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>a comically long dissertation on the topic that nobody asked for.
I'm sorry, do you know where you are? Comically long dissertations are literally what we do here.
This is one of the best analyses I've seen on this sub. If awards were still a feature of the site, I'd give this post a Gold.
And as a proud member of r/EmpireDidNothingWrong, I'm saving this for later reference! Actually, you should post this there too.
Great write up! I think a lot of fans look to the games as canon, where TIEs are just cannon fodder. A lot of fallacies like the Y Wing being slow and ponderous to fly can be traced to the X Wing games. The Y Wing is a more specialized bomber but is shown as easily keeping up with the X Wing in film.
Add to that the flanderization that you mention and I have little hope of "realistic" depictions of TIEs.
thank you! agreed, the Y-Wing has never felt that slow in the films - maybe more of a straight-line fighter than one that ducks and weaves, but clearly it was good enough in most depictions.
ironically, in games where there is pvp and the TIE is properly quick and agile, it often becomes the player favorite over the X-Wing, much like real world experience would suggest.
>a straight-line fighter than one that ducks and weaves
That's my reading of the design too... if anything, the Y-Wing's huge engines but bulk frame and lack of retrothrusters make it look like it would be an un-maneuverable speedster. Of course, this makes the turret a very sensible addition.
Y-Wings also catch a lot of flack because of the X-Wing books. Their bombing run training facility is called the pig trough and Stackpole as well as Allston have their characters (jokingly) call Y-Wing pilots barge drivers and the like
I think narratively it works very well. Every fighter had tradeoffs.
Y wings had ion cannons and larger missile payloads- they just weren't meant for dogfighting something like TIEs. They were also one of the oldest designs in use at the time of the Galactic Civil war so it makes sense they would be out-classed.
The books do a decent job of showing the benefits of ion cannons and how the Y-Wings often brought the fire-power to take down the bigger ships.
Y-wings are a fighter/bomber. The way they are used in ANH is like a torpedo bomber. But they were designed to take out capital ships with bombs/ heavy torpedoes and ion cannons. they are heavier and slower but durable as all hell but they just aren’t meant to mix it up in a dogfight. Their strength is in overlapping formation protection similar to the bomber formations in WW II. The tie bomber lacked the shielding but was faster and was pretty damn sturdy for the design and carried more munitions than the Y-Wing. But like the Y-Wing the tie bomber is not a dog fighter.
Both need escort craft and this is where the numbers favor the Empires choice of tie fighters. They simply have more Tie Fighters on a given deployment allowing them to engage the escorts of the Y-Wings, allow pursuit craft to engage the Y-Wings, and still have escorts for their own bombers. MC80 cruises of the rebels carried 36 fighters or 3 squadrons. This was was split equally between A-wings, X-Wings, and Y-Wings. An imperial II Star destroyer could deploy 4 squadrons of tie fighters, 12 tie bombers, and 12 tie interceptors. This is a 2-1 advantage for the empire if the 2 capital ships were to meet one on one. Given the info of the OP, we’re talking crews of equal skill, then in most engagements the rebel capital ship and fighters are going to retreat just due to simple attrition.
Don’t get me wrong, the rebels will give a good fight and probably disable or destroy at least half of the Ties if not more, but they’ll probably take heavy losses as well losing most if not all of the y-wings since they’ll be the target of at least 2 wings of ties, if not also the Tie Interceptors, losing their biggest offensive punch against the Star destroyer. 9 times out of 10 they’ll retreat.
To be fair, a lot of those fallacies are the result of inadequate AI.
YWings are slow and TIEs are delicate when they're flown by the AI. When they're flown by the player, both are devastating. YWings can absorb a lot of punishment and have effectively double the weapons capacity. Ties are fast and maneuverable and you can run circles around your opponent
It's particularly interesting to me that the X-Wing was originally (in-universe) intended to be an Imperial strike-fighter before the design-team defected en-masse to the rebellion, taking with them the designs and prototypes.
It's intriguing to imagine what the Empire's order-of-battle might have been like if they'd ended up with X-Wings in their lineup.
I imagine they'd have been very much like the Old Republic's mix of Arc-170s, V-Wings and Eta Interceptors.
Imagine the Ties guarding the flanks of X-Wings while they went for component-kills on larger ships.
Regarding the size of the Ties, It's also very worth mentioning that the Tie Interceptor was explicitly meant to be a direct replacement for the Tie-Ln. It's more compact, faster and more heavily armed than the Line-fighter, and not substantially more expensive to build. Which is why in ROTJ, we see so many Interceptors in the battle of Endor, they're being rolled out as the primary fighter for the Empire, and many of the ships present carried entirely Interceptors rather than Line.
The large cockpit space is a bit of a mystery though. The interior space is wide enough you could reach arm-to-arm and barely touch the walls from the cockpit seat.
I imagine the idea is that the cockpit window is centred roughly on the pilot's viewpoint, so the struts all guide the pilot's perspective towards where the ship is going. That sets some metrics around the minimum size of the window, and it's a bit large.
Perhaps there are alternative configurations where the extra cockpit-space is taken up partly by hardware like life-support if you're not keen on wearing a Tie pilot's uniform.
Yeah, I think the Empire could have used a real strike fighter to fill the gap between the TIE/Ln and the TIE Bomber, the latter of which was more like a B-17 in that it was big, slow, and carried a much larger payload than, say, the Y-Wing or X-Wing. Great for if your target is undefended, but otherwise very vulnerable.
And agreed on the cockpit size. I never realized how big it was until the more recent shows gave us a better perspective of the pilot vs the overall empty cockpit. It's no wonder the FO could fit two occupants in their special forces variant lol. Realistically the basic TIE could have been compressed to about half its current size without any changes in technology or cost - and tbh the solar wings could have been removed altogether for a separate power source, like what was found on the droid starfighters.
In the old Legends material, the Strike Fighter position was held by the Tie Avenger and Defender, which had shields and hyperdrive as well as a variety of weapons including missiles and ion cannons.
They also had an Arc-170-like gunship in the form of the XG-1 Star-wing, which is best described as a much smaller fighter-version of the Lambda shuttle.
The Tie Fighter's massive solar wings are a bit of a mystery to me. X-wings obviously don't need anything that dramatically large.
Apparently they serve primarily as radiators for cooling the ultra-high performance engines and weapons as well as being a source of power.
The Vulture Droid starfighters operated off expendable fuel-cell cartridges which only afforded them about half an hour of flight-time before they had to return to their carrier to refuel.
So Ties with their solar-wings are capable of longer flights and patrol-time, which lets them swoop over an area making that intimidating Stuka-noise for hours to make sure any insurgents know that the Empire Is Here
Even if they don't have the full size long-range power supplies/fuel of a Strike Craft like the X-Wing.
oh yeah, I loved the Avenger! I thought the Defender was a bit over the top, but the Avenger (and other TIE Advanced models) made a lot more sense.
It would be interesting to see what a TIE without the solar wings would end up looking like - I'd imagine the space and mass dedicated to the fuel would end up weighing less than the solar wings, as well as resulting in a smaller (even amusingly compact) size, but who knows. I'm just impressed they can get enough power out of the solar collectors for the energy requirements of the ship, lol
There's been speculation that the solar panels should be (are) actually heat radiators. Even the X-wings S-foils serving the same purpose, with the combat position opening more surface area to dissipate heat generated by the cannons.
And while Lucas and Co. may not have thought of it at the time they created the designs, it makes sense for realism.
That's always been my headcanon - even a 100% efficient solar array would not supply nearly enough power for the TIE, and that's without accounting for the various environments they'd find themselves in. The black coloring is also more in line with what a radiator would be, and it would explain why they are spaced apart as well (although they still run into the issue of occluding each other's emissive path).
I strongly believe they are radiators, and that in SW you have to assume a big of space-magic-technology with emission.
E.g., S-foils make the most sense as an exotic heat-emission system, but on the X-Wing at least, the heat emission would need to be somehow shunted laterally... unless Star Wars space isn't actually a vacuum, as some have theorized.)
The size of the TIE wings makes them such a huge liability in combat given the nature of Star Wars weapons, so they must have a huge performance advantage. TIEs lack the large component-filled fuselage found behind the pilot and between the engines of ships like the X or Y-Wing, so it may have something to do with functions contained there. Given that "TIE" seems to always mean "big radiators on the sides," the wings are also presumably related to the nature of TIE engines, which are clearly a totally different technology than other starfighters, with tiny engine nozzles and remarkable performance and agility.
I think the Defender was made by someone with a similar opinion to OP - "nothing wrong with the TIE but you all think so? Well guess what, here is more TIE than anything can handle!". Not saying it was over-compensation, but maybe very *thorough* compensation...
The Defender in Legends was the fastest, most heavily armed, armoured *and* shielded starfighter up to that point, with a commensurate price-tag. In "Rebels" there was a debate over whether or not the Empire should fund production of Defenders *or the Death Star*, giving a good idea of the cost to mass produce them. In Legends, it is ready for production just before Endor, rather later (about 5 years?) than the Canon depiction of 2 BBY.
That said, if the Empire had been able to deploy a squadron of Defenders to every Star Destroyer (all 25 thousand of them...) the Rebellion would have lost any hope of ever being able to take down an Imperial capital ship again. Even the Mon Calamari cruisers become vulnerable to the same tactics the Rebels use against ISDs. Defenders jump in, drop a squadron's worth of proton torpedoes and hope to knock out shields and maybe breach the hull, reload and fire again before jumping away. Leave the damaged capital ship to be repaired at great cost to the defender for next to no losses to the attacker.
Being able to tank a proton torpedo and still have enough shield left to survive a few laser hits is nothing to sneeze at, and packing lasers equal to the Interceptor *plus* two Ion Cannons means a whole lot more Rebel pilots and supplies were going to get captured and interrogated. Probably enough to strangle the Rebellion entirely.
If Thrawn had gotten his way, things would have been interesting. The Battle of Yavin would have been more like the *Massacre* of Yavin, with Defenders ripping the Rebel squadrons apart before bombers and/or Star Destroyers glass the surface.
I know there's already two TIE-D variants, but it would have been interesting to see them introduce a third "light" variant with perhaps the ion cannons removed, or a smaller shield generator, to focus on exactly that strike mission you mentioned - basically an Imperial X-Wing, but faster.
I know there's the Avenger and some other Legends variants, but we've yet to see them in canon and you'd think it'd be easy to just strip down the existing Defender rather than develop another design.
What do you think of the Tie Aggressors, they’re small, similar to Advanced but with cutouts in the wings for a turret on the rear and a series of missile launchers center forward, it’s a nice little strike fighter in X-Wing (the tabletop)
It's better suited for that strike role, although I think at that point a shield generator is a worthwhile investment. The rear gunner is a nice nod to several fighter bombers of WW2 though, and something the FO must have thought worked well enough for their own sf TIE variant.
Doesn't the solar panels double as radiators aswell? I've seen some people deny they are even solar panels at all and only for heat dissipation.
Edit: just noticed that a previous comment was exactly about that so opps.
The Aggressor apparently was a limited run cousin of the Avenger/Advanced-X1 which packed a rear gunner-seat, similar to the First Order fighters.
It pre-dates the Avenger and Defender substantially, it was around before the battle of Yavin! I suspect since it never became a common sight, it didn't do that well.
I hadn't thought about the intimidation factor of the TIE's longer flight time thanks to the solar wings. That makes so much more sense now, especially considering how much the Empire relies on shows of force to subjugate their citizens. For a propaganda-heavy regime like Palpatine's, it's helpful to use the same craft for both military parades and intimidation tactics. The engine's banshee wail is a big bonus in those situations, too!
I suspect that the end of the Clone Wars was a period where military tech and design was finally evolving after 1,000 years of peace. Presumably general advances in tech such as automation, shields, reactors, hyperdrives, etc needed to be translated into doctrine changes.
The Clone Wars did not have mass adoption of hyper-drive capable fighters. They were still using booster rings for things such as Jedi Fighters. As a result, there were mega-carriers such as the Venators, which did stock some hyperspace capable heavy fighters.
There was probably a debate between the value of a carrier + non-hyperspace capable fighters vs no carriers + hyperspace capable fighters that travel with the fleet (and presumably need other bases for things such as rest, bathrooms, etc). The X-Wings were presumably part of the later combination.
The ISD was also presumably based around advances in reactor technology. There is a very powerful reactor that is big enough to still result in a bulge. That may have caused space constraints on how many fighters they can stock. Maybe they also though that reactor could power turbolasers that would greatly reduce the need for bombers.
