Full Series X-wings

Hey all!

I was thinking about the x-wing family. You know, the a's, b's, y's… Anyway my thought was that they are really important to the rebellion and a huge part of the OT.

Now there probably is a story there, question is, how would you like it to play out? I mean how do the rebels get ahold of all of them, who manufactors these?

Also, any thoughts on those republic fighters from RotS? Obviously a precursor to the X-wing?

 

I don't care, I just want to see some X-wings, and bonus points if we see Wedge.

 

Incom corp.

They developed the ARC-170 used by the Republic in the Clone Wars era. You'll have seen that one in TCW and RoTS:



They developed the T-65 X-Wing starfighter shortly before 1BBY, but right about then the Empire forcibly nationalized the company, and the strongly independent company rebelled and aligned itself with the Rebel Alliance.

This is from the pre-Disney EU of course, but given how Sienar and KDY have been pulled across practically verbatim, I pretty much expect the same will happen with Incom.

 

With luck you'll meet Wedge LONG before they learn about the X-Wings design and production team...

 

Depending on how long the show runs, and how big they make it there is a fair chance we may see some x-wings towards the end of the series I would guess.

 

I'd much rather see Biggs. We barely know anyhing about him, so it would be nice to let him have some time to shine. And Wedge is lame. What's cooler than 'Darklighter'. XD

 

It would great to see the X wings in Rebels, they belong there way more then they belong in the Disney movies. I wouldnt want to see Wedge though. It would better to see Red One, the guy who asked Luke if he was sure he could fly. Id like to see Porkins too, he is fat and his name is Porkins. Wedge felt like he was a rookie in ANH so I dont see him being in the squad during Rebels, but the Red One guy seemed like a seasoned vet.

 

I would have liked to have seen them within the Empire.

Tarkin has the Empire still flying ARC-170s and V-wings 5 years after ROTS. Tarkin himself flies a V-wing at one point and says that it could have been worse had he gotten stuck in one of the new TIE Fighters, implying the TIE Fighters suck but are being produced because they are cheaper and so a lot more can be produced. The V-wing and Eta-2 both seem ancestral to the TIE Fighter. While the ARC-170 and Z-95s are ancestral to the X-wing.

I believe in the EU that Incom produces X-wings for the Empire, but jumps ship when the Empire begins to nationalize industries (I thought that was how it was presented in Empire at War).

I would have liked to have seen some element of that retained in canon. Just as Maketh Tua unveiled that TIE Advanced as a new ship for the Empire as a step up from the TIE (which itself was a step down from earlier ships). I'd like it if we hear that Incom is producing X-wings for the Empire (I'd actually think it neat to see the X-wing unveiled in black colors as an Imperial fighter). Only for the Rebels to become interested in the ships, with Bail convincing Incom to jump sides, or something to that effect.

As for the Y-wings. That was Clone Wars era technology. Who knows where the Rebels got them from. In Tarkin, the Imperials round up and destroy Separatist technology, with some of it still falling into the hands of dissidents. The Rebels could thus have stolen old, decommissioned Y-wings, or bought them from scavengers off the black market. Since the Rebellion is centered largely in the Outer Rim, I think the latter might be plausible, that the Rebels have criminal contacts (e.g. Hondo) who acquires and sells military hardware to the Rebels, explaining why a bunch of old Republic Y-wings from the core would end up in the hands of dissidents in the rim. Or they could have been military hardware given by the Republic to anti-Separatist rebel cells during The Clone Wars.

 

I'd love this to happen. It would be a new twist on an old concept and it would show how much the galaxy has changed by the time ANH begins.

 

I have a feeling we won't start seeing x-wings until later seasons. Seeing though that the show takes place 15 years after ROTS, I don't think we'll see the empire using too much republic technology. The rebels though, may have some republic and CIS vessels. A few certain senators may have made some discomissioned star fighters "disappear" before being scrapped. Then there's always the classics like the Z-95 headhunter, r-41 star chaser and cloak shape fighters as well.

 

Rebel fighters are heavily aged like they're recommission vessels or have been in years of service. The ARC-170 , Clone Y Wing, and Z95 Headhunters are superior to anything seen in the OT, it odd how they'd be considered obsolete as compared to the heavily incapable Tie Fighters that lack heavy firepower that can penetrate shields of enemy fighters and hull armor of larger vessels, armor, shields and life support along with hyperdrives. The Clone Wars era Republic vehicles are superior to anything the Empire fielded whereas the Rebel Alliance appears to field fighters more comparable to the Clone Wars era. Imperial vehicles come across as inferior copies of the CIS, Ties as basically Vulture Droids.

 

We, you have to get the ressources for the Death Star from somewhere. And cutting the budget in fighters when no invasion is imminent, is a good start. so, Tie Fighter, who needs a shield ?

 

If that was true then the neither the Republic or CIS wouldve been able to produce their near inexhaustible armies for the duration of the Clone Wars as the Death Star was under construction sometime after AOTC as it was partially completely by ROTS. The Empire would likely field work droids and slave labor for large projects to save on costs and droids do not get tired or have to be paid - and they often do not have to pay, bargain or trade for resources just steal and take until there is nothing left.

