Are TIE Fighters REALLY that bad? (Fleet Junkies welcomed)

C19: While the Empire had produced such fighters during its apex, the idea is that it wouldn't really have needed them until it started shrinking and could have benefitted by Rebel tactics. Unfortunately, by then--as you point out--the Empire had far less ability to even use such fighters.

Agreed, GAT, it could have definitely used those fighters more when it was shrinking but I tend to think that the TIE Fighters as they were, couldn't fulfill the function that was needed.

Here's my take on the matter.

At the start of the Empire, the Emperor required a vast number of cheap fighters that would allow him to rapidly expand the reach of the Empire and deal with the majority of planetary defenses (Z-95 headhunters, etc). TIE fighters are perfectly adept fighters for that respect, even if they're also machines that are not designed with pilot safety in mind. One mistake inside them and the abundance of well trained pilots the Empire had is lacking one more.

However, the Rebellion did something unexpected and started producing ridiculously high performance and advanced starfighter craft. The X-wing, A-Wing, and B-Wing are just plain BETTER than TIE/n and TIE Bomber craft in nearly all respects. They allowed Rebel pilots to develop dogfighting skills that actually exceeded that of TIEs because their fighters allowed them to make mistakes that TIEs couldn't make and compensate.

Combined with the fact that TIE Fighters are stationary targets that must stick close to their platforms, the number of TIEs shot down versus rebel craft is ridiculous. Furthermore, its clear that Starfighter vs. Capital Ship combat was an area whose time had come. B-wings proved that starfighters could prove just as effective against larger targets as old fashioned turbolaser emplaced battleships.

Thus, the era of the TIE fighter as a defensive screen for capital ships came to an end to be replaced by capital ships serving more as carriers.

 

The differences between Rebel starfighters and Imperial starfighters does have a real world example. Several, IIRC.

For example, during the Second World War, United States Navy pilots flew the F4F Grummant Wildcat. A reliable, tough, and overall average fighter. Facing off against the Wildcats were the formidable Mitsubishi A6M Zero of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Japanese planes were faster, more manuverable, and one of the best fighters in the world in 1941, albeit lightly armored. In the end, it was the skill and determination of the US pilots, as well as invovate tactics like the Thatch Weave that gave the Navy a chance against these fighters.

As for the debate between the X-wing and TIE Fighter, just like with all other fighter aircraft, it greatly depends on the skills of the pilot. Rookie X-wing pilots are no match for a skilled TIE jocky, while a green TIE pilot fresh out of the Academy would be mere target practice for a veteran Rebel X-wing.

I would, however, say that with both pilots being roughly equal, a X-wing starfighter has a better chance of killing a standard TIE Fighter. However, when up against the faster and more heavily armed TIE Interceptor, the match is deadly even. One slight mistep on the part of either pilot could mean certain death for the other.

--Adm. Nick

 

Star Wars Infinities, while being published on behalf of Lucasfilms, is not legitimate, and non-canonical. Its "what-if", pretend stories, not part of the official continuity. And, Considering I was arguing against those that were poopoo'ing the use of technical specifications found in some of the video games that are backed up elsewhere, I am actually a little surprised that you think I was arguing the opposite. How can I be appealling to authority, when I have posted all my sources for everyone to freely check? You claim its replacing logic, yet, considering the information comes from Lucasfilm itself, I find it illogical that you are arguing against it. All evidence does NOT need to be equally weighted and compared, thats why it is the policy of both Lucasfilm and TheForce.Net that there exist varying degrees of canon. Some material is given more weight than others. That's not my rule, that's the official company policy of those that created Star Wars, and this website where we discuss that creation.

So, to sum up, no, not all sources are official, as even material published by Star Wars can be published without being officially part of continuity, and even the material that does count doesn't all count the same. The films trump the novelisations trump the novels trump the video games. Their order of importance, not mine.

 

No, their order is George Lucas's stuff trumps stuff made by other licensees, which trumps a few old sources that weren't closely watched for continuity back in the day, which trump Infinities and directly and incontrovertibly contradicted material. Games, novels, parts of novelizations not specifically created by Lucas, comics, and so on are all on the same level, and contradictions are ironed out on a case-by-case basis.

 

Also, The Battle of Yavin doesn't really give us nearly the information that people would think it would. For example, the Death Star's pilots are the elite in the Empire and above even them are Darth Vader's personal TIE pilots whom joined the fray. Frankly, in that condition, the X-wing MIGHT have made the difference.