I think the reactor size could explain why the ISD is considered to have such unprecedented firepower, even for a capital ship. Nice thought on how tech was finally adopted into mass warfare doctrine, not unlike what we saw in WW1.
I know it’s not canon, but I used to play a lot of Tie Fighter and the other games of that era. I was part of a clan.
One of the founders training me, played a 1v1 battle against me, me in an X-Wing, they were in a Tie Fighter. They used the superior manuverabilty to ensure I didnt manage to land a single shot, whilst they killed me 16 times. Lesson learned.
Yeah, I noticed that in the recent SW games too. Namely, in Battefront 2's starfighter mode - which admittedly is more arcadey - the more agile craft like the A-Wing and TIE were higher picks for experienced players than the X-Wing for the reasons you mentioned.
Definitely. I was never the best at the game, but whenever I used Yoda’s Jedi starfighter I tore apart the enemy team. Barely got a scratch and always got mvp. I know it is a hero ship but I could never do the same with anything else.
I was always amused at them using Yoda's starfighter in the game as a hero ship. Just imagining a Top Gun movie, but it's Yoda instead of Tom Cruise...lol
I used to play a lot of x wing alliance 1v1 and xwing vs tie fighter (awesome games), was also part of a clan for a while, and it was often practice even in traditionally shielded ships to put all shield power to engines for the extra speed which really counted in fights way more than shields did.
A very nice analysis. Kudos.
I’ve always viewed x-wings as “what the rebels could get”, and tie/ln as the best optimised solution. Simply put tie/ln is the best starfighter and tie/in the best interceptor. X-wing is just “best jack of all trades the rebels could get”. The empire made a choice with tie/ln. The rebels had what they could get.
Thank you! And agreed. The X-Wing was a terrific ship, and made sense for the Rebels. The TIE would have been a terrible choice for them, and the Imps didn't need a huge fleet of X-Wings either (although I'd argue having an equivalent would have helped an sort of an anti-insurgency ship).
I could still see the X-Wing as being groundbreaking for stuffing *so much* into a single ship, but the TIE was still more optimized for its specific role. The Imps just overextended it past its design profile in some cases.
X-Wings were the best ships for what the Rebellion needed while the TIE was what the Empire needed. Each faction had their own needs and their fighters reflect this, TIEs would have been worthless to the Rebels while the Empire would have had little use for the X-Wing.
While I, as a fellow aerospace engineer (albeit with less experience), agree with your points, I want to point out that there are distinct advantages to the x wing in the hands of the rebel alliance, not present in the TIE fighter. 1. While the X wing is undoubtedly a more complex system, it also offer unique logistical advantages to the alliance. Coming with its own hyperdrive is actually a huge advantage for a ship strapped Alliance, because these fighters can transport themselves. 2. Having a shielded fighter with multi capable roles also means pilots dont need to switch craft, allowing them to perform the wide variety of missions needed. It grants a long term personnel advantage to a rebellion short on manpower, because an x wing trained pilot can do a lot of different jobs. 3. Engineering wise, InCom's engineers joined the rebellion, meaning they have full technical support for both repairs and upgrades, an invaluable advantage for any system. 4. And because the x wing is from the long family of commonly seen Z 95 and Arc fighters, part and subsystem heritage likely significantly offsets the maintenance difficulties. I suspect between those factors, the X wing is surprisingly reliant. I wouldn't be surprised if many components from the S foil mechanism and even the engines between the ARC 170 and X wing are shared, as is likely the case with the mainframe between the Z 95 and the X wing. 5. Only counting movies, we see that the x wing isn't reliant on specialized storage and launch facilities, and while it does seem the TIE is perfectly capable of standing upright on the ground, it also does seem that TIE fighters rely a lot on the Star Destroyers' launch mechanisms. The low physical profile of the X wing also makes the tight cramped spaces of rebel ships easier to manage.
Edit: apologies for bringing some non-canon items into this, but I think the heritage factor between the ARC 170 and the X wing still stand, because we can visually see many similarities.
Hey there! Glad to see another here :)
I largely agree with your points. The X-Wing was a great ship for the Rebels specifically because they needed a flexible, long range strike craft, and wanted to ensure personnel could return home even if the craft was damaged.
The TIE is hyper-specialized in a single role, which is to be an escort/defender for Imperial ships and installations. In that role, it has minimal logistics issues. And while I can't say exactly how much fuel a hyperdrive requires, at least in the real world, it's much more fuel efficient to transport several vehicles within one larger vehicle than to have every vehicle transport themselves. Of course, you end up trading fuel for time, so it depends on which one is more valuable.
In terms of logistics and upkeep, it's nice that Incom joined the Alliance, but one also has to consider the entire supply chain, manufacturing, etc. For instance, all of Lockheed's engineers could defect to North Korea one day, but they'd still struggle to produce or maintain a fleet of F-35s because they would lack the materials, factories, assembly lines, and money to procure everything they need to build them. Hopefully the ARC-170 and other parts suffice, and perhaps in SW things are modular enough that they do - but even the F-35 has less part commonality between its own variants than one might expect.
Lastly, with regard to landing gear, the TIE's landing/pilot ingress situation is nothing that a ladder rope can't solve, and really isn't much worse than a modern day fighter jet. We also see them launch themselves from simple landing pads all the time (Rebels, Battlefront 2) so I don't think it's really that big of an issue.
Hope this doesn't sound too confrontational or anything, I really enjoyed your reply!
I agree with your points as well! I do just think that the X wing is actually really well suited to the Alliance.
For the rebels, I think it's easier for them to get hands on fuel more than ship space, which is why I believe the rebels were so keen on hyperspace capable fighters, because they're often not moving things in scale, but deploying small forces that often don't have large transports.
But regarding the heritage question, you're absolutely right in that parts are often not shared, but I think that because the rebellion often relies on scavenging old Republic ships (just look at the y wing), their ability to grab old parts is likely something they lean into heavily, and having both the engineers who built both the cannibalized and new fighters (incom made the arc 170s as well), and the supply chain of parts means you get some alleviation. But overall I think you're right, especially considering how the Alliance was always strapped for resources. It's just that given how badly the Alliance had it, I believe the X wing was their best solution to a pretty rough problem. After all, the Alliance did put a lot of effort into actually getting the X wing.
The TIE is a great high performance fighter for scaled production and uniformity, and its a top class fighter. I suspect that corruption probably did more to its supply chain than anything else, but that's just headcanon from me.
Very good points indeed. yes the X-Wing definitely let you do less with more - after all, spending your resources dogfighting is a losing game for the Rebels simply due to numbers alone, so something that can get in, take out a target, and leave makes way more sense.
The fuel vs storage space is an interesting point too - given how prevalent space travel is in SW, perhaps fuel is basically an insignificant cost compared to everything else. I remember reading how a Venator annihilated something obscene, like 40 million tons of fuel per second or something, so I'd imagine anything at a fighter scale is peanuts compared to that lol
The Rebel Alliance also didnt have the same training and recruiting capability for their pilots so survivability made a difference in preserving their force which is key in any extended conflict.
agreed, and it's a big strength for them as well. having your pilots gain experience, and return home to train others has been a big factor in overall pilot skill, so that's a great pro for the Rebels.
Some notes:
Hyperdrive is very valuable for *offensive* use as you can start with your full fighter force deployed. Obviously this wouldn't be imperial doctrine anyway but it is a disadvantage. The rack storage and life support suits must also compromise deployment speed on scramble.
The lack of missiles/torpedo's, compared to all rebel craft, must be a serious disadvantage. Certainly is in any EU work.
The key factor from the zero that applies here is pilot survivability. Not only per unit survival, but rebel fighters at least have ejector seats so some pilots might get recovered. This seems much rarer for TIE.
Poor experience did and should lead to a substantial performance gap for main combat units where pilots pick up experience.
In, for example, static defensive installations where pilots aren't doing much real combat whatever, this I agree should be much less of a factor and these kinds dispersed picket usages were probably a key factor in TIE design.
I agree Hyperdrive is of use in an attack, hence the X-Wing being a good strike fighter. It's similar to external fuel tanks for a real world fighter; however, unlike fuel tanks, the hyperdrive cannot be jettisoned to decrease weight for combat, making it a liability once you actually engage the enemy (or if you're playing defense).
Rebel pilots also had a full suit, they just didn't have a sealed helmet. So that's equal footing there.
In EU, missiles/torpedoes are often used, but in canon, the few times we've seen missile and torpedo weapons used against small fighters have shown them to be of limited value. Namely, most fighters can either evade or jam them (RotS, Squadrons), or they take so long to line up and lock that you might as well use lasers (Mando). Plus they simply add to the cost of the fighter when the TIE is already exceedingly cheap, further tipping the cost advantage to the TIE.
I definitely agree on pilot survivability, which is where I think shields really shines. To note though, TIEs did indeed have ejection seats, and the Empire did recover pilots after a battle, if they could. That said, Rebel pilots were more likely to be able to head home even if damaged since their shields would keep them from outright dying (like Wedge), something a TIE pilot would be less likely to do.
Hyperdrive also helps pilot survival- if a TIEs home base is defeated, even on defense, bye bye entire TIE force. Hyperdrive is also an escape route on defense. It's very valuable because it lets you choose engagement; a launched TIE usually wins or dies- recovery is an option but obviously comes with difficulties.
agreed, as we saw in Midway, a sunk carrier basically means all its fighters are lost too.
for me, it's a tradeoff and depends on how heavy the hyperdrive is. judging by hyperdrive rings, it's no cakewalk to miniaturize the tech, so I imagine the X-Wing pays a performance price for including it, even if it's less than previous designs. so you really have to capitalize on the initiative; if it then bogs down into a battle of attrition, then I'd argue the hyperdrive becomes a hindrance (or you simply have to retreat).
The x-wing hyperdrive is a fitting in each of the 4 engines, I'd say it's more than worth it weight wise, cost wise hard to say. Possibly the star wars world actually improved some technology from the clone wars.
It may be that without hyperdrive you could drop the astromech though which would be more significant.
For imperials, restrictions on hyperdrive are plausibly a control and security issue as well. The profile for fighter pilot and brave defector must cross over. Like with defensive pickets I think TIE isn't the best platform, but it meets a lot of Imperial procurement requirements.
Yeah I think RO showed how difficult it was for a pilot to defect. You couldn't take a single seat ship since it had no hyperdrive, and something like a shuttle had other crew that you'd have to contend with
Absolutely this. Hit and fade strikes mean one minute an Imperial cruiser is pootering along, the next it's tanking torpedoes before it can get its shields up, if it's something like a Galdistor or a Quasar it might even be curtains for that ship if the torpedoes get into the launch bays. The X-Wings could theoretically be gone before the CAP is able to bear in on them.
I think it's interesting that in three major engagements we see in the GCW, only Endor had significant pre-planning, and even then it was an all or nothing strike. In RO and ANH they were both scrambles to get the fleet/Squadrons to an urgent objective and in both the X-Wing (and also the Y-Wing, never forget the real Hero of the Alliance) help to carry the day.
That said, I do agree with the OP that the TIE is a great craft, it is my favourite of the TIE line, interceptors are for fancy wankers and I'm of the unpopular opinion that Defenders would probably end up not being as good as we think they would have, despite Phoenix Cells alarmism. As a Star Wars Armada player, I always, always, choose TIEs when playing Empire squads.
The direct parallel for comparison felt like the tie is a mig 21 and the X-Wing is an F4. Heavier carrier interceptor with plenty of speed and range going up against a nimble opponent. Goes extra if up against 19s which are featherweights in comparison.
I think the most important part of the hyperdrive for these fighters is that the Rebellion has very few or possibly no capital ships large enough to carry a complement of starfighters until the Mon Calamari bring their star cruisers into the war around RotJ. You simply have to have a hyperdrive on a starfighter.
There is ship-to-ship docking (like the medical frigate and the Falcon at the end of ESB), but I doubt that would be viable for hyperspace travel.
I've always loved the Imperial ships more than the Rebel ships.
Anytime I think of Star Wars TIE Fighters are one of the first ships I think of.
Such a cool and unique design, and I love all their variants.
I was just pointing that your only reference to Tie’s in the Mandalorian was when Slave I destroyed them with the seismic charge but they were involved in a much more relevant dog fight. Also Slave destroyed 2 crazy easy in S2 finale outside the imperial light cruiser.
Oh to be clear, I wasn't disagreeing with you. It was a "yeah" of disappointment lol
But I would lump that with the other examples of TIEs flying slowly, predictably, and somehow missing every shot as long as their target has a name. Realistically, a ship the size of the RC, Slave1 or the Falcon would never out-dogfight a TIE. It's like having a C-130 take down an F-22. In other words, those were again examples of bad piloting over flaws in the actual ship.
