Why didn't the Empire still use Xwings/Y wings?

If I'm right the Rebellion stole a few of the Empire's ships which were X-wings and Y wings and so on, and made their own ships. However didn't the Empire still have blueprints to continue creating X-wings and use the to battle the Rebels? Just cause the Rebels stole some and made their own ships, why did that stop the Empire from using them?

 

At one point the explanation was that the Empire was all about quantity over quality. TIEs were cheap and fast, and could be used in overwhelming numbers. The Rebels, as would be expected, cared more for their pilots and hardware and were willing to invest in return for higher quality. How this squares with any additions/changes in the EU since the Bantam era, I dunno.

 

True that they wanted quantity over quality, but why would they have built them in the first place for the rebels to steal if they didn't plan on mass producing them? Apparently wherever the Imps were building these ships, the were open enough for the Rebels to steal. But why didn't they simply build more? Also, with the wealth of the Empire I don't know why they couldn't manufacture them. Oh well... I just find it odd that they had plans to use it as their fighters, and after them being stolen they decided not to.

 

The Empire was all about quantity over quality when it came to their shock troops. This is just a rough estimate, but let's say an X-wing costs 5 times as much to build as a TIE Fighter. That means the Empire could make 5 TIE Fighters for the same price as an X-wing. They would rather overwhelm their opponents with sheer numbers than care about the welfare of the individual pilots.

 

normally that theory would make sense, but with the infinite wealth and space of the empire... why could they not have a basically infinite supply of SUPERIOR fighters whether they be x-wings w/e... who cares if they cost 100x as much to make, they can afford it... i think that the empire just didnt want to be using the same technology as the rebs because that would, in theory, make them equal in a way, thats why they continued the TIE line of fighters to go on to make the interceptor (beats a-wing), oppresor and bomber (beats y-wing), tie defender and tie advanced (beats x-wing)... and prototype craft such as the tie aggressor and tie hunter.... yes, at the time of the battle of yavin the empire currently had the technology and plants to produce infinite numbers of tie fighters to overwhelm the enemy, but, as the empire got older, its weapons, craft, and troops got more advanced.. but, of course, this is all theory, and only the creator knows the true explanation but thats my two cents

 

Disagree all you want, but the official explanation is that the Empire made use of TIEs because they were cheap and expendable. The Empire didn't have unlimited resources.

 

Keep in mind, too, that TIE fighters made up for their lack of armor and shielding by having better speed and weapons. Yeah, a single shot could take one down, but it still packed a punch. Plus, the lack of things like onboard life-support, and a very simplified landing gear meant that maintenance costs were lower. It was all about cutting costs while still being deadly.

EDIT: Also, keep in mind that, in open space, TIEs were always accompanied by a Star Destroyer or similar docking vessel, having no onboard hyperdrive of their own. This meant that, despite their structural weakness, the fighters could always count on heavy support from the destroyers, while Rebel X-Wings often flew alone.

 

Why the Empire didn't continue to use XWings: The Incom corporation and most specifically it's entire engineering team on the X-Wing project defected to the rebellion and when they did they took the prototypes with them. The empire had no template to use for the manufacture of them and were left with the ARC-170 and Z-95 Head Hunter Designs.

Why the Empire didn't continue to use Y-Wings: After the Clone Wars, they were phased out by the empire. They were offered an upgraded design by the Koensayr Corporation but did not purchase the design. The Company was allowed to continue to produce them independently and they eventually continued to end up in the Alliances hands.

This brings us to the Tie Fighters and the posts about Quantity over Quality is exaclty correct and has been referenced in tons of material. X Wings were shielded and had hyperdrives, Ties did not. Same can be said for the Y Wings. The cost of the shielding and hyperdrives alone are exorbitant. The empire had no need for this as they were able to use the concept of Star Destroyers and Capitol Ships that served as Fighter Carriers.

Sienar won the contract, could produce them in great numbers and a cost the empire could afford.

 

Deeper in the universe canon, there are starship manufacturers throughout the galaxy, much like in real life we have Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc., or the Russians have the Sukhoi and MiG design bureaus competing with each other. Some work with the Empire, some do not. I know the X-wing is attributed to Incom which likely is sympathetic to the rebellion if not on a rebel homeworld. Also remember reading the designer of the A-wing also designed the Jedi Starfighters but is loyal to the rebels after the Empire arose.

