As a whole, did Imperial fighter design made sense ?

The whole doctrine of swarms of cheap fighters, did it made sense for the Empire overall ? Was it, I mean, a logical decision ?

For instance, you can make a case about shields not being that necessary on fighter craft. After all, in virtually all sources, a military grade heavy weapon will kill in one shot a X-Wing. Fighter craft weapon also tend to punch through shields fairly easily, as shown in the very first fighter vs fighter scene in the movies...

 

make sense? no...

Pilots are a resource, if you don't garuntee maximum survivability, the learning curve becomes a learning cliff.

 

I think so.

The Empire just came out of the Clone Wars and needed essentially to picket and patrol a VAST territory on the cheap.

Also, TIE FIGHTER showed that TIE fighters are actually decent fighter craft.

They eat Z-95 headhunters for breakfast, which were the most common starfighter of the Clone Wars and post-Clone Wars era.

 

In fact, against starfighters the TIE fighter weapons pack decent killing power (except maybe against the B-Wings) : in a lot of fiction, including X-Wing comics, an Interceptor can kinda one shot an heavily shielded Y-Wing.

This said, it's worth wondering if the average TIE pilot see that much action against military grade rebel starfighters. A lot of battles in the EU against TIE involve them attacking freighters, small capital ships...against which they are kinda powerless.

 

It does, if you are capable of ignoring the bantha-poodo the pro-rebellion/hurray-RogueSquadron-biased EU throws at us.

Based on the movies fighters are no threat to capital ships. And if they cause damage, it is because by accident/luck (Anakin destroying the Droid-control-ship from WITHIN) or from outside support by capital ships (Executor) or the Force (Luke vs DeathStar). Note, that in two out of those three cases it is not the average GFFA-Antilles or even a top-rate pilot, but the main protagonist supported by mystical powers, who scores the deciding kill. Aside from that the fighters from both fractions appear to be more or less even-matched.

And as far as survivability is concerned, at least the TIE-jockeys are wearing fully-sealed spacesuits.

 

You must have been watching a diffrent set of Star Wars movies. The fact alone that the Rebel fighters moving to keep TIE fighters off their cruisers at Endor points at them being a threat to them, as do the many instances when fighters blow whole pieces out of big vessels.

Though they don?t usually get ejection systems with their fighters and have to wear the suits for a diffrent reason

TIE fighters are pretty useful for what the Empire wanted them as. Easily and cheaply mass produced, easy to maintain, having enough firepower and speed/ maneuverability to take down aliens, pirates and smugglers the Empire was fighting. It is also clearly identifiable as Imperial vessels and pretty scary looking and sounding.

 

About survivability, I remember to read that a lot of pilots, on both sides, kinda prefer to die in a fiery fireball instead of frozing to death in outer space.

This said, it's quite true that an integrated spacesuit make a lot, lot, lot more sense than the open helmet of X-Wing pilots. I think that flight visor is supposed to be sealable, but the thing look so flimsy....

 

Well someone had rebellion envy!

Since the force dose non discriminate, I am pretty sure a few force sensative tie fighter pilots went up in puffs of smoke.

Maybe if they had better planes, they could have lived long enough to lern to use their mystical senses.

you ride in an The X-wing...you get the ladies and you live long enough to enjoy em!

Bow-chiky-wow-wow!

 

And I remember a certain A-Wing taking out a Super Star Destroyer.

 

The A-Wing just took out the bridge. Faulty damage control procedures prevented people to take control of the Executor from the secondary bridge.

 

I am going to say no overall. Even if it made tactical sense, it was a strategic mistake. One, the more durable Rebel fighters allowed rebel pilots to build up experience.

And two, the fact that the rebel fighters had hyperdrives allowed them to carry on hit and run raids without the empire really being able to respond effectively: Imperial warships were not available to protect every convoy and base. Additionally, TCW reveals that smallers ships can navigate through parts of hyperspace that larger ships can't, meaning Rebel fighters could escape through routes the imps simply couldn't follow through.

 

I'd also like to point out that the USA actually went with the "cheap but usable" doctrine during WW2 with tanks. German tanks were superior in most respects but the USA had a "quantity is its own quality" feel.

Of course, according to the WEG RPG, which is still canon as far as I can tell - the X-wing is a fairly new design circa ANH. The Rebellion stole the plans along with the design team from INCOM and mass produced them.

The design originally had been meant for the Empire.

It's only about 2 and a half years until the Empire starts introducing the TIE Interceptor and later TIE advanced.

In terms of military development, that's actually pretty good.

 

Thats diffrent, as the American knew where the Germans generaly were, and the panzers weren't capable of FTL travel.

And while yes the TIE interceptor and the Tie Advance were good adjustments, the X-wing was not developed in a vacume (You know what I mean). an FTL fighter craft with high survivablility would have added alot of flexibility to the imperial fleet.

But Imperial docterine dose not seem to embrace adaptablity, and more brute force.