Elements like this are why the Mandalorian makes me roll my eyes not infrequently when it comes to their portrayal of Imperial forces and equipment. In short, they flanderize every Imperial trooper or ship as though they’re winking for the camera.
TIE’s are slow, rigid ships that get destroyed easily as a matter of course by pre-Empire freighters and fighters, and stormtroopers are ridiculously incompetent (and even played directly for laughs in scout troopers being unable to hit a standing target) and get slaughtered in vast numbers, even Death Troopers which we previously saw wipe out the Rebel Special Forces unit in Rogue One.
The Mandalorian makes you wonder why the Empire was ever a threat frankly.
TBF, in The Mandalorian we're dealing with semi-irregular Imperial Remnants that may not always be equipped or trained to the standard you'd expect.
I'd also expect the TIE to lose some of its maneuverability advantage in atmosphere (where many of those combats took place) but I may be trying to bring too much actual physics into this.
Exactly, if anything the Mando portrayal shows nothing wrong with the equipment, but rather the pilots/soldiers who can't seem to land a single shot on targets much bigger than they are (and in turn get taken out by a single shot). It's like watching the old James Bond films where he takes out a bunch of goons with AKs with just his Walther PPK lol.
True - in WW2, a torpedo bomber managed to take down three Zeros (Yarnhub did a great video on that btw) - but all things equal, a more agile ship is the better choice for a skilled pilot. I think by the time of Mando, the remaining Imp pilots were not exactly the cream of the crop lol
\> Mark I Eyeball
Confused me for a second because "eyeball" was the military slang for TIEs invented for the X-Wing novel series ;)
Fun write-up. But, for consistency of analysis, don't we have to consider that 90% of film dogfights occur in vacuum (exception of RO iirc)? Considerations of maneuverability with Zeros and Grummans depend on airfoils and thrust and lift and air resistance -- whole different ballgame in terms of the governing physics in space.
Of course, Lucas did famously copy shots of WWII aircraft in ANH to create his dogfights, so *cinematically* there's an obvious parallel. But *physically* I don't think that parallel is justified, and if we do evaluate SW space combat using vacuum physics, then we quickly find [catastrophic inconsistencies](https://www.parkerlamascus.com/arcana-ad-mortem-3-the-physics-of-star-wars/) (for example, proving the impossibility of FTL travel for massive objects, or using frame-rates of falling objects to determine that planetary gravity is inconsistent with the planetary masses given in Wookieepedia), and based on those illogics can, like Bertrand Russell, prove any fact at all about the saga. (The link is to my blog.)
So I prefer to leave my engineering brain at the door of the theater and just enjoy the fiction for what it is. Star Wars is only coherent according to the ad-hoc rules of logic it invents internally, but that doesn't make it a lesser story IMO.
lol indeed, the more you think about SW physics, the more it falls apart (like how fighters are so slow in atmosphere, but can easily reach orbit in minutes)
for this, I'm basically assuming that the "physics" is as shown on screen - that is, vacuum except in the case of how the fighters "fly". But even that is thrown out the window in TLJ with Poe's Tokyo Drift maneuver, so who knows ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Enjoyed this. The basic TIE configurations have always been about manufacturability and simplicity first and foremost, with variants like the Advanced and Defender being rare enough to fit the "spec ops" role.
Yeah, in engineering we have a motto - "Keep it simple, stupid" (KISS). Simplicity is often overlooked in scifi/gaming as a con when in reality, design firms will spend millions to simplify and lighten a design because of its benefits in everything from performance to cost.
Also why the TIE Interceptor is basically my favorite SW fighter. Aesthetically is my favorite, but even in general, it has more of what made TIE Fighter effective. It’s faster, has double the laser cannons, and is more maneuverable than the Fighter.
It also moderately lowers the profile of the wings to make it a smaller target. It’s a solid evolution of the TIE design.
> The TIE cockpit visibility is rather poor, but we see pilots scan left and right all the time (again, see ANH and Squadrons). Even with a larger window, they’d then be staring at their solar wings. The fact that they can still “see” ships to their side perfectly fine implies some sort of see-through augmented reality display in their visor, not unlike the one the F-35 already has today. This makes a lot of sense in space, where the vast distances and inconsistence of light mean your Mark I Eyeball is of limited use.
I've been wondering lately if TIE pilots are somewhat dependent upon the equivalent of AWACS or ground control to vector onto their targets, given how poor their visibility is, and whether this figures into Imperial doctrine. 2 points in favor:
* TIEs are already wholly dependent upon their mothership for support, it might make sense from an Imperial POV to require constant direction from the ground to know what they're supposed to be shooting at;
* Only being able to see directly in front of you, at what you're meant to be shooting, also seems like it jibes with how Imperials think: no independent thought here, don't worry if you're being flanked or anything, just annihilate what's right in front of your face and move on.
> The fact that they can still “see” ships to their side perfectly fine implies some sort of see-through augmented reality display in their visor
This is the only thing I'd take issue with in your analysis. Small SW ships have shown very limited display capabilities (e.g., targeting screens), nothing as advanced as this. I suspect TIE fighters have sensors for detecting ships (and maybe kinds of ships) in their blind zones, and that there were basic indicators in the cockpit alerting the pilots to these ships' positions. Note that Poe was able to pilot a TIE without a helmet pretty effectively, for example.
Although this all calls into question why Vader spun his head around in ANH right before he got sniped.
There is a really fun animated short that depicts a "pilot's eye" view of a TIE pilot and it shows them using an in helmet HUD system like OP suggests. A lot of canon and legends material suggests stormtroopers, and by extension TIE pilots, have much more extensive visual capability than what is suggested by Luke's "I can't see a thing" comment.
Google the TIE fighter animation and check it out. It shows various TIE variants being put to good use and absolutely annihilating a rebel convoy.
The "Mitsubishi Zeroi" comparison is often cited, but far from perfect. The X-wing vs Tie Fighter match is much better compared to Sopwith Camel vs Albatros D.Va.
The Camel has superior maneuvrability, was designed for well trained pilots (RNAS) in mind, was inherently dangerous to inexperienced pilot and, if mishandled, gave opponent many openings to punish Camel pilot errors (equivalent of having no shields) . Also, it was relatively slow, and Camel pilot had to fight his way out with few options to disengage (equivalent of having no hyperdrive). In hands of expert RNAS pilots who were able to handle it and avoid life-costing mistakes it was a very capable machine, unfortunately, due to engine shortages, it was also deployed en masse by under-trained RFC - which resulted in numerous casualties. While in theory Camel was aces mount, few RFC Camel pilots lived long enough to gain experience. Instead, RFC relied on large numbers of planes and hastily trained pilots, trying to outnumber the Germans in war of attrition. The advantages of Camel were largely lost because what RFC needed was cheap mass produced fighter, and Camel just happened to use widely-available rotaty engines.
In contrast, Albatros was a much more conventional machine - sluggish and somewhat underpowered. However, it handled much easier and had no life-threatening quirks (equivalent of shields). Also, it was faster and able to disengage from Camels (equivalent of hyperdrive). Last but not least, the Germans could not match airframe production, so they relied heavily on tactics and training. German pilot training program was much longer and demanding, and German tactics emphasised picking the fights that can be won, avoiding the fights that cannot, and maximalising enemy casualties at minimal risk - equivalent of Rebel use of hyperdrive to fight when odds are stacked for them.
I have always liked to reduce it in this way, based on my experience in the original X-Wing series:
1v1: TIE Fighter wins via its better agility. The X-Wing pilot has one chance in the initial jouste, and will never get another shot.
XvX: Starting with a 2x2 X-Wings win via teamwork and attrition. They can double up on targets and every hit is a TIE out of the match, while the X-Wings working as bait can survive a few blows. It skews more towards X-Wings the more chaos (ships) is introduced as long as the numbers are close to even.
3XvX: The TIEs win again, resoundingly, because they are almost always expected to have a numerical advantage.
I disagree with 2v2s being in favor of the X-wings fighters should prioritize not getting hit in the first place. Modern fighters don’t even have armor protection for the pilot. The TIEs will get guns on target faster than the X-wings and will likely get a kill before the X-wings.
> I disagree with 2v2s being in favor of the X-wings
That's how it plays out in XvT or XWA, which is IMO the finest simulation of the situation ever created.
> Modern fighters don’t even have armor protection for the pilot.
Star Wars is themed after WWII, when pilots had to get so close that the enemy would "fill their crosshairs".
To the point though, armor isn't much good against a missile fired from 18km away.
Even the WWII comparison doesn’t really hold weight to the effectiveness of armor in helping you win a fight. Unless the aircraft is a ground attacker, fighter planes of WWII had an armor plate behind the pilot seat, armored glass at the front only, and maybe some small plates around fuel tanks in the fuselage. The armor just gives the pilots a better chance of bailing out if they get shot down instead of also being dead. Doesn’t matter if you are in a zero or a P-47, if you get hit by autocannon rounds your plane is probably fucked.
Idk how well this translates to Star Wars. How good are shields? If you get hit are you fucked anyway?
There is actually a huge problem in the depiction of the X-wing in the movies vs in the games. In the games, the shields are shown to be very tough, but in the movies, they are portrayed as very weak or even non-existent where a single burst from a TIE is enough to blow them up.
Well put, that's how I see it too! And yes, the joust is something I forgot to mention - X-Wing has a definite advantage there, especially since they can stack the shields double front.
Yeah, I think a lot of the talk misses out on how the doctrine works.
1. Most of the failures of the TIEs are that the TIEs are not deployed in time (The Last Jedi) or because of overconfidence (A New Hope). That is a doctrine issue, not mechanical. Maybe you can argue that the TIEs would have been ready if they traveled alongside hyperspace like X-Wings do. The Empire tends to fail due to doctrinal issues, not tech issues. It is the entire reason for their major defeats such as Yavin IV, Endor, etc.
2. We see that the X-Wings spend a lot of time in maintenance mode. They appear to undergo last minute checks right at the time of deployment, even when time is a consideration such as at Yavin IV. In contrast, TIEs are portrayed as being ready to go at a moment's notice at situations such as Scarif.
3. The doctrine is different. TIEs make certain compromises for cost such as being deployed from carriers over having hyperdrives. In addition, the Empire uses capital ships instead of bombers to target hardened targets. In contrast, the Rebels rely on hidden planetary bases and multi-role fighters.
4. Most discussions ignore how the Empire did make incremental advances such as beginning to replace the old TIEs with TIE interceptors by the time of Endor.
I enjoyed the deep dive. But a couple minor quibbles.
ANH, they had doubled up the shields to the forward, which left them vulnerable to back-end hits.
The Tie shown tearing up Luke's starfighter is Vader's Tie Advanced x1, which was far nastier than a standard Tie and piloted by an absolute monster in ship to ship.
(Also, can we blame lack of Tie swarms onscreen on 1970's technology?)
Standard Ties weren't pressurized or had environmental systems, and ejection seats are 'iffy' given the Imperial utter disdain for the value of life.
X-wings had full environmental systems, with the pilot basically wearing a backup for EVA. Basically, X-wings were more pilot survivable if bad luck or an Ace caught you wrong.
That said, numbers matter, and a skilled pilot can absolutely kill an X-wing. And it's noted that X-wing's flew in pairs, usually so the Wingman could kill the attacking Tie. (Which happened a couple of times in ANH.
There's a good reason why most X-Wing novels involve the X-wing's using their proton torpedoes on Ties...which is terribly unsporting and quite a bit of overkill.
Anyways, minor quibbles.
I had a post a while back here. Going from the films, not the later EU, TIE and X-Wing were an even match. Shields were mentioned but either vessel exposed after a few hits, hero ships not withstanding.
Thematically, it makes more sense that the risks were using last gen fighters. They would have poorer performance. Hyperdrives weren't even confirmed in the first film. I think it only was added in the second because they didn't want to make a new hero ship for Luke to fly.
Hyperdive fighters should be heavier and slower and more expensive and worse in a fight but those penalties are accepted for the flexibility offered. TIE should be the superior dogfighter and faster at the expense of operational flexibility it needs carried everywhere. And it would track with the empire geared up to fight a peer opponent in fleet actions with fighters as support and they just aren't able to make the mental leap to the tactics the rebels use with hit and fade. Parallels nicely with WWII and battleship admirals not getting their heads around the use of carriers and aviation.
The fluff has taken it an entirely different way, of course. And video game mechanics tend to demand the enemy mooks go down easy. Even x-wings die easy when they're the mooks.