 

The main thing I find ridiculous about comments of fighters going "0.3c" is simple: It would be utterly impossible for any human being to react effectively at those speeds. Unless these ships are virtually flying themselves (which isn't supported by the evidence) the only time any craft should even approach those speeds outside of hyperspace is if they're simply trying to get from point A to point B in a straight line with no known obstacles in the way.

In other words, they'd have to slow down to actually fight, otherwise they're constantly going to be overshooting the mark, as by the time the nerve impulse has travelled from his brain to his arm/hand to move the stick in any particular direction, he (or she) has gone thousands of kilometers further than he or she wanted to go.

So basically even though we already know Star Wars doesn't follow the laws of physics particularly well (and yes, that cuts towards both sides of this argument), if we assume that it does, then the speed of starfighters is limited not only by the "terminal velocity" in which dust particles become deadly, but also by speeds in which the pilot is actually capable of effectively controlling their craft and reacting to the changing circumstances of the battle around them in a timely manner.

 

Personally, I'd agree - and IIRC, the Corellian trilogy implies relatively slow sublight speeds - but a number of canon references are explicit about fighters reaching far faster speeds: I think that speeds of ~0.8-0.9 c are mentioned in the NJO.

However, in Shield of Lies, it takes a considerable length of time to accelerate a TIE up to this sort of speed, so I think that's the key. Also, as you said, slow-moving targets are simply too slow for speeding ones.

Thirdly, reaching this speed MUST involves some sort of gravity/spacetime manipulation tech (at least to guard against acceleration): this may not work well deep inside a planetary gravity-well, the scene of most space combat.

This may also explain the slow Corellian Trilogy speeds - the interdiction field may affect sublight drives too.

The only situations where this will be useful will be straight-line pursuit and flying relatively rapid patrols through entire star systems. Combat in these situations is possible (it happens in Destiny's Way), but it's not exactly going to be something that happens often.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I think they've said "approaching lightspeed" and "a significant fraction of lightspeed". "Significant fraction" could just as easily be one-third; it's still a significant fraction. "Approaching" does contain a much stronger implication, though approaching relative to what? Is half lightspeed "approaching" it relative to regular, low-speed conditions?

 

Remember, 35000 km/s is 1 billion km in 8 hours, going only .1 c something that isn't going to involve a tremendous amount of wacky physics to achieve and is reasonable for intrasystem travel for sublight between habitable planets.

 

Empire: Darklighter, Biggs gets admonished by his instructors for not letting his TIE autopilot. I can't recall if they mentioned the extent of this function, or if it's mentioned anywhere else, but it may help make use of the insane acceleration of a TIE (which would make more sense than simply being there to keep a pilot in formation).

 

I'm not sure whether people said anything about ships actually dogfighting at those speeds. The underlying point is assuming they could reach such speeds it means during combat the engine is not struggling to maintain optimum combat speed. If, in reality, during combat the TIE Fighter is only going at 50%, maybe even 10%, of it's absolute maximum speed the engine will have no problems slowing down and speeding up, juking and diving, etc.

If, on the other hand, you take it as combat occuring at 110 MGLT, treating this as the absolute maximum speed a TIE Fighter can go at, the advantage gained through increased acceleration is obviously reduced, because clearly it won't be changing speed as much. But if the optimum combat speed is only a fraction of a TIE Fighter's maximum speed it gives that much more room to play with during combat.

Basically, if an enemy is on your tail, you just throw the engine up to full and accelerate away for a few seconds. Obviously if you were already gunning it at max speed you couldn't do that.

Whether the max speed is 110 MGLT and this is faster than the games portray or whether 110 MGLT is optimum combat speed and max speed is actually much higher than this is, in the end, basically just a technicality compared to the ultimate principle of what we're talking about, i.e. that TIEs aren't utilising all their speed during combat and have excellent acceleration, which ultimately translates into good agility and manoeuvrability.

 

C19: Sure, but the problem is that you can't put advanced TIEs on every world. Never mind the expense, it's just impractical. And they'd get stolen.


I don't think you need something as ridiculously High Performance as a TIE Avenger x1, something only an ace pilot would be able to perform, on a planet like Garos IV. That's just a waste of credits and superior flying ability when the only thing they'll ever need to do is bomb the occasional civilian. That's not even bringing in the almost obscenely powerful TIE Defenders (which I suspect is almost as expensive as a Corvette by itself)

However, you could definitely use Thrawn's modified TIE Interceptors as the Starfighter of choice. TIEs with Shields and the capacity to carry a small payload of bombs would overall serve the Empire much better. I think that if I were in charge of the Empire then I'd follow this fleet doctrine.

