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It's been a while since we've had a ship of the week, so here we have three in one - the light bombers of the Rebel Alliance and New Republic, from the earliest days of the Rebellion through to the brief period of the restored Pax Republic

Y-Wing. The original. Two each of lasers, ion cannon and proton torpedo launchers. Not much by the standards of later ships, but they were tough, reliable, and held the line when they were all the alliance had.

B-Wing. The heavy punch of the later Rebellion and early NR. It also saw the introduction of modular weapons mounts - the two proton torpedo launchers were ubiquitous, but you could chose twin autoblaster, three ion cannon and a laser or three each of ion cannon and lasers. I'd go for the later option myself - more punch. Tricky to fly, and they could rip themselves apart if the cockpit gyro failed, but they packed a wallop.

K-Wing. The bomb truck of the New Class programme and the Fifth Fleet. Not much in the way of permanent armament, but its hardpoints make it the ultimate mission-configurable platform. It's a pity we don't see much of these guys, because they finally show the New Republic maturing from a guerilla army into a professional fighting force, sacrificing hyperdrive and flexibility for raw punch and mastery of a single role - delivering as much ordnance as could be hung on their frames.

I have always loved the B-wing. For mostly the reasons you posted.

The B-wing has been my long time favorite. The modular design is great for a fighter/bomber plus its strong survivability is always a plus. Not to mention that while not the cheapest of craft it was still easy to produce makes it a very important ship for the RA/NR fleets.

Probably the K-wing. no real reason, just thought they were cool.

That generally works for favorites.

B-Wing all the way. I've had a Lego one perched over my desk for about a decade.

I had never heard of the K-Wing before jsut now so I did a search for it. It shot to the top on look alone. It reminds me of an A-10 and I love A-10's.

I read the book series the K-Wing was introduced in. Another amazing example of the EU's total lack of understanding of the scale of a galactic civilization.

Tyyr wrote:I read the book series the K-Wing was introduced in. Another amazing example of the EU's total lack of understanding of the scale of a galactic civilization.

True, but if you look at the treatment of the Fifth Fleet in isolation, ignoring Kube-McDowell's abysmal sense of scale, I think it's the best depiction of a competent New Republic military we ever see.

That I will agree with. It was a very well run military organization only about 1/10,000th the size it should have been.

Tyyr wrote:That I will agree with. It was a very well run military organization only about 1/10,000th the size it should have been.

There was nothing wrong with the size either - a few hundred ships is an impressive task force. It was the fact that it was the Fifth rather than the Five Millionth that was the problem.

Different ends, my view was that the 5th of... what, 9(?) fleets should have been much, much larger. If it was the 5th Squadron, 18th Section, 201st Task Force of the 5th Fleet then the size is fine. They just portrayed a few hundred ships as being about 1/9th the NR's total fleet strength.

The bit at the start with the K-Wing attack was very well done but so far from the SW norm it felt like another setting and not SW.

Tyyr wrote:Different ends, my view was that the 5th of... what, 9(?) fleets should have been much, much larger

Worse - the impression I got was that in activating the first major formation to be entirely comprised of New Class ships, the NR simply continued sequentially.

It's been a long while since I read that series. Having a small cluster of worlds turn into a galaxy wide threat turned me off to it. I sold them off with a lot of the rest of my EU books.

Tyyr wrote:It's been a long while since I read that series. Having a small cluster of worlds turn into a galaxy wide threat turned me off to it. I sold them off with a lot of the rest of my EU books.

They were never presented as a galaxy-wide threat (for once) - they were depicted as a) strong enough to cause serious damage locally if they wanted to and b) exceptionally unpleasant within their own cluster.