Ships of the week, the TIE series

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Watch for enemy fighters!

One of the main symbols of the Empire. Deadly, swarming like gnats. From the T.I.E. to the Predators. They are the symbol of imperial might.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[Captain Seafort]

They've been massively underrated almost from day one as cheap, nasty, mass-produced junk compared with ARR/NR fighters, especially the basic TIE/ln. In practice, they're at least as good as the X-wing.

The claim that they're unshielded is nonsense, as ANH and ESB both demonstrate, the claim that they lack ejection systems is equally nonsense, their pilots are far better equipped to survive going EV, and their kill/loss rates in the battles of Yavin and Endor are superior to the rebels (although that's distorted due to the nature of most of the observed engagements).

Even their lack of hyperdrive is probably an advantage - the Imps have enough ships and bases to provide strategic and operational mobility, and the greatly reduced mass of the fighters themselves will improve their tactical mobility.

[Deepcrush]

I have to agree. We've really seen nothing to say that they are poor fighters. Now I've seen X-Wings and Y-Wings survive more damage... but it isn't anywhere near the gap that people treat it as. As to the cheap part. That would make sense given that they don't carry a hyperdrive or the nav/com equipment needed to operate it. Add to that the fact they are mass produced instead of piece meal construction like the rebels also lowers cost.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I was about to post the the TIEs would benefit more from having the hyperdrive than not, but the more I ponder, the more I realize that the Empire's not the Rebellion. [/obvious] Basically, they don't need it since lone fighters out in the void would be rare indeed. They'd more be nestled in the belly of a star destroyer or some other cruiser.

Also, TIE defenders kick ass. I have the lego version on my desk as I type. 8)

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

Actually, even in the movies, TIE Fighters don't have shields Seafort. I remember the two examples you brought up as proof. The first one-it was a glancing blow from the Falcon's Quad Laser Cannon. It exploded, because it was probably in range for that. In ESB, there were no shields either. The solar panels were hit, causing an electrical discharge that looked like a shield.

[Tyyr]

I want that lego TIE Defender so bad it hurts.

[BigJKU316]

I was about to post the the TIEs would benefit more from having the hyperdrive than not, but the more I ponder, the more I realize that the Empire's not the Rebellion. [/obvious] Basically, they don't need it since lone fighters out in the void would be rare indeed. They'd more be nestled in the belly of a star destroyer or some other cruiser.

Also, TIE defenders kick ass. I have the lego version on my desk as I type. 8)

I think they are fine given the state of the empire at its highest but the lack of a hyperdrive would have drawbacks in the event you lost a fleet engagement and wished to withdrawl. Either you wait to recover them and risk losing your heavy ships in the process or you just write them all off.

This is fine when you have an endless stream of both fighters and pilots pouring out of the factories. Once that stops, or if you are under a lot of pressure and can't spare something to move them around it could be a problem. I could also see it being a problem if you ran into just an evenly matched opponent who won battles as often as you did. Basically every time you lose a battle you probably have to just abandoned your pilots or risk losing more major ships recovering them. That is a losing proposition in my mind.

If they have hyperdrive you could presumably run away and buy some time to recover your people and run again.

[Tyyr]

So what if you lose your fighters? The entire flight wing of an ISD consisted of 84 men in maybe two or three Millenium Falcons worth of hardware, compared to the ISD with 37,000 crewmen worth tens of thousands of Millenium Flacons. Which one is more expendable?

[Captain Seafort]

The first one-it was a glancing blow from the Falcon's Quad Laser Cannon. It exploded, because it was probably in range for that.

How, pray tell, does an energy bolt explode? I agree that it was a glancing hit, but that still means it hit something. Since it was a good metre from the fighter's structure, that means it hit the shields. Incidentally, we saw multiple similar flashes, both around the Tantive IV in the opening scene and around several X-wings in the Battle of Yavin. Since there's no dispute that they were shielded, the logical conclusion is that TIEs are also shielded

In ESB, there were no shields either. The solar panels were hit, causing an electrical discharge that looked like a shield.

An "electrical discharge" eh? An "electrical discharge" that had exactly the same characteristics as the Tantive IVs shields when they were breached.

[BigJKU316]

So what if you lose your fighters? The entire flight wing of an ISD consisted of 84 men in maybe two or three Millenium Falcons worth of hardware, compared to the ISD with 37,000 crewmen worth tens of thousands of Millenium Flacons. Which one is more expendable?

True, the real value you lose is your pilots so long as the fighters remain replaceable. Simply put if you look at studies of who got kills in dogfights like we see in Starwars (IE WWI, WWII and Korea) the vast majority of the kills go to a few experienced pilots. The majority of pilots are more or less just along for the ride.

While the ISD is much more valuable abandoning your best pilots to be slaughtered when their fuel runs out represents much more than just a loss of equipment if you in turn replace them with green pilots who have little to no combat experience. The force you take on may be equal in numbers but have nowhere near the capability of the one you left behind.

Again, against the Rebels this was not a huge issue as the Imperial fleet won most engagements I would guess. But from a pure design perspective the TIE has some drawbacks, particularly if you were facing a peer opponent at some point who could win major engagements as much as it lost them.