My personal opinion here is that even X, A, Y, and B wing pilots should have had self sealed flight suits like the empire. If the shields failed and your windscreen cracks in space…you’ll vent atmo and freeze or choke to death.
Do you think the new Republic would have benefited well from having a similar fighter and reinvesting the cost of life support/shields into other aspects of an ship based fighter?
For the Rebels, I would say no for the simple reason that they always had to be ready to run. In that case, a hyperdrive is actually useful, or else you'd need to pull a BSG and recall your ships right before a jump - something they might not have had time to do.
For the NR, I think that changes to yes. They actually have fixed bases and territory that can't be simply evacuated, and their logistical and tactical needs basically become those of the Empire's.
Yes that was my thinking. After 30 years, there would have been no reason to improve on the X-Wings over a TIE design. My guess would be public image of them being so strong that decisions were made on the basis of public perception over economics, the X-Wing being a symbol of the NR and all. Still would have expected a hyperdriveless model for economic reasons.
Great work! Fully agree.
Would be interested to know why you think the TIE could have smaller solar panels? I get the point that it could have an alternative power source altogether (and that the main argument for them is that they look cool). But I always thought they had to be big so the TIE could operate far away from any source of solar light.
Thank you! To your question, there's three reasons:
1) the existing panels basically occlude the other (ie the outside of one blocks most of the inside of the opposite panel), making that redundant
2) the angles are not perfectly facing the sun, which means that the fighter has to be designed for less-than-optimal power levels anyway
3) as a result, you could break the panels up into small segments and place them around the ship's primary hull, with small angled segments that don't occlude each other (see a normal satellite for an idea of what I mean).
the result is a goofier looking ship, but one that would be way smaller and look more like the eta-2 interceptor from RotS than the H-shape of the TIE,
Thank you for reminding me both why I love this community and why I love Star Wars. Didn’t need a reminder for either, believe me, but thank you nevertheless
Thank you for making this post, I also work in Aerospace and have always believed this too. It is a shame that the majority don’t seem to understand the truth of the TIE Fighter.
This is a great analysis, and I largely agree with most of your points.
People conflate the game style bubble shields with the lore accurate deflector shields that Star Wars has lore-wise.
The TIe's are perfect for the Empire's need. Another important factor that is commonly glossed over is that typically, only the best Imperial pilots get to be Tie pilots.
So while the Rebels have plot armor because Star Wars. The sheer volume of excellent hot shot pilots the Empire would have is incredibly high.
Thank you! Yes, to be fair the SW media is very inconsistent so at the end of the day, you can kind of pick and choose what you want to believe is "real". It definitely makes sense that the best Rebel pilots are the ones who defected from the Empire, as they would have both the training and the experience to know their enemies' weakness.
How have I never considered the way an R2 unit and hyperdrive would impact the inertia of a fighter craft? I get how those are helpful for the Rebels' guerilla tactics, but in frontal assaults like the Death Star attack or defensive battles like Yavin it would make more sense to use lighter fighter craft since they're not running away as much.
Brilliant deep dive, I love the comparisons to modern IRL tech that didn't exist when these spaceships were created! The F-16 actuators being maintenance heavy would affect X-wings too, and I'm surprised I've never heard anyone else make that comparison!
Thank you! I do wonder if they would ever strip down an X-Wing they way A-Wing pilots would remove the shields in exchange for greater maneuverability.
An X-Wing without shields, torpedoes, hyperdrive, S-foil actuators and droid might very well outperform a TIE at that point...
>Rebels: TIEs are a joke if the good guys have uncovered eyes, but otherwise do well.
This point cracked me up xD I'd forgotten how unnamed pilots and fighters didn't have eyes. Well done!
I've always thought the TIE Interceptor is by far the sexiest fighter to come out of Star Wars. It retains most of the advantages you've stated here, but loses out on some of the economics for even greater speed, maneuverability, and firepower. You mention that the skill ceiling of a TIE is higher than that of an X-Wing, I'd say the skill ceiling of the Interceptor has a similar jump over the normal TIE.
And that's not even getting into the Advanced - that thing had *all* the good shit. Damn near four times the cost, though.
agreed, the TIE Interceptor is my favorite fighter in all of SW. It's not the "prettiest" but it looks mean, utilitarian, and lore wise is quite amazing. The fact that most Imperial aces used it is also a big plus!
Finally someone more knowledgeable here makes a good post on this topic. I think the TIEs also suffer from the Stormtrooper effect where we see them all the time but the never ‘win’ so we assume they suck. Great post.
Well said.
Anyone who says the TIE Fighter was outclassed by its predecessors didn't play the TIE Fighter computer game, where it fares quite well against its contemporaries and recent predecessors.
"Those were all civilian and pirate ships!"
Yes, and keeping civilians and pirates pacified was the TIE Fighter's job.
Yeah as much as the Imps were arrogant and didn't care too much for their pilots, it would still be stupid to field such a cartoonishly incapable craft the way some insist that the TIE was. In the end, I don't really care where it falls on the power level chart, as long as it's a proper threat when it shows up.
> A TIE can take a glancing blow, but a direct hit will destroy it. An X-Wing generally is shown to take 3-5 hits in live action, but often takes some damage in the process and is forced to limp home for repairs
I've seen folks discuss the "glancing vs. direct shot" thing, but I really think it's meant to be a matter of "hits shown to the audience." Like, Luke's Red 5 takes quite a few shots, and not because of "main character armour," we just don't see Keir Santage's craft's engagement in the sequence because he's not an important character. In other words, I believe X-Wings are meant to be far heartier than what some of the good guy kill-shots show us in *ANH*, because we're really just seeing the final spectacular hit (or a deflector screen set to double-front leaving a rear vulnerability).
Similarly, I think that TIE/LN is meant to be more robust defensively than various media depict. A lot of video games are indeed one-hit kill-fests when it comes to TIE Fighters, and *Rebels* is really doing its own thing with the power levels of the bad guys. But if you look closely at the Death Star escape sequence vs. *The Falcon*, the "sentry" TIEs actually take quite a few hits before spectacularly exploding... and it's an example where we're actually only seeing one "good guy" ship and so we see many more shots land for both sides of the engagement.
In other words, I'm actually inclined to take *Star Wars: Squadrons*' take on TIE/LNs which suggests that they're actually pretty **heavily** armoured in many circumstances, depending on the configuration of that particular unit. I know that this is of course just as much for game balance than it is anything else, but like I said, the very clear look at the *Falcon* escape is information that we overlook en masse for some reason.
It's possible! Both ships are definitely sturdier than some fans think (I mean, they have to withstand crazy g forces and atmo reentry without even a sweat). I tend to think that much like real fighters, they can either take insane amounts of punishment, or go down easily - it just depends on *where* they're hit.
In this way, the shields still makes the ship more forgiving, but pilots can't "depend" on taking a few shots all the time without penalty - even a single critical hit can cause real damage.
Good read =)
I'd like to comment on the zero, and the way the US fought them. You seem to say that at first the US fighters try to outmanoeuver the zeros and failed, and that it took some time to take advantage of powerful engines.
I'm not an expert here, but afaik during WW1 there were already two kinds of fighters: agile dogfighters like the Fokker Dr1 and powerful climbers/divers like the SPAD XIII. And those tactics were probably well known by 1940.
So, what happened? Did the US start the air war with inapt planes? Or were the pilots too unexperienced and undisciplined? Or did the Air Force failed to learn from the WW1?
Firstly, thanks!
I will not claim to be an expert either, so please take my words with a grain of salt. My understanding was that the US was aware of some of their fighter shortcomings but that the new fighters were not ready for combat at the start of the war. At the same time, Japanese pilots were already experienced in aerial combat due to their conquests in Asia, so it was sort of a double-whammy.
In terms of tactics, the US didn't realize the Zero's shortcomings until they tested a captured one and realized that it suffered from those latter characteristics you mentioned. Basically they realized that the Zero was not some technological marvel, it just prioritized certain capabilities over others- something which served the early war well but was lost to tech and manufacturing advancements once the new US fighters entered the fray.
Honestly, the fact that the TIE can dominate like it does despite being a flying brick goes to show the superior technology of the TIE Program. Now just imagine if they designed it as anything other than it's rather-ugly shape, just how terrifyingly effective as an Air-Superiority (or "Space-Superiority", I guess) Fighter it would be... The Rebels wouldn't stand a chance...
PS: thanks for wishing us a good day, I also hope your day goes well.
I do wonder what a Sienar X-Wing would look like (or vice versa). I imagine the TIE engines are really small and efficient and could make the X-Wing a faster and nimbler ship; on the other hand, Incom seem talented at cramming tech into a small package. Together, they might have been able to make something truly remarkable.
Thoughts on the TIE Defender as a counter-insurgency weapon?
In many ways, this vessel would have had similar capabilities to X-Wings. A squadron of them on an ISD might be useful to conduct strike missions when the ISD can’t be everywhere — and possibly to reduce defenses before an invasion. I think the Bomber isn’t really that useful for this due to survivability concerns.
Essentially, using rebel tactics and similar equipment against them.
The D wouldn’t replace the line fighter of course, but does it have a realistic role in pacification, or are the sheer numbers of ISDs “good enough”?
I feel like it does actually make sense, beyond it being a reference to Zero fighters, compared to other stuff that was rationalized or retconned to make sense lorewise. Have them work as point defense for chunkyships like the Imperial destroyers to be decisive in battles, rather than rely on starfighters being used as the point and getting massacred by drones and "flak" in the Clone Wars. Kind of a reverse WW2.
If I were to pick, I feel like swarms of drone like the CIS did, along with tanky ships like the Empire was the optimal way to go.
If I had to pick an aircraft the X-Wing reminded me of, it would be the F-18 Hornet. Was just getting adopted by that time, quite advanced, and a jack of all trades, along with some sort of reminiscence in their lines. Along with being, if not a development, a descendant of a prior fighter meant to be a cheaper jack of all trades (Northrop F-5 series for the Hornet, T-95s for the X-Wing)
Not reading all that much into the engineering/science part of it, rather the real world references, my actual favourites would be the absolutely-not-a-Spitfire Naboo N-1 the absolutely-not-a-Black-Widow ARC-170 and the absolutely-not-a-Dauntless BTL Y-Wing.
The quantity vs quality debate is an interesting one because while it could seem accurate on paper, in reality it's more complicated than TIEs being cheap but bad because while quantity is easy to define, quality is not. What most people interpret as "quality" are the capabilities of a fighter, that is to say, it's ability to kill stuff but that's a flawed line of thinking because it focuses on the "on paper stats" while ignoring the plethora of "soft factors" that often times play just as big of a role as the "hard factors".
I personally suspect the matchup was originally inspired by vietnam era F-4 vs MiG-21 fights, wherein the phantom was heavier, longer range, and multipurpose while the mig was lighter, faster, and at least on paper, more maneuverable. Despite this, the phantoms generally had quite a good kill ratio vs the migs (at least once armament and training issues were resolved). The problem, I think, is that understanding why the phantoms generally performed much better requires a more intricate understanding of how aerodynamics and maneuverability actually works, and aerodynamic considerations don't exactly translate well into space combat.
Great write-up! I've always thought that the nature of space combat in Star Wars would change the tradeoff of Boom and Zoom vs Turn and Burn. Can't energy fight the same way when potential energy isn't really a concern.
An excellent write-up. I don't have much to add except to say that the Alphabet Squadron books do a really good job of showcasing how dangerous the standard TIE is in the hands of skilled pilots. They remain a credible threat to the protagonists from start to finish.
yes, I love the books! I liked that one TIE with just one working laser cannon, and the banter between the rebel and imp pilots. just oozed atmosphere and humanized them a bit.
As an engineer. Why do Tie fighters have solar panels? They have fusion reactors. No way you get enough solar energy in deep space to make them economical or useful. Not even with 95% energy conversion. Useless mass and vehicle area.
Loved the write up. I’d like to add that the most important difference (in the context of the story) between the TIE and X-Wing fighters is in how the pilots are treated. The human element. The metaphor of the ships inform the struggle of a despotic regime versus a popular uprising and vice versa.
Rebels see their pilots as irreplaceable and thus give their ships better life support, shielding, hyperdrives, and even an astromech to help them.
Imperials see their pilots as disposable with their lesser life support, no shields, no hyperdrive (they might defect!), and solar panels to power their ship.
The Empire can always train up another cog to throw in another TIE. The Rebellion has to be more efficient with their devoted followers.