Starfighter Mainstay: TIE Interceptors with Shields
Bombers: Assault Gunboats
Ace's Ship: TIE Avengers
Anti-Capital Ship Fighters: TIE Defenders

 

The deep-space skirmish early in Destiny's Way has the Falcon and some coralskippers closing ground, within the gravity well of a dovin basal mine, at a combined velocity of more than 0.9 c, with about three minutes' acceleration from a standing start.

That implies acceleration up to ~0.45 c (~150,000 km/s) in three minutes as standard for fighters.

And, while there's not much manoeuvring beyond a game of chicken, they are dogfighting, with quad lasers and stutterfire as well as concussion missiles.

At that speed, they're covering the distance from the Earth to the Moon in less than 2.5 seconds, indicating effective ranges for starfighter weapons that are slightly longer than that, and accurate sensor readings on small fighters at much greater ranges.

Later, Jag's wing of Clawcraft and E-wings come up on the battle, presumably moving faster than the combatants.

The same passage also claims that quad lasers fire at lightspeed.

Any way we can "dial down" the local value of lightspeed massively, blaming the dovin basal?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

If you could cover the distance from the Earth to the moon in 2.5 seconds, how in the world could you ever hit a small starfighter? The margin for correcting even the slightest course change would put your enemy thousands of miles away. Any loss of contact with your target would result in them being so far away you could never see them. The idea that starfighters could dogfight at speeds like that seems highly illogical to me. Human reaction times just wouldn't allow for it. Not to mention, because of the G-forces involved, compensators would have to be absolutely incredible. The physics not withstanding, the idea that a small starfighter could engage in a dogfight at speeds like that is simply unbelievable.

 

Though unlike their Star Wars equivalents, the Zero's lighter airframe actually affords it greater range....a category in which it could still do better than the Allied planes even to towards the end of the war

Yeah that's pretty much what I said earlier. A swarm of cheap, maneuverable V-wings (or moving foward by a era, TIE Interceptors) with some light shielding added would generally be better at destroying your opponent's fighters and allow your bombers through to hit their capital vessels.

 

Of course, it's illogical to dogfight at space speeds. It's also illogical to not have space speeds in space.

It's why it's a fantasy.

You just need to assume there's some kind of weird Wizardry at work in the Technology.

 

In my very crude understanding of relativity I gather time "slows down", or at least "appears to pass more slowly" the faster you go, to the extent that at lightspeed time, theoretically at least, is said to effectively be static.

What's the relationship for that like? I figure it's not going to be a nice linear one that says at 0.5c time travels at "half speed" but would the effects on starfighters "approaching lightspeed" be significant enough to, in a quasi-pseudo-scientific Star Wars way, account for the ability to react at such speeds? i.e. such that the pilot didn't notice he was blasting around like mad?

I've no idea exactly how it all works though, beyond that at lightspeed things basically stay still. At least, I remember a cartoon in a physics book at school where a guy went off on a journey around the galaxy at lightspeed, came back, had hardly aged, but millions of years had passed.

 

Pretty much what would realisticall happen as far as time is concerned, and that's not even getting into questions of mass.

OTOH, it takes a while for relativistic effects to kick in to anything close to that level.

Again, I find myself flagging up BSG as the best example of current SF because it utterly ignores the convention. It needs to go FTL so it does, and it doesn't stop to think too hard about it.

I understand that for the RPG people and for the more scientifically minded people finding answer can respectively be needed to 1) play the game, and, 2) legitimize the saga for themselves and can be fun as well as educational.

However...it ain't hard science fiction. You have to allow for the swashbuckling Buck Rogers of it all to take care of somethings, and while the RPG people need stats, they need to understand that those aren't really represenative of reality either.

 

The old HNN site has an article that deals with relativity theory - basically, it mentions somesort of hand-waving "relativistic shielding" (that in the context of the story breaks down, and has someone ending up 100 years in his own future for what was a routine short trip from his perspective). Presumably all SW space-going vessels have some sort of similar "shielding" as a standard part of the hyperdrive/sublight engine.
Not that I mind the hand-waving - sometimes in space opera you need to be able to just sidestep inconvienent science to tell a story.