 

I'd bet that TIE Fighters were designed with offense as a bigger priority than defense. For example, maybe TIEs have stronger firepower than X-Wings but lack shielding.

 

Wait.... what ? There were finished plans but a Death star under construction ? wtf ?

 

If they needed to cut the budget that much, you wouldn't think the Empire would downgrade its fighters, yet upgrade the Star Destroyers from Venators and Victories to Imperial-class. Though it always bothered me that the latter two advertised their shield generators on high, exposed towers, while the Venators did not. It seemed like a step in the wrong direction...

Anyway, I don't know what the logic behind the TIE Fighters was. You could produce more of them. So I think the gut reaction would be to assume that because the Empire was growing, it needed more fighters to be able to protect more systems, and so favored cheaper, less efficient craft that could be produced in higher numbers. But the thing is, TIE Fighters don't have hyperdrives, and so to disperse them throughout the Empire requires reliance on larger, far more expensive ships to get them there. That doesn't seem like they'd be saving a whole lot of money in the long run.

But it could also just be something mundane and political. Like Sienar was the lowest bidder on a starfighter contract, and so the Empire drops its contract with Kuat Drive Yards and Incom, and instead allows Sienar to manufacture ships for a variety of roles as part of its TIE line. While Kuat Drive Yards possibly held onto its contract for Star Destroyers because nobody could outbid them for production of a ship that met the needs of the Empire. The kind of minutiae that would probably get explained in a novel, not a TV show.

 

TaradosGon

The concept of a lightly protected but fast and highly maneuverable fighter is not without precedent in our own history. The Imperial Japanese A6M is one that first comes to mind, though it wasn't really any cheaper to produce than other single-seat fighters. Despite its woeful lack of armor, it was still one of the best carrier-based aircraft during the opening years of World War II. In many ways, I think the A6M is a good analogy to the TIE. Both the A6M Zero and TIE/LN would eventually become outclassed in the face of better armed and protected enemy fighters (e.g. F6F Hellcat and X-Wing, respectively). In response to the X-Wing, the Imperial (Star Wars ) Navy developed the TIE Interceptor as a counter. Off the top of my head, I can't remember what Imperial Japan tried to replace the Zero with, but I know that they tried.

The Empire is a strange beast, and in many ways lacks logic in its choices regarding it's naval organization and vessels. In reality, one can't fully apply logic to the Imperial Navy, because it was mainly designed to look good on movie screens. The only way I can explain the structure of the Imperial Navy arsenal is to try and come up with a justification based on the state of the galaxy a couple years after the Clone Wars.

Once the Separatists were wiped out, the Empire had no real natural predators to be worried about. Imperial Military doctrine, and the hardware necessary to implement it, was redesigned to face internal threats. Implementing the New Order, intimidating the galaxy and quelling unrest among poorly armed citizens of the Empire became the #1 task for the military. The intimidation factor, at least in terms of fighters, was accomplished through sheer numbers. Your average Imperial citizen probably had no idea of the capabilities of a TIE Fighter, but a swarm of them certainly looks frightening when they scream over your capital city.

The Imperial I class Star Destroyer goes in the opposite direction for the intimidation factor. Instead of numbers, it relies on sheer size. It's a mile long, and more importantly, carries nearly all the tools that a despot might need to pacify a moderately-sized uprising. It carries several thousand troops, armored transports for a planetary assault, and the fighters needed to supply air support. You can dispatch a single ISD to the site of a small planetary revolt and, with a competent officer in charge, be reasonably assured that the situation will be taken care of--one way or another. It's also a standardized staple of the Navy, which greatly simplifies logistics and supply. Instead of having to stock the spare parts for 5-6 different classes of capital ships, your supply depot only has to stock parts for one or two types of capital ships.

Again, though, this is my attempt to justify the acquisitions of the Imperial Navy, which is often not logical when compared to our own world. There is a wide array of arguments as to why the ISD and the TIE make no sense.

 

Well, honestly there was no canonical evidence that TIE Fighters didn't have shield generators, at least none that I can recall in the films. There's dialogue that supports the notion that they don't have hyperdrives, when Obi-Wan points out that the TIE they stumble across is a short range fighter.

But in the films, a hit on a TIE seemed to cause them to explode just as easily as a hit on an X-wing. You never see a fighter in the films take a hit from another fighter and endure it due to their shields. The ONE instance I can think of is Obi-Wan's ship getting riddled with shots from the Slave I and still holding together. But in ROTJ, every fighter - on both sides - seemed to go down in a shot. The ARC-170s went down in a shot.

We know X-wings had shields, because Red Leader said so, but their effectiveness is not at all like it is in the video games where you see a ship get hit but several direct shots and surviving as their shields gradually collapse. Instead they may have mitigated energy from incoming shots, but some still seemed to bleed through and destroy ships that were hit in a vital area.

The EU seemed to run with the idea that TIEs are defenseless. They could have changed that when they de-canonized the EU, but now Tarkin has re-canonized the notion that they don't have shields. Granted, there's no dialogue to my recollection that says they don't have shields. Meanwhile X-wings are said to have shields, but they don't seem to survive getting shot any better.