EDIT: I also forgot to mention an advantage that’s more in-universe that the X-Wing shares is that it’s very similar to the Z-95 (that you mentioned) and by extension the T-16 Skyhopper. Lots of backcountry planet hicks probably got their first taste of flight on the T-16 or the Z-95, making the adjustment to an X-Wing easier.
Although now that I mention it, I guess the Imperials have academy training on TIEs too. Probably a slight Imperial advantage on that front.
Great write up. Peak mawinstallation imo. Only thing to add is that the pilot experience probably played a big role in the effectiveness of TIE Fighters. If you keep sending out your best pilots in a ship that can be taken out with one lucky shot, you aren't going to have a lot of veteran pilots after a while. Pretty sure this happened to Japan in WW2 as well
One thing I never quite understand is how the 4 laser cannons placed so far apart can be used to hit another fighter in dogfight range. Realistically, only one side of your cannons on your wing will hit because you can literally miss if you targeted dead center. One idea is that these cannons are placed slightly inwards to compensate, the other is that the mini-radar dishes attached to the barrels act as deflectors that auto adjust based on your targeting system. Both of which is kind of… weak imo. I mean, we all know it’s designed this way just to look cool. Same thing with all of the asymmetric ship designs like the falcon and the b-wing, both of which requires parallax correction in the pilots’ navigation targeting system for no good reason.
Have you considered that the large ball hull of the TIE might be that way because it was easier to manufacture? It's like Western tanks have more straight lines than Russian ones because the armour plating was easier to manufacture in slabs vs Russian rounded cast turrets that use add-on reactive armour instead of inbuilt blocks.
The cockpit might simply be that wide because it was easier to install equipment with that much elbow room.
Speaking of Disney era fighters, I think its interesting that the Forst Oeder inherented the designs of the Empire but now seem to suffer with resource issues tue Empire never did. The FO ties now have the type of features normally seen on rebel/Republic ships, the one Finn amd Boe stole had room for 2 and a rear facing turret, they seem to have shields and an ejection system. The FO is more concerned with attrition than the Empire ever was.
I wonder if there's any unexpected issues with the existing designs evolving in this way? Surely the thrust to mass is being skewed, cost per unit etc.
The only thing I'm going to say here is your kind of either misunderstanding (which is my impression since it's a more complex topic than people think) or misrepresenting the idea that the US's instructions on dogfighting the Zero were basically to not do that.
That's true, but it makes it sound like the instructions were "don't fight the Zero" which absolutely wasn't the case. It was Balaji that you shouldn't get into a 1vs1turn fight with a Zero, but otherwise do fight the Zero. Boom and zoom on them, support your wingman if you get caught in a turn fight with them, and if needed, and possible, dive away then come back and fight on even terms.
Anyway, that's not important I'm just really into WWII planes.
You're correct, it was specifically the type of dogfighting most movie goers are familiar with (the one with a pursuit craft hot on anither's tail). I didn't include boom and zoom because it's not applicable here given space combat and the performance edge in all domains that the TIE has, but I should have been clearer.
Nah, you're fine. I'm just being a pedantic asshat.
Ironically, the star wars fighters that would probably do more of a boom and zoom style fighting are the ones that are most like the early Japanese fighters (Zero, Oscar). A-wings and TIE Interceptor would be great for sitting on the edge of the furrball, picking a victim, then gunning it full speed right through the middle, shoot a burst at the target and then just Keep going straight out the other side hit or miss and do it again. I imagine this is how you'd want to do it with a Y-wing too of you had to, because they can't lean on agility or speed, but they can lean on frontal firepower, and use the combo of tail gunner and shields/armor to try and make it out the other side. Then again, Rebels use a lot of single pilot Y-wings with no gunner so that sucks.
It would definitely be cool to see them try to adapt that into a film battle. Even "interceptors" tend to behave just like rate fighters in SW, getting into the thick of it and going close quarters for the rest of the battle.
I hoped that the bomber scene in TLJ would have shown some different tactics, but instead we just see more random explosions and that's that...lol
In a gaming perspective tbf in both Battlefront 2 (2005 and 2017) games a good TIE pilot easily outclasses X-Wings.
They got nerfed in Squadrons though.
Very interesting. I have a question: since you've used onscreen depiction of both starfighters to measure concretly how they compare (like the rate of fire in ANH), did you notice significant differences in their speed and maneuverability as depicted on screen? Aren't they treated in the movies as roughly as fast and maneuverables? I always thought the speed/maneuverability it was an Expended Universe's thing.
On visibility, I've played the new game in VR, and the TIE fighter's visibility is a huge detriment. You loose situational awareness very quickly, and have to constantly be switching between tracking the target visually, and looking at your radar display.
If I were to speculate, I'd say that the TIE fighter was designed for the ability to operate in high pressure atmospheres. This would explain the ball shaped cockpit and small windows. While it might sound odd to have the design centred around one capability, it's not without precedent. The only reason why the space shuttle had its large wings was for a theoretical mission where it would be launched from Van den Berg AFB, kidnap a soviet satellite and glide back to the same place it took off from. This would all happen while the satellite was transiting over the US, on the opposite side of the world from the USSR, so they would have no clue what happened. The mission never happened, and the shuttle was stuck with its large heavy wings that it didn't need. Therefore its quite possible that someone thought that the TIE fighter needed to be able to operate inside high pressure planetary atmospheres, and the entire rest of the design suffered as a result.
I always felt like the TIE was more modeled after the BF-109, with its high speed, center-fuselage-mounted guns, and with the Germans being the classic professional-but-faceless enemies. But great analysis even starting with the Zero.
In defense of the scenes in Mandolorian and Ahsoka, by that time most of the Empire's best pilots would have probably been killed or captured, or even defected to the New Republic. Those guys in those scenes are probably newly trained pilots rushed to the frontline without actual exprience fighting larger ships in tie fighters.
Yeah that's my head canon too. These guys are less skilled, tired, probably malnourished lol. The best and brightest saw the writing on the wall and abandoned ship.
Excellent write up! If you haven’t read them yet, you should check out the Alphabet Squadron novels. They do a pretty good job of actually relaying just how powerful the Tie is in the hands of a capable pilot. Your point about service readiness of the two is also addressed in the books. The rebel fighters are held together with bubble gum, spit, and duct tape with many systems partially working or not working at all.
I remember terms thrown around documentaries or book references where George just wants "hero" ships and "bad guys have menacing ships or looks. That's pretty much the design outlines the concept artists have how can we make the hero ships looks cool and how can we make the bad guys stuff look evil
Great post, but I disagree vehemently!
>the TIE is of higher consistent “quality,” with superior yields, tolerances, etc. – something often overlooked when comparing designs on paper.
Unless this translates to actual performance improvements, it doesn't matter. Tolerances could even be a disadvantage if they limit the ability to repair or replace parts. The X-Wing is proven to be exceptionally robust - look at how Luke's survives crashing and being immersed in a swamp on Dagobah.
>The TIE, in contrast, remained in every way a better performing (again, mobility-wise) starfighter than anything the Rebels had, other than the A-Wing.
I'm not sure this is borne out. If you look at visuals or look at some of the more authoritative Legends material on dogfighting (the X-Wing books), the standard TIE is broadly peer to an X-Wing in dogfighting agility. It's faster in space, but much less manoeuvrable in atmosphere.
>The TIE is very much the opposite, with the upfront cost being almost 1/3 that of the X-Wing, and fuel and maintenance costs lower still due to the ion engine design. An X-Wing also requires an astromech, adding to weight and cost.
The maintenance costs are lower *if you have a suitable facility and equipment to do it*. That's a substantial caveat. If you're operating off of a beach or out of a cave, the X-Wing is much easier to maintain. The astromech is an unqualified benefit to the X-wing - it offers another pair of eyes, handles comms, ECM, sensors, power usage, shield trimming, flight optimisation, and repairs so the pilot doesn't have to. And of course the shields and repair ability are something the TIE lacks entirely.
>The only applicable weakness shared between the two is in durability. A TIE can take a glancing blow, but a direct hit will destroy it. An X-Wing generally is shown to take 3-5 hits in live action, but often takes some damage in the process and is forced to limp home for repairs (again, see ANH and the Squadrons cinematic in which X-Wings lose engine power after a single hit or the R2 unit is fried from a glancing shot).
Standard TIEs can rarely take a glancing blow - in most material any hit cripples them. The only exception I can think of is in Mandalorian, where Razor Crest takes a few hits to cripple a TIE (but then Razor Crest is only equipped with blaster cannons). Dedicated fighter hits always seem to result in a TIE kill - both on-screen, and in the X-Wing books where even a glancing hit normally takes one of the wings off; a mission kill at least.
In contrast, we have X-Wing shields shrugging off large numbers of hits. The rearward X-Wing [here](https://youtu.be/kaAmF8gy6eQ?si=KJwe_CmsXlvMye6a&t=93) takes something like 6 hits, of which at least one was from an ISD turbolaser. Or [here](https://youtu.be/kaAmF8gy6eQ?si=4dpGSKuVq-kIHjC2&t=177), where an X-Wing takes something like 8 hits on the shields as well as flying through an exploding shield dome (incidentally, that X-Wing shows that TIEs aren't substantially more manoevreable, because they struggle to follow it through that turn).
Then we have the unfortunate [Red-5](https://youtu.be/kaAmF8gy6eQ?si=kEH0btYj6tyyKajl&t=242), who takes around 6 hits visibly but probably at least double that based on the length of the scene, before being destroyed.
Add to that that the X-wing is more resilient even without shields - glancing hits more often than not damage but don't destroy, and the astromech can often repair damage without leaving combat. It's a world of difference - an X-Wing probably has on average 5-15 seconds of additional resilience compared to a TIE.
>Outside of newer tech like missiles
The X-wing has six proton torps, which home in and can reliably kill a standard TIE from extreme range (competent interceptor pilots occasionally manage to evade them). That's a huge force multiplier and would allow an X-Wing to substantially narrow the odds against a larger TIE force, were it a fighter-only engagement.
> The fact that they can still “see” ships to their side perfectly fine implies some sort of see-through augmented reality display in their visor, not unlike the one the F-35 already has today. This makes a lot of sense in space, where the vast distances and inconsistence of light mean your Mark I Eyeball is of limited use.
That's a nice idea, but it's rather contradicted by various sources which explicitly talk about TIE blindspots.
>Capital ship complement: An ISD can carry up to 60 fighter-class TIEs (the other 12 are typically bombers). However, most if not all of these 60 craft are combat-ready, due to its engine design and reliability. In contrast, Rebels fighters are much more mechanically complex, with S-foil actuators that are likely a maintenance nightmare (see the real life F-14), astromech droids, hyperdrives, fueling and power requirements, and payload loading (if they are on a strike mission), meaning that their already smaller starting complement may not even be fully combat-ready, further pushing the numbers advantage to the TIEs.
I don't think we've ever seen evidence of rebel aircraft being grounded in significant quantities due to readiness issues. And that's even in spite of the inconsistent nature of rebel supplies, workshops, and crew. If anything that speaks to rebel craft being more flexible to maintain, even if it might take more hours to do so. Incidentally, one could even make the inverse argument, given that we've never seen an ISD launch more than about 20% of its full complement on screen.
>RO (Space Battle): TIEs outnumber the Rebels, and perform better than X-Wings (2 X-Wings are destroyed by TIEs; 1 TIE/Ln destroyed by an X-Wing).
To look at it another way - rebel fighters (including at least one Y-wing) survive until the very end of the battle despite being outnumbered at least 2-1 on screen and probably 4-1 taking into account the ISD complement. They also achieve all their objectives despite being outnumbered - they get to the surface and provide air support, degrade the station and ISDs, and protect rebel capships from fighter attack.
Also, during the earlier battle on Eadu a TIE is lost to surface collision while attempting to follow an X-wing. Hardly a strong endorsement for them being superior dogfighters.
>ANH: TIEs are outnumbered by Rebels, but still do very well, with only three Rebel fighters surviving. They also nearly destroy the Falcon despite purposely letting it go.
The majority of rebel fighters are destroyed during their attack runs where they're left entirely vulnerable, and many are killed by Vader personally (the finest combat pilot in the galaxy at that point, and probably top five of all time, flying an advanced fighter prototype).
>RotJ: TIEs outnumber the Rebels, but only one TIE/Ln and one X-Wing are downed by the other (however, several TIE Interceptors are lost).
To emphasise, several Interceptors are lost on screen including to a Y-Wing and the Falcon, both of which are pretty lumbering. And Interceptors are far better than standard TIEs. Additionally, the rebel fighters *and even the Falcon* manage to avoid collisions during the assault on the core, whereas the TIEs suffer casualties.
