactic standards, the Sith battleship was capable of inflicting heavy damage from its two rows of balster cannons and its close-range concussion missile launchers. The heavy armor plating on the battleship's hull also meant that the Old Republic fleet had to bring to bear the guns of at least a half-dozen of their own ships against a battleship to bring it down. Even then, the Sith could expect to cripple or destroy at least one of their enemy's ships.
The Sith Empire turned out about one hundred battleships prior to the invasion of the Republic. All were destroyed before the end of the war, except for the Sith flagship under the command of Sith Lord Naga Sadow. Sadow sacrificed his fleet to escape the Republic's counterattack. His ship lay hidden beneath a massive temple on Yavin 4 for a thousand years. Former Jedi Exar Kun, having turned to the dark side, arrived to take possession of Sadow's long-forgotten refuge. Exar Kun eventually used Sadow's flagship to escape Yavin 4 and wage war on the Jedi Order.