 

It's kind of a pointless question, but did Tarkin or Fighter Flight come out first? Because Zeb references the TIE's lack of shields in it, too. The lack of a pressurized cockpit is definitely non-canon though, judging by the previews for Fire Across The Galaxy.

On topic, I really want to see Hera flying an X-Wing at some point.

 

Hera flying an X-Wing would be really cool. Maybe she could even lead a squadron of them into battle.

 

I actually think the TIE Fighter makes sense. The Empire had to provide security for zillions of worlds, and so it needed a cheap no-frills fighter that could be bought in large numbers for garrison duty. Using a smaller number of hyperspace-capable fighters to defend a much larger area probably wouldn't work since an enemy raiding force could probably have done all the damage they could do and escaped by the time your fighters show up. I think it's also worth noting that the Republic had a lot of "light and cheap" fighters as well. So the TIE Fighter fared badly against the Rebels' X-wings...I would chalk that up to the fact that the X-wings are usually flown by this core of elite pilots while the TIEs are probably flown by third-rate pilots who are stuck defending some backwater supply dump. And also, I believe the X-wing was a newer design, so a more fair comparison would have to be against the TIE Interceptor.

The Imperial-class Star Destroyer on the other hand, does not make sense. With the Separatists having been crushed, there's no reason to have to build giant capital ships, if anything that money should be diverted to frigates, corvettes, and light carriers which can go about doing the sort of missions that don't warrant sending a Star Destroyer (such as guarding backwater planets named Lothal).

 

I don't think a Star Destroyer is a huge ship in an EU way. Yes, they are sold as capital ships of the line, but with all the expansions in the last decades, they are "only" large destroyers in a cruiser role. (And not even very usefull against things like the Subjugator class cruisers who simply dwarf Imperial II class star destroyers. ) They seem to be more a decades too late counterpart against the providence class.

The thing is, Star Wars knows those "destroyers" in a capital ship role, but at the same time, there are capital ships in all time frames simply dwarfing those destroyers. I know canon says the Imperial II is a capital ship, I just doubt it, in a world with 300 meter long aircraft carriers and battleships, nobody would name a 75 meter long vessel a capital ship.

 

"Light cruisers" much smaller than the ISD have already appeared (the Arquitens-class).

The term "capital ship" seems to be used more loosely in Star Wars than in real life, too. For everything from corvettes on up.

 

Well I don't know just how powerful Star Destroyers really are. Nor do I think Star Destroyers are "destroyers" in the naval sense, it's just an intimidating name. Because even a huge dreadnaught like the Super Star Destroyer is still called a destroyer. The Star Destroyers behave like battleships, broadsiding opponents as bringing as many guns to bear, but really they seem to fit all roles. In the modern US navy, there is a bit of a blur between destroyers and cruisers. Cruisers are a bit bigger, but there have been destroyer designs that eclipse the cruisers in size. It's mostly just a semantics issue, or so I've heard; that when budgets get proposed to Congress, it just looks nicer when there are cruisers and destroyers on paper. Their roles are also not as clearly defined as they once were, since now they can both pretty much fill any role, the big difference that I am aware of is that the cruisers are better suited to housing flag staff and serving as a command ship.

But in WWII, where much of Star Wars draws its inspiration, their roles were more clearly defined. Battleships had the big guns for shore bombardments and to broadside enemy vessels. Cruisers were fast and could serve as anti-air defense in a fleet, or could act independently on patrols or scouting missions. Destroyers were fast and maneuverable and could protect larger ships from threats such as submarines and torpedo boats. Really, the star destroyers seem to fill all roles. They screen for the larger SSD, act independently and also are shown to have heavy guns. Hell, they even house fighters and act as carriers. In both the Battle of Endor and the Battle of Coruscant, we never saw a smaller ship in support of them.

But to elaborate on my first point. I don't know if they are really that powerful. I think their look makes them seem tougher than they really are. Because unlike the Death Star, which had an achilles heel that the heroes needed to exploit to destroy it, the star destroyers over Endor were defeated in a straight fight by a smaller force with far smaller vessels. The heroes didn't exploit some achilles heel there, they just won, despite Ackbar insisting that they wouldn't last long. Fighters were able to get through to the SSD and take out its shield generators, and we saw other star destroyers go up in flame in the background. They lost a straight fight. Meanwhile in ROTS, we see vessels of roughly the same size broad siding each other and slugging it out, and the Venators seemed to fare better in a straight fight.

I don't know where the blame lies - if Imperial Star Destroyers, despite looking much more intimidating, are actually a step down from Venators as TIEs are from the V-wing. Or if they are more powerful, but that the TIEs just sucked and couldn't effectively screen the Star Destroyers from the Rebels' fighters, allowing the Rebels to knock out the - IMO unnecessarily exposed - shield generators.

 

While there was a lot of debate in the EU about

"Are they shield generators for the whole ship, or do the generators in the domes just shield the "sensors" with other generators elsewhere shielding the rest of the hull"

the newcanon (specifically, Star Wars Rebels: The Visual Guide) calls those bridge domes "shield generators" and says nothing about sensors.