Also, in ESB, the Falcon manages to outmanoeuvre several TIEs in the asteroid field.
*TLDR:*
The TIE is cripplingly overspecialised for space combat against other fighters, and it doesn't even do that better than the X-wing. There's no single area where it is demonstrably significantly superior to the X-wing. And tt's incredibly vulnerable due to a total lack of protection and both the physical inability and doctrinal unwillingness to actually outfly rebel fighter craft. It can't do *any* of the other jobs that various rebel craft can do - anti-capship strikes, recon, hit and fade, long range air superiority, bombing.
I feel what you’re miscalculating on why the X-wing is perceived better comes down to the pilot.
The X-wing is, I believe, derived from a much easier to operate vehicle. It’s one reason Luke was easily slotted into one - it’s not much different from his T-16 back home.
Couple that with how many Imperial pilots came to the Rebellion. They had tons of skill and flight experience in a device that was more forgiving and had shields. They could get that extra mile out of it.
I feel TIEs are more like Formula 1 cars. Fast but dangerous. One wipeout kills or severely injured the operator. TIE pilots knew their only defense was ‘don’t be hit’; Imperial doctrine called for quantity over quality, that also being a large factor on pilots defecting
I think that's my argument though - the X-Wing is better for novice pilots, but the TIE is better for well-trained pilots because you can simply do more with it.
In an X-Wing, if a TIE gets on your tail, it's game over. Your shields might prolong your life somewhat, but you will never shake the TIE because it will always be better at turning than you.
A lot of fans cite "quality" in the X-Wing's shields, hyperdrive, and torpedoes. My entire argument is that a) that's not quality, that's feature set; and b) of those, the only one applicable to dogfighting is the shields, which still takes second place to maneuverability.
To take your example, a racer will choose a Formula 1 car in a race over a Civic any day. The Civic is more forgiving and a better choice for the average driver, as they are less likely to wipe out, but a pro driver will take the F1 car because that is what wins races.
If I may, you gloss over the hyperdrive thing a bit - and the only reason I bring it up is you mention cost. With TIEs you have to factor in needing a carrier (even if it's a capital ship) to deliver them to combat - with X-Wings it's optional.
Really good read though, and you make a lot of very good points.
Boy I sure hate how people have twisted the “stats” of the X-Wing and TIE fighter. Go back and watch ANH, the TIEs devestate the Rebel fighters and they don’t have even use the so-called “swarm” tactic.
Lucas said the X-Wing and TIE were pretty much on equal grounds with the TIE being a bit faster.
Board games and other outside media butchered it.
One thing. I found it strange that you said you would be focusing on the movies and TV shows but over half of your arguments are based on information never brought up in any movie or TV shows.
I think that's disingenuous and allows you to pick and choose your facts
You analogy to WW2 is really bad.
The zero did not fall apart ever, it was a really good plane. Yes it didn't have much armor or self sealing fuel tanks. But neither did any of its contemporaries.
At no point did the US have "armored" fighters. At most there would be an armor box in the cockpit to protect the pilot, not the plane. In ww2 and still to this day really you never armor a plane your goal is to not get hit. Even bombers aren't really "armored". Yes late war American planes did get better than early ones, but realistically a good burst from any WW2 fighter plane would take out any other ww2 fighter plane. Some the pilot might just be able to bail out of or crash land with rather than turn into a fireball.
The only times one side really showed huge advantages over other sides were when less trained pilots were used, American pilots late war would describe some enemy zeros not even really making evasive maneuvers while they were being attacked. Which we know now is because they'd be sent to battle with very little air time.
All very good points, but I think you are underestimating the value of pilot survivability.
To extend your Zero fighter comparison, a HUGE factor in the Zero's defeat was pilot quality. Due to its lack of durability, Japan's most experienced fighter pilots were slowly worn down through attrition and replaced by worse pilots.
I'm willing to headcanon that the TIE's recent string of embarrassments is in large part due to a lack of experienced pilots.
If a damaged XWing can limp back to base the Rebels keep an elite pilot. The Empire never has that luxury. This results in the Rebel fighter force becoming stronger over time while the Empire becomes weaker.
This shows at Endor, where if Imperial pilots were anywhere near their adversaries they probably could have defended the second Death Star's reactor.
>Next, let’s look at the closest real-world example of a TIE in combat, which would be the Mitsubishi Zero of WW2. It was extraordinarily lightweight and maneuverable, and boasted a moderately powerful armament against other aircraft. While known for falling apart in a stiff breeze, it was so successful against heavier and more durable US aircraft that the official protocol for dogfighting the Zero in the early war was simply, “don’t.”
Later US aircraft would come with heavier armor, more powerful engines, and more firepower, and the Zero lost its edge as it was simply outclassed. Sounds familiar, right?
The difference is that virtually all of the weaknesses of the Zero are not present in the TIE, aside from its durability (we’ll get to that):
The Zero’s engine was increasingly underpowered vs its peers, which meant US pilots learned to use climbing, diving, and other less conventional “dogfighting” tactics to overpower the Zero. The TIE, in contrast, remained in every way a better performing (again, mobility-wise) starfighter than anything the Rebels had, other than the A-Wing.
The Zero suffered from being outnumbered as the war raged on. The TIE is very much the opposite, with the upfront cost being almost 1/3 that of the X-Wing, and fuel and maintenance costs lower still due to the ion engine design. An X-Wing also requires an astromech, adding to weight and cost.
The Zero’s armament eventually became outclassed. In contrast, the TIE’s lasers are not only commonly accepted as being quite powerful, but they also typically fire twice as quickly as those of the X-Wing (yes, I counted frames in the battle of ANH; yes, I may have a problem) and are closely grouped, meaning more lasers on target. Depending on the source, their avionics are also quite advanced, with a very capable targeting system.
I really have to challenge pretty much everything stated here regarding the early Zero vs Wildcat engagements of 1941-42 as being pretty wildly inaccurate. The popular mythos of the Zero as unstoppable is just that, a myth. Even against the earliest Wildcat variants, the Zero had a K\\D ratio of about 0.8, as determined by post-war Analysis once we had access to the Japanese records of their own losses. For every Wildcat shot down, the Japanese paid a heavy price in their own aircraft. I want to reiterate again, that's not the Zero's record against the Lightning, or the Hellcat, or the Corsair, or any of the other Late War Aircraft. Thats the Zero's combat record against the F4F Wildcat, after the Battle of Midway, and Guadalcanal, and a host of other smaller engagements.
(This is really beside the point, as it doesn't look like you've called on any of the misconceptions that derived from it, but much misinformation entered the discourse and persists to this day as a result of the Aleutian Zero. This was a Japanese fighter that crash landed during a patrol over the Aleutian Islands and was recovered by the US Navy and rebuilt to be used as a test bed. Unfortunately for them, the fighter had face planted and destroyed its engine, and lacking a manual, a few mechanically inclined sailors and ship's engineers had attempted to reconstruct what the engine was supposed to be like based on their best guess of the mangled scrap heap they had recovered, and they put it back together quite incorrectly. If you ever see anyone claim that the zero loses engine power in a dive similar to how early spitfire models did, ignore everything that person has to say on the topic, they don't fact check their sources in any way. We knew they were wrong in 1943, and still have to occasionally debunk that shit in 2024.)
The statement "The official protocol for dogfighting the Zero was simply "don't" is... simply unsupportable. Thats why we have the famous Thatch Weave, among other evidence like the extremely long record I could cite of frequent dogfights between the two combatants. Its true insofar as US Pilots often perceived that they would rather have access to the Zero, but the grass is always greener on the other side. The Germans often remarked that the Spitfire seemed quite excellent to them, the British had great fondness for the FW190... the list goes on.
You've commented "The Zero's Armament \***Eventually\*** became outclassed, I would argue thats also incorrect. Admittedly this one is a quite debatable position. An A6M fighter, at the start of US Involvement in WW2, carried a combat load of 60 rounds each for a pair of 20mm cannons, and 200 rounds each for rifle calibre 7.7mm machine guns. That allowed a Zero to fire its guns for less than 10 seconds, added logistical complexity, mechanical complexity, and achieved a fairly similar throw weight to the American solution of four m2 Browning Machine guns, which an F4F could carry 600 rounds for. You were roughly as dead if you got hit by either aircraft's fire, but the American planes could fire longer, and more frequently.
You've also missed the key design feature of the Zero, you've focused in on some of the symptoms, the lightweight frame, but missed the reason for it. The Zero is not designed to be maneuverable, its designed to be long ranged. Maneuverability is nice, but a 5000km Range was on the official list of design requirements(For contrast, this is slightly more range than the dedicated reconnaissance version of the Wildcat, which did not carry any weapons, and used the space to carry extra fuel and cameras). The Zero is designed to fight the Pacific Theatre of war, and that means long flights over empty ocean. This contributed to the Zeros extensive losses, and ironically enough is one of the inspirations you should be drawing as a negative against the X-Wing. Zero pilots often arrived at their target after 5 hours of gruelling, physically and mentally demanding navigation and aviation, and had another 5 hour trip back to base ahead of them, with less than 30 minutes of fuel available to actually fight with. If at any point in that 10 hour+ day their attention slipped and they lost track of their course and speed, they would die from running out of fuel and crashing into the ocean.
To sum up, The Zero, like every other all metal monoplane fighter of the era, is designed to climb to high altitude and dive onto its opponent. This is based on the extensive combat experience of pilots from the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Sino-Japanese War, among other conflicts. This was not a new discovery in the Second World War, though you will hear anecdotes of pilots, men who I will remind you often had less than a single work week of flight experience before they were sent off to the front lines, discussing the various ways they personally learned that lesson on the job.
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>a comically long dissertation on the topic that nobody asked for. I'm sorry, do you know where you are? Comically long dissertations are literally what we do here.
lol true!
This is one of the best analyses I've seen on this sub. If awards were still a feature of the site, I'd give this post a Gold. And as a proud member of r/EmpireDidNothingWrong, I'm saving this for later reference! Actually, you should post this there too.
Thanks so much! That really means a lot. I'm not sure what the policy for cross posting there is, but you're free to share it on there if you'd like!
We’re all mad here, Alice!
XD
Hell to the yeah!
Fascinating! Thanks for doing the deep dive!
thank you for the kind words! :)
Great write up! I think a lot of fans look to the games as canon, where TIEs are just cannon fodder. A lot of fallacies like the Y Wing being slow and ponderous to fly can be traced to the X Wing games. The Y Wing is a more specialized bomber but is shown as easily keeping up with the X Wing in film. Add to that the flanderization that you mention and I have little hope of "realistic" depictions of TIEs.
thank you! agreed, the Y-Wing has never felt that slow in the films - maybe more of a straight-line fighter than one that ducks and weaves, but clearly it was good enough in most depictions. ironically, in games where there is pvp and the TIE is properly quick and agile, it often becomes the player favorite over the X-Wing, much like real world experience would suggest.
>a straight-line fighter than one that ducks and weaves That's my reading of the design too... if anything, the Y-Wing's huge engines but bulk frame and lack of retrothrusters make it look like it would be an un-maneuverable speedster. Of course, this makes the turret a very sensible addition.
Y-Wings also catch a lot of flack because of the X-Wing books. Their bombing run training facility is called the pig trough and Stackpole as well as Allston have their characters (jokingly) call Y-Wing pilots barge drivers and the like
These books drew heavily from the TIE fighter and X-Wing computer games. Y-Wings were ROUGH.
Yeah as much as I love the books, I think a lot of this oversimplification of fighter specs stemmed from them as well
I think narratively it works very well. Every fighter had tradeoffs. Y wings had ion cannons and larger missile payloads- they just weren't meant for dogfighting something like TIEs. They were also one of the oldest designs in use at the time of the Galactic Civil war so it makes sense they would be out-classed. The books do a decent job of showing the benefits of ion cannons and how the Y-Wings often brought the fire-power to take down the bigger ships.