 

Correct. Walex Blissex designed the original Jedi Starfigher. General Jan Dodonna came up with the original concept, design of the A Wing and Bilissex got it built and produced.

 

Frankly, I wouldn't say that the Empire had infinite resources. It might have seemed it, but they also had enormous responsibilities. To deal with it, they had a whole programme of scale and standardization. The TIE designs were part of that.

TIEs were were due to their simplicity could be based out of the most rugged planets or low-tech bases. On top of that, having only one or two starfighter simple designs makes of logistics and resupply a lot easier as well. Not only did simply the types of parts to send to resupply or repair, but also what to make in the factories and shipyards to repair or resupply. And you also only needed a few different kinds of launching and landing systems as well, and that is important when you're say designing a Star Destroyer or a pre-fabricated garrison base.

It may not make sense if you're talking about a single fleet or a few planets, but when you scale it out and have to stock or resupply millions of bases and hundreds of thousands of ships, standardization and scale works.

So having a high-tech starfighter would throw a massive kink in those plans, as well as make it enormously expensive to upgrade. And you don't have too much money around when you're concentrating on making Death Stars or superships.

 

The standard TIE Fighter's design characteristics really show you the priorities of the Empire: they're insanely fast and maneuverable and pack a huge punch- but the engines and thrusters used to achieve that speed and maneuverability, as well as the laser cannons, come at the cost of ANYthing that will increase pilot survivability: the hull plating is weak, there are no shields, they don't have life-support systems (requiring pilots to wear vacuum-ready spacesuits) and the things are almost universally devoid of ejector seats.

Further, the idea to use them also reinforces the facelessness of each individual Imperial military recruit- to the Emperor, each individual is a disposable asset to be used and discarded at his whim, not an individual. So they're identified by numbers rather than names ("TK421, why aren't you at your post?"), packed into anonymous armor (stormtroopers) or else put in any one of millions of identical fighters (TIE pilots); whereas a Rebel pilot might become attached to his or her personal fighter, an Imperial pilot has the idea that each individual TIE fighter is identical to the millions of others hammered into his or her skull, and are actively DISCOURAGED from developing attachments to their hardware, and have pilots rotated through a set of fighters to further discourage this trend.

 

Tp be fair to TIEs, there's really nothing showing that X-wings were massively superior even with equal numbers; something like thirty X and Y wings attacked the Death Star in ANH, against a measly 11 TIEs (the eight that launch originally, and then three more with Vader). We know that the surface guns only claimed Porkins, and that there were three surviving Rebel fighters-Luke, Wedge, and some guy in a Y-Wing who is presumably the most badass pilot ever . So, 11 TIEs (and keep in mind that Vader only arrived fairly late into the battle, so it was 8 TIEs for most of it) cleaned house on 27 technologically superior X and Y wings. Granted, most of those TIEs were shot down as well, but still, losing 27 of your (much more expensive) fighters for 10 of the enemy's is hardly anything to cheer about.


Even at Endor, where X-Wings, Y-Wings, and B and A wings were all present in large numbers the TIEs don't do terribly badly-I'd wager that we see at least one and probably more Rebel fighter done in for every TIE.

Speed, maneuverability, and cheapness may have something to them after all.

 

The Empire wanted to intimidate, for one. A herd of TIE fighters (for lack of a better phrase) will generally do that. Even though they can be taken out super easily, they seem to be more agile and quick than X-Wings, etc. And in the books of the expanded universe that I've read, it definitely seems that beyond the instances with crazy revel pilots shown in the movies, the TIE fighter fleet was pretty successful. X-Wings and ships like that wouldn't have made quite the cut in the kinds of scenarios in those books. And the Empire also had plenty of Star Destroyers, which took care of the heavy-duty annihilation the TIEs couldn't do.

 

Nothing wrong with intimidation, but skilled pilots are a lot less replaceable than foot soldiers. It would have made sense if the Empire had conscripted a workforce and looted the raw materials necessary to build safer fighters.

 

...although they do have PLENTY of foot soldiers...