 

It's fiction, it makes exactly as much sense as anyone wants it to.

There is no testing ground for any ships in Star Wars, they are exactly as effective as any writer wants them to be at any time.

 

1) When the Sherman first came out it was far and away superior to German Panzer 3s and 4s that were the bulk of the German army. The infamous Tigers and Panthers did not appear until later (though not much later) and were never that common.

Plus, German tanks had a tendency to just break down whereas Shermans (and T-34s) could be working again as soon as you patched up the holes and washed out what was left of the old crew.

2) I think a better comparison would be between Japanese and American planes. In this case the Z-95 would be the P-40, the TIE fighter would be the Zero (early model), the TIE interceptor would be the late model zero, the X-Wing would be the Hellcat and the TIE Advanced can be the Shiden Kai.
The light and maneuverable design philosophy works well with the first generation of well trained and experienced pilots who can use them to their advantages to the fullest, but as combat loses mount and the other side develops better tactics that advantage fades. Then comes along something only slightly slower and less agile while still being much tougher and the tide completely turns.

You are right that those are good development times, still the Empire might have done better had TIE Defenders, or even Assault Gunboats, received even half the budget that got spent on super weapons.

 

And here you have it. No matter what sensible people might have had to say about more survivable and capable fighter craft, the military was ultimately run by two Sith Lords who were playing an entirely different game.

Best-case scenario, TIE Fighters could have been used to garrison and police the peaceable sections of the Empire, with sizeable forces of Avengers, Defenders, and Gunboats/Missileboats handling front-line combat.

In regards to fighter vs. capital ships: I don't see why the effectiveness of fighters is greeted with such rage from some quarters. In the real world, fightercraft dominate (theoretical) naval warfare to the point where we don't even put anti-ship guns on most surface ships anymore. While shields would, of course, change the game a bit, their usefulness would be paralleled by the destructive power of proton torpedoes and the like.

 

You just answered your own question. If it's supposed to be a parallel to the dominance of real world fightercraft, then there shouldn't be any "battleships" in Star Wars. I'd prefer to weaken starfighters, but since that's not going to happen they should just ditch battleships in favor of carriers.

 

I think TheRedBlade has a good point about the Empire's leaders playing there own kind of ballgame. The Empire relied a lot on fear and swarms and swarms of TIEs bearing down on you would certainly be demoralizing.

 

Why does Star Wars have to be a direct parallel of any particular historical naval arrangement? Why can't fighters and battleships both have sufficient advantages and disadvantages that both types are used, and carrier functionality is in fact incorporated into the majority of battleships?

 

In the films, the fighters were pretty evenly matched. In the EU, TIE pilots had ejection couches just like the New Republic pilots.

The difference in the EU is the shielding, but TIEs are smaller, more maneuverable, and they fire faster.

 

Only in modified models the basic TIE does not.

 

But you forgot the Mon Calamari-Admiral, who ordered his entire fleet to concentrate their fire on that super star destroyer just moments before.

 

Actually I wanted to explain, where this stupid idea of fighters being a threat to ships a hundred or thousand times their mass originated. According to the ISB and SWSB, while almost everybody in the Imperial Navy had some piloting-skills only the top ten percent made it into the starfighter-corps and saw active duty only after extensive training. But of course peasant-boys, political activists and the son of fuel-station owners are naturally superior, because of the purity of their hearts and the rightousness of their cause.

Only if you are a member of Rogue- or Wraith-squadron.

 

Yes the very once, which among them also include Imperial build frigates and modified commercials liners that can actually stand up to ImpStars.

Properly in real life, seeing how fighter combat in SW was heavily inspired by the Second World War. Though you could get into much worse things that are ?stupid? in Star Wars, rather then heroic fighter combat.

Which would actually point at the Rebel fighters giving them a certain advantage , especially when using ranged missile weapons, along with the popular rebel hit and run tactics. On a side note the Empire also started to accept the danger posed by Rebel fighter attacks and tried to counter with Lancer frigates, escort carriers and new TIE models. And per the Second Han Solo novel even Baron Fel felt that the Empire underestimated fringe hotshot pilots, especially the skill of smugglers.

Or Nova, Gauntlet, Defender etc. though funny enough the Wraiths also use TIEs to great effect and point out their advantaged and disadvantages, as does Corran when he flies a redesigned pirate TIE fighter. Also the Wraiths and Rogues for the most parts we see them actually battle a post Endor Empire and on more then one occasion point out dropping Imperial pilot quality (battling locally trained pilots with no space experience for example), aside from the forces used by Thrawn, who cloned Baron Fel. This loss of quality was properly do to most able pilots starting to die in the Warlord battles and they had to replace them with what they could get, similar to how the Warlords started sticking army troopers in storm trooper armor.

"Funny enough" during the Battle of Breental when they do face Imperial Elites they are very, very scared by their reputation alone.

Though funny enough they only lose their main deflector shield after fighters are already making close range attack runs that blow out the shield generators and sensor domes .