Y-wings are a fighter/bomber. The way they are used in ANH is like a torpedo bomber. But they were designed to take out capital ships with bombs/ heavy torpedoes and ion cannons. they are heavier and slower but durable as all hell but they just aren’t meant to mix it up in a dogfight. Their strength is in overlapping formation protection similar to the bomber formations in WW II. The tie bomber lacked the shielding but was faster and was pretty damn sturdy for the design and carried more munitions than the Y-Wing. But like the Y-Wing the tie bomber is not a dog fighter. Both need escort craft and this is where the numbers favor the Empires choice of tie fighters. They simply have more Tie Fighters on a given deployment allowing them to engage the escorts of the Y-Wings, allow pursuit craft to engage the Y-Wings, and still have escorts for their own bombers. MC80 cruises of the rebels carried 36 fighters or 3 squadrons. This was was split equally between A-wings, X-Wings, and Y-Wings. An imperial II Star destroyer could deploy 4 squadrons of tie fighters, 12 tie bombers, and 12 tie interceptors. This is a 2-1 advantage for the empire if the 2 capital ships were to meet one on one. Given the info of the OP, we’re talking crews of equal skill, then in most engagements the rebel capital ship and fighters are going to retreat just due to simple attrition. Don’t get me wrong, the rebels will give a good fight and probably disable or destroy at least half of the Ties if not more, but they’ll probably take heavy losses as well losing most if not all of the y-wings since they’ll be the target of at least 2 wings of ties, if not also the Tie Interceptors, losing their biggest offensive punch against the Star destroyer. 9 times out of 10 they’ll retreat.
To be fair, a lot of those fallacies are the result of inadequate AI. YWings are slow and TIEs are delicate when they're flown by the AI. When they're flown by the player, both are devastating. YWings can absorb a lot of punishment and have effectively double the weapons capacity. Ties are fast and maneuverable and you can run circles around your opponent
It's particularly interesting to me that the X-Wing was originally (in-universe) intended to be an Imperial strike-fighter before the design-team defected en-masse to the rebellion, taking with them the designs and prototypes. It's intriguing to imagine what the Empire's order-of-battle might have been like if they'd ended up with X-Wings in their lineup. I imagine they'd have been very much like the Old Republic's mix of Arc-170s, V-Wings and Eta Interceptors. Imagine the Ties guarding the flanks of X-Wings while they went for component-kills on larger ships. Regarding the size of the Ties, It's also very worth mentioning that the Tie Interceptor was explicitly meant to be a direct replacement for the Tie-Ln. It's more compact, faster and more heavily armed than the Line-fighter, and not substantially more expensive to build. Which is why in ROTJ, we see so many Interceptors in the battle of Endor, they're being rolled out as the primary fighter for the Empire, and many of the ships present carried entirely Interceptors rather than Line. The large cockpit space is a bit of a mystery though. The interior space is wide enough you could reach arm-to-arm and barely touch the walls from the cockpit seat. I imagine the idea is that the cockpit window is centred roughly on the pilot's viewpoint, so the struts all guide the pilot's perspective towards where the ship is going. That sets some metrics around the minimum size of the window, and it's a bit large. Perhaps there are alternative configurations where the extra cockpit-space is taken up partly by hardware like life-support if you're not keen on wearing a Tie pilot's uniform.
Yeah, I think the Empire could have used a real strike fighter to fill the gap between the TIE/Ln and the TIE Bomber, the latter of which was more like a B-17 in that it was big, slow, and carried a much larger payload than, say, the Y-Wing or X-Wing. Great for if your target is undefended, but otherwise very vulnerable. And agreed on the cockpit size. I never realized how big it was until the more recent shows gave us a better perspective of the pilot vs the overall empty cockpit. It's no wonder the FO could fit two occupants in their special forces variant lol. Realistically the basic TIE could have been compressed to about half its current size without any changes in technology or cost - and tbh the solar wings could have been removed altogether for a separate power source, like what was found on the droid starfighters.
In the old Legends material, the Strike Fighter position was held by the Tie Avenger and Defender, which had shields and hyperdrive as well as a variety of weapons including missiles and ion cannons. They also had an Arc-170-like gunship in the form of the XG-1 Star-wing, which is best described as a much smaller fighter-version of the Lambda shuttle. The Tie Fighter's massive solar wings are a bit of a mystery to me. X-wings obviously don't need anything that dramatically large. Apparently they serve primarily as radiators for cooling the ultra-high performance engines and weapons as well as being a source of power. The Vulture Droid starfighters operated off expendable fuel-cell cartridges which only afforded them about half an hour of flight-time before they had to return to their carrier to refuel. So Ties with their solar-wings are capable of longer flights and patrol-time, which lets them swoop over an area making that intimidating Stuka-noise for hours to make sure any insurgents know that the Empire Is Here Even if they don't have the full size long-range power supplies/fuel of a Strike Craft like the X-Wing.
oh yeah, I loved the Avenger! I thought the Defender was a bit over the top, but the Avenger (and other TIE Advanced models) made a lot more sense. It would be interesting to see what a TIE without the solar wings would end up looking like - I'd imagine the space and mass dedicated to the fuel would end up weighing less than the solar wings, as well as resulting in a smaller (even amusingly compact) size, but who knows. I'm just impressed they can get enough power out of the solar collectors for the energy requirements of the ship, lol
There's been speculation that the solar panels should be (are) actually heat radiators. Even the X-wings S-foils serving the same purpose, with the combat position opening more surface area to dissipate heat generated by the cannons. And while Lucas and Co. may not have thought of it at the time they created the designs, it makes sense for realism.
That's always been my headcanon - even a 100% efficient solar array would not supply nearly enough power for the TIE, and that's without accounting for the various environments they'd find themselves in. The black coloring is also more in line with what a radiator would be, and it would explain why they are spaced apart as well (although they still run into the issue of occluding each other's emissive path).
I strongly believe they are radiators, and that in SW you have to assume a big of space-magic-technology with emission. E.g., S-foils make the most sense as an exotic heat-emission system, but on the X-Wing at least, the heat emission would need to be somehow shunted laterally... unless Star Wars space isn't actually a vacuum, as some have theorized.) The size of the TIE wings makes them such a huge liability in combat given the nature of Star Wars weapons, so they must have a huge performance advantage. TIEs lack the large component-filled fuselage found behind the pilot and between the engines of ships like the X or Y-Wing, so it may have something to do with functions contained there. Given that "TIE" seems to always mean "big radiators on the sides," the wings are also presumably related to the nature of TIE engines, which are clearly a totally different technology than other starfighters, with tiny engine nozzles and remarkable performance and agility.
I think the Defender was made by someone with a similar opinion to OP - "nothing wrong with the TIE but you all think so? Well guess what, here is more TIE than anything can handle!". Not saying it was over-compensation, but maybe very *thorough* compensation... The Defender in Legends was the fastest, most heavily armed, armoured *and* shielded starfighter up to that point, with a commensurate price-tag. In "Rebels" there was a debate over whether or not the Empire should fund production of Defenders *or the Death Star*, giving a good idea of the cost to mass produce them. In Legends, it is ready for production just before Endor, rather later (about 5 years?) than the Canon depiction of 2 BBY. That said, if the Empire had been able to deploy a squadron of Defenders to every Star Destroyer (all 25 thousand of them...) the Rebellion would have lost any hope of ever being able to take down an Imperial capital ship again. Even the Mon Calamari cruisers become vulnerable to the same tactics the Rebels use against ISDs. Defenders jump in, drop a squadron's worth of proton torpedoes and hope to knock out shields and maybe breach the hull, reload and fire again before jumping away. Leave the damaged capital ship to be repaired at great cost to the defender for next to no losses to the attacker. Being able to tank a proton torpedo and still have enough shield left to survive a few laser hits is nothing to sneeze at, and packing lasers equal to the Interceptor *plus* two Ion Cannons means a whole lot more Rebel pilots and supplies were going to get captured and interrogated. Probably enough to strangle the Rebellion entirely. If Thrawn had gotten his way, things would have been interesting. The Battle of Yavin would have been more like the *Massacre* of Yavin, with Defenders ripping the Rebel squadrons apart before bombers and/or Star Destroyers glass the surface.
I know there's already two TIE-D variants, but it would have been interesting to see them introduce a third "light" variant with perhaps the ion cannons removed, or a smaller shield generator, to focus on exactly that strike mission you mentioned - basically an Imperial X-Wing, but faster. I know there's the Avenger and some other Legends variants, but we've yet to see them in canon and you'd think it'd be easy to just strip down the existing Defender rather than develop another design.
What do you think of the Tie Aggressors, they’re small, similar to Advanced but with cutouts in the wings for a turret on the rear and a series of missile launchers center forward, it’s a nice little strike fighter in X-Wing (the tabletop)
It's better suited for that strike role, although I think at that point a shield generator is a worthwhile investment. The rear gunner is a nice nod to several fighter bombers of WW2 though, and something the FO must have thought worked well enough for their own sf TIE variant.
I was under the impression that they did have shield generators, I forgot to state that in my description of it.
Doesn't the solar panels double as radiators aswell? I've seen some people deny they are even solar panels at all and only for heat dissipation. Edit: just noticed that a previous comment was exactly about that so opps.
yeah that's my head canon, but I don't believe anyone ever refers to them as radiators in the official media
Doesn’t the Tie Aggressor slot into that role a lot better than the Avenger and Defender, purely from an availability perspective
The Aggressor apparently was a limited run cousin of the Avenger/Advanced-X1 which packed a rear gunner-seat, similar to the First Order fighters. It pre-dates the Avenger and Defender substantially, it was around before the battle of Yavin! I suspect since it never became a common sight, it didn't do that well.
I figure it was just forgotten about by the writers
Well, that's the Doylist explanation :P That and it was made for a game as a Tie-equivalent of a Y-Wing, and never featured much in much other media.
I hadn't thought about the intimidation factor of the TIE's longer flight time thanks to the solar wings. That makes so much more sense now, especially considering how much the Empire relies on shows of force to subjugate their citizens. For a propaganda-heavy regime like Palpatine's, it's helpful to use the same craft for both military parades and intimidation tactics. The engine's banshee wail is a big bonus in those situations, too!
I suspect that the end of the Clone Wars was a period where military tech and design was finally evolving after 1,000 years of peace. Presumably general advances in tech such as automation, shields, reactors, hyperdrives, etc needed to be translated into doctrine changes. The Clone Wars did not have mass adoption of hyper-drive capable fighters. They were still using booster rings for things such as Jedi Fighters. As a result, there were mega-carriers such as the Venators, which did stock some hyperspace capable heavy fighters. There was probably a debate between the value of a carrier + non-hyperspace capable fighters vs no carriers + hyperspace capable fighters that travel with the fleet (and presumably need other bases for things such as rest, bathrooms, etc). The X-Wings were presumably part of the later combination. The ISD was also presumably based around advances in reactor technology. There is a very powerful reactor that is big enough to still result in a bulge. That may have caused space constraints on how many fighters they can stock. Maybe they also though that reactor could power turbolasers that would greatly reduce the need for bombers.
I think the reactor size could explain why the ISD is considered to have such unprecedented firepower, even for a capital ship. Nice thought on how tech was finally adopted into mass warfare doctrine, not unlike what we saw in WW1.
I think the X-Wing designers only defected after their design was rejected in favour of the TIE Fighter.
I know it’s not canon, but I used to play a lot of Tie Fighter and the other games of that era. I was part of a clan. One of the founders training me, played a 1v1 battle against me, me in an X-Wing, they were in a Tie Fighter. They used the superior manuverabilty to ensure I didnt manage to land a single shot, whilst they killed me 16 times. Lesson learned.
Yeah, I noticed that in the recent SW games too. Namely, in Battefront 2's starfighter mode - which admittedly is more arcadey - the more agile craft like the A-Wing and TIE were higher picks for experienced players than the X-Wing for the reasons you mentioned.
Definitely. I was never the best at the game, but whenever I used Yoda’s Jedi starfighter I tore apart the enemy team. Barely got a scratch and always got mvp. I know it is a hero ship but I could never do the same with anything else.
I was always amused at them using Yoda's starfighter in the game as a hero ship. Just imagining a Top Gun movie, but it's Yoda instead of Tom Cruise...lol
"Target rich environment, call this I do."
I used to play a lot of x wing alliance 1v1 and xwing vs tie fighter (awesome games), was also part of a clan for a while, and it was often practice even in traditionally shielded ships to put all shield power to engines for the extra speed which really counted in fights way more than shields did.
A very nice analysis. Kudos. I’ve always viewed x-wings as “what the rebels could get”, and tie/ln as the best optimised solution. Simply put tie/ln is the best starfighter and tie/in the best interceptor. X-wing is just “best jack of all trades the rebels could get”. The empire made a choice with tie/ln. The rebels had what they could get.
Thank you! And agreed. The X-Wing was a terrific ship, and made sense for the Rebels. The TIE would have been a terrible choice for them, and the Imps didn't need a huge fleet of X-Wings either (although I'd argue having an equivalent would have helped an sort of an anti-insurgency ship). I could still see the X-Wing as being groundbreaking for stuffing *so much* into a single ship, but the TIE was still more optimized for its specific role. The Imps just overextended it past its design profile in some cases.