[Tyyr]

Umm, so what? What huge benefit did the TIE's bring to the battle that would make them too valuable to ditch? They were mostly there to act as a screen to keep Rebel fighters busy while the ISDs did the real killing. So what if one of your guys is really hot shit at shooting down rebel X-Wings. It makes little or no difference to the ISD at all. The X-Wing wasn't much of a threat to begin with. Sure it's nice if your pilots are good at what they do but they are a relatively unimportant part of the Imperial military machine. In the grand scheme of things the money saved by not putting nav computers and hyperdrives on every TIE far outweighed the minuscule amount it cost you to abandon your fighters in the rare instances that you had to.

[BigJKU316]

Umm, so what? What huge benefit did the TIE's bring to the battle that would make them too valuable to ditch? They were mostly there to act as a screen to keep Rebel fighters busy while the ISDs did the real killing. So what if one of your guys is really hot s**t at shooting down rebel X-Wings. It makes little or no difference to the ISD at all. The X-Wing wasn't much of a threat to begin with. Sure it's nice if your pilots are good at what they do but they are a relatively unimportant part of the Imperial military machine. In the grand scheme of things the money saved by not putting nav computers and hyperdrives on every TIE far outweighed the minuscule amount it cost you to abandon your fighters in the rare instances that you had to.

You mean except for the time those Rebel/other fighters blew up two huge battle stations, flew through the bridge of a battleship and killed it, destroyed the reactor of the droid control ship and slashed their way through to the enemy flag ship to rescue the leader of the republic?

I realize there is other supposed cannon but on screen we have never really seen an ISD be this sort of all conquering badass it is portrayed as and we have seen numerous times where even small groups of fighters have basically changed the course of a war.

[Sionnach Glic]

The incidents where fighters took down capships generally rely on extreme luck or utter flukes.

TPM: Control ship destroyed due to blind luck. The ship itself proved impervious to a concentrated attack by fighters.
ROTS: Fighters are not seen attacking capships during the battle.
ANH: Death Star destroyed due to design flaw. This "flaw", however, was only exploitable by someone capable of using the Force.
ROTJ: DS2 destroyed due to not being finished. Executer destroyed after its shields were brought down by the Rebel capships and by slamming into the DS2. While it was a fighter that caused it to lose control by destroying the bridge, this can hardly be used to suggest fighters are capable of downing capships in general.

Regarding the ISD:
No, it's not seen being an all-powerful warship. But what situations have we seen it in where it would get to actually show such abilities? In ANH it performed superbly, easily chasing down fleeing vessels. In ESB it did much the same, with the heroes only escaping by particularly clever trickery.
ROTJ was the only incident in which we could see ISDs performing properly. But even then the battle tended to focus on the fighters rather than the capships. It should also be noted that Admiral Ackbar didn't think much of the Rebel fleet's chances of taking on the Imperial vessels.

That said, I don't actually consider it to be all that great a warship. Primarily because I doubt it's really a warship at all.

As far as I'm concerned ISDs aren't really true warships, but rather are dedicated anti-insurgency vessels. After all, the Empire controlled nearly the entire known galaxy. Who was there that could put up enough of a threat to warrant producing a line of warships? The Hapan, the Ssi-ruuk and even the Chiss were relatively small players compared to the Empire. So what threat was left to the Empire? Well, nothing apart from minor insurrections on various planets. Certainly nothing requiring massive warships. Thus Imperial ship design began to favour a vessel more suited to peace-enforcement operations. Indeed, the design of the vessels themselves would seem to support this theory.

The ISD is quite fast, and is thus capable of reaching potential trouble spots with ease. It's quite quick at sublight too, being capable of running down fleeing smuggler vessels and Rebel cruisers. It has a contingent of three and a half thousand troops on board, along with armour and prefabricated bases - perfect for quickly deploying ground forces to overthrow rebellious governments, taking out an insurgent stronghold or simply policing a city with anti-Imperial tendancies. It has a wing of atmospheric-capable fighters on board, allowing it to provide air support for ground operations or helping to enforce blockades. Finaly, it has enough firepower to turn a planet to molten rock, making the ship into a terror weapon.

Various books depict ISDs being downed by various Rebel vessels ranging from true warships to converted passenger liners. This performance would be consistant with a vessel designed to tackle fleeing smugglers and the occasional heavily armed pirate vessel.

[Captain Seafort]

The incidents where fighters took down capships generally rely on extreme luck or utter flukes.

Or massed numbers. The Bacta War shows pretty conclusively that, however unlikely it may be, massed fighter salvos can overwhelm the surge capacity of a destroyer's shields. Of course, we've no data on the relative surge capacities of VicStar and ImpStar shields, or what sort of weapons Rogue Squadron was using (presumably some sort of dedicated high-yield anti-ship weapon), but the basic principle is established. Of course, in the middle of a fleet action, it's highly unlikely that the numbers of fighters required could be assembled to launch a coordinated strike.

That said, I don't actually consider it to be all that great a warship. Primarily because I doubt it's really a warship at all.

To nitpick, it's definitely a warship, but as you say it's designed for counterinsurgency, not fleet actions.

Various books depict ISDs being downed by various Rebel vessels ranging from true warships to converted passenger liners. This performance would be consistent with a vessel designed to tackle fleeing smugglers and the occasional heavily armed pirate vessel.

Not to mention the example from ESB of the Tyrant being disabled by a black market ion cannon.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Well, with The Bacta War, it took about 80 torpedoes or so to take down Lusankya's shields. And as for the others, the concentrated salvos only took down the particular area hit IE dorsal, fore, aft. Most times, the enemy ships began rolling to present fully powered shields.