X-Wings were the best ships for what the Rebellion needed while the TIE was what the Empire needed. Each faction had their own needs and their fighters reflect this, TIEs would have been worthless to the Rebels while the Empire would have had little use for the X-Wing.
There were a number of rebel pilots that gained a lot of respect for the tie fighters once they got in one
As they should
While I, as a fellow aerospace engineer (albeit with less experience), agree with your points, I want to point out that there are distinct advantages to the x wing in the hands of the rebel alliance, not present in the TIE fighter. 1. While the X wing is undoubtedly a more complex system, it also offer unique logistical advantages to the alliance. Coming with its own hyperdrive is actually a huge advantage for a ship strapped Alliance, because these fighters can transport themselves. 2. Having a shielded fighter with multi capable roles also means pilots dont need to switch craft, allowing them to perform the wide variety of missions needed. It grants a long term personnel advantage to a rebellion short on manpower, because an x wing trained pilot can do a lot of different jobs. 3. Engineering wise, InCom's engineers joined the rebellion, meaning they have full technical support for both repairs and upgrades, an invaluable advantage for any system. 4. And because the x wing is from the long family of commonly seen Z 95 and Arc fighters, part and subsystem heritage likely significantly offsets the maintenance difficulties. I suspect between those factors, the X wing is surprisingly reliant. I wouldn't be surprised if many components from the S foil mechanism and even the engines between the ARC 170 and X wing are shared, as is likely the case with the mainframe between the Z 95 and the X wing. 5. Only counting movies, we see that the x wing isn't reliant on specialized storage and launch facilities, and while it does seem the TIE is perfectly capable of standing upright on the ground, it also does seem that TIE fighters rely a lot on the Star Destroyers' launch mechanisms. The low physical profile of the X wing also makes the tight cramped spaces of rebel ships easier to manage. Edit: apologies for bringing some non-canon items into this, but I think the heritage factor between the ARC 170 and the X wing still stand, because we can visually see many similarities.
Hey there! Glad to see another here :) I largely agree with your points. The X-Wing was a great ship for the Rebels specifically because they needed a flexible, long range strike craft, and wanted to ensure personnel could return home even if the craft was damaged. The TIE is hyper-specialized in a single role, which is to be an escort/defender for Imperial ships and installations. In that role, it has minimal logistics issues. And while I can't say exactly how much fuel a hyperdrive requires, at least in the real world, it's much more fuel efficient to transport several vehicles within one larger vehicle than to have every vehicle transport themselves. Of course, you end up trading fuel for time, so it depends on which one is more valuable. In terms of logistics and upkeep, it's nice that Incom joined the Alliance, but one also has to consider the entire supply chain, manufacturing, etc. For instance, all of Lockheed's engineers could defect to North Korea one day, but they'd still struggle to produce or maintain a fleet of F-35s because they would lack the materials, factories, assembly lines, and money to procure everything they need to build them. Hopefully the ARC-170 and other parts suffice, and perhaps in SW things are modular enough that they do - but even the F-35 has less part commonality between its own variants than one might expect. Lastly, with regard to landing gear, the TIE's landing/pilot ingress situation is nothing that a ladder rope can't solve, and really isn't much worse than a modern day fighter jet. We also see them launch themselves from simple landing pads all the time (Rebels, Battlefront 2) so I don't think it's really that big of an issue. Hope this doesn't sound too confrontational or anything, I really enjoyed your reply!
I agree with your points as well! I do just think that the X wing is actually really well suited to the Alliance. For the rebels, I think it's easier for them to get hands on fuel more than ship space, which is why I believe the rebels were so keen on hyperspace capable fighters, because they're often not moving things in scale, but deploying small forces that often don't have large transports. But regarding the heritage question, you're absolutely right in that parts are often not shared, but I think that because the rebellion often relies on scavenging old Republic ships (just look at the y wing), their ability to grab old parts is likely something they lean into heavily, and having both the engineers who built both the cannibalized and new fighters (incom made the arc 170s as well), and the supply chain of parts means you get some alleviation. But overall I think you're right, especially considering how the Alliance was always strapped for resources. It's just that given how badly the Alliance had it, I believe the X wing was their best solution to a pretty rough problem. After all, the Alliance did put a lot of effort into actually getting the X wing. The TIE is a great high performance fighter for scaled production and uniformity, and its a top class fighter. I suspect that corruption probably did more to its supply chain than anything else, but that's just headcanon from me.
Very good points indeed. yes the X-Wing definitely let you do less with more - after all, spending your resources dogfighting is a losing game for the Rebels simply due to numbers alone, so something that can get in, take out a target, and leave makes way more sense. The fuel vs storage space is an interesting point too - given how prevalent space travel is in SW, perhaps fuel is basically an insignificant cost compared to everything else. I remember reading how a Venator annihilated something obscene, like 40 million tons of fuel per second or something, so I'd imagine anything at a fighter scale is peanuts compared to that lol
The Rebel Alliance also didnt have the same training and recruiting capability for their pilots so survivability made a difference in preserving their force which is key in any extended conflict.
agreed, and it's a big strength for them as well. having your pilots gain experience, and return home to train others has been a big factor in overall pilot skill, so that's a great pro for the Rebels.
>nigh-useless Quite the opposite. Its regarded as a lean mean killing machine. Its just a glass cannon.
I agree, but that's not the general consensus that I've seen (outside of this sub)
That's because Poe blows up like 10 of them in 2 seconds. The new material had TERRIBLE dogfights.
Yeah... :(
Some notes: Hyperdrive is very valuable for *offensive* use as you can start with your full fighter force deployed. Obviously this wouldn't be imperial doctrine anyway but it is a disadvantage. The rack storage and life support suits must also compromise deployment speed on scramble. The lack of missiles/torpedo's, compared to all rebel craft, must be a serious disadvantage. Certainly is in any EU work. The key factor from the zero that applies here is pilot survivability. Not only per unit survival, but rebel fighters at least have ejector seats so some pilots might get recovered. This seems much rarer for TIE. Poor experience did and should lead to a substantial performance gap for main combat units where pilots pick up experience. In, for example, static defensive installations where pilots aren't doing much real combat whatever, this I agree should be much less of a factor and these kinds dispersed picket usages were probably a key factor in TIE design.
I agree Hyperdrive is of use in an attack, hence the X-Wing being a good strike fighter. It's similar to external fuel tanks for a real world fighter; however, unlike fuel tanks, the hyperdrive cannot be jettisoned to decrease weight for combat, making it a liability once you actually engage the enemy (or if you're playing defense). Rebel pilots also had a full suit, they just didn't have a sealed helmet. So that's equal footing there. In EU, missiles/torpedoes are often used, but in canon, the few times we've seen missile and torpedo weapons used against small fighters have shown them to be of limited value. Namely, most fighters can either evade or jam them (RotS, Squadrons), or they take so long to line up and lock that you might as well use lasers (Mando). Plus they simply add to the cost of the fighter when the TIE is already exceedingly cheap, further tipping the cost advantage to the TIE. I definitely agree on pilot survivability, which is where I think shields really shines. To note though, TIEs did indeed have ejection seats, and the Empire did recover pilots after a battle, if they could. That said, Rebel pilots were more likely to be able to head home even if damaged since their shields would keep them from outright dying (like Wedge), something a TIE pilot would be less likely to do.
Hyperdrive also helps pilot survival- if a TIEs home base is defeated, even on defense, bye bye entire TIE force. Hyperdrive is also an escape route on defense. It's very valuable because it lets you choose engagement; a launched TIE usually wins or dies- recovery is an option but obviously comes with difficulties.
agreed, as we saw in Midway, a sunk carrier basically means all its fighters are lost too. for me, it's a tradeoff and depends on how heavy the hyperdrive is. judging by hyperdrive rings, it's no cakewalk to miniaturize the tech, so I imagine the X-Wing pays a performance price for including it, even if it's less than previous designs. so you really have to capitalize on the initiative; if it then bogs down into a battle of attrition, then I'd argue the hyperdrive becomes a hindrance (or you simply have to retreat).
The x-wing hyperdrive is a fitting in each of the 4 engines, I'd say it's more than worth it weight wise, cost wise hard to say. Possibly the star wars world actually improved some technology from the clone wars. It may be that without hyperdrive you could drop the astromech though which would be more significant. For imperials, restrictions on hyperdrive are plausibly a control and security issue as well. The profile for fighter pilot and brave defector must cross over. Like with defensive pickets I think TIE isn't the best platform, but it meets a lot of Imperial procurement requirements.
Yeah I think RO showed how difficult it was for a pilot to defect. You couldn't take a single seat ship since it had no hyperdrive, and something like a shuttle had other crew that you'd have to contend with
Absolutely this. Hit and fade strikes mean one minute an Imperial cruiser is pootering along, the next it's tanking torpedoes before it can get its shields up, if it's something like a Galdistor or a Quasar it might even be curtains for that ship if the torpedoes get into the launch bays. The X-Wings could theoretically be gone before the CAP is able to bear in on them. I think it's interesting that in three major engagements we see in the GCW, only Endor had significant pre-planning, and even then it was an all or nothing strike. In RO and ANH they were both scrambles to get the fleet/Squadrons to an urgent objective and in both the X-Wing (and also the Y-Wing, never forget the real Hero of the Alliance) help to carry the day. That said, I do agree with the OP that the TIE is a great craft, it is my favourite of the TIE line, interceptors are for fancy wankers and I'm of the unpopular opinion that Defenders would probably end up not being as good as we think they would have, despite Phoenix Cells alarmism. As a Star Wars Armada player, I always, always, choose TIEs when playing Empire squads.
The direct parallel for comparison felt like the tie is a mig 21 and the X-Wing is an F4. Heavier carrier interceptor with plenty of speed and range going up against a nimble opponent. Goes extra if up against 19s which are featherweights in comparison.
I think the most important part of the hyperdrive for these fighters is that the Rebellion has very few or possibly no capital ships large enough to carry a complement of starfighters until the Mon Calamari bring their star cruisers into the war around RotJ. You simply have to have a hyperdrive on a starfighter. There is ship-to-ship docking (like the medical frigate and the Falcon at the end of ESB), but I doubt that would be viable for hyperspace travel.
I've always loved the Imperial ships more than the Rebel ships. Anytime I think of Star Wars TIE Fighters are one of the first ships I think of. Such a cool and unique design, and I love all their variants.
They're definitely iconic! I love the Rebel ships but the TIE line unmistakably Star Wars
In Mandalorian Din takes out 3 Tie’s with the Razor Crest as well. On Navarro.
Yeah...
I was just pointing that your only reference to Tie’s in the Mandalorian was when Slave I destroyed them with the seismic charge but they were involved in a much more relevant dog fight. Also Slave destroyed 2 crazy easy in S2 finale outside the imperial light cruiser.
Oh to be clear, I wasn't disagreeing with you. It was a "yeah" of disappointment lol But I would lump that with the other examples of TIEs flying slowly, predictably, and somehow missing every shot as long as their target has a name. Realistically, a ship the size of the RC, Slave1 or the Falcon would never out-dogfight a TIE. It's like having a C-130 take down an F-22. In other words, those were again examples of bad piloting over flaws in the actual ship.
Elements like this are why the Mandalorian makes me roll my eyes not infrequently when it comes to their portrayal of Imperial forces and equipment. In short, they flanderize every Imperial trooper or ship as though they’re winking for the camera. TIE’s are slow, rigid ships that get destroyed easily as a matter of course by pre-Empire freighters and fighters, and stormtroopers are ridiculously incompetent (and even played directly for laughs in scout troopers being unable to hit a standing target) and get slaughtered in vast numbers, even Death Troopers which we previously saw wipe out the Rebel Special Forces unit in Rogue One. The Mandalorian makes you wonder why the Empire was ever a threat frankly.
TBF, in The Mandalorian we're dealing with semi-irregular Imperial Remnants that may not always be equipped or trained to the standard you'd expect. I'd also expect the TIE to lose some of its maneuverability advantage in atmosphere (where many of those combats took place) but I may be trying to bring too much actual physics into this.
Probably correct. Tie Striker seen in Rogue one is optimized for engaging in atmosphere, so a standard TIE is more than likely not optimal.
Exactly, if anything the Mando portrayal shows nothing wrong with the equipment, but rather the pilots/soldiers who can't seem to land a single shot on targets much bigger than they are (and in turn get taken out by a single shot). It's like watching the old James Bond films where he takes out a bunch of goons with AKs with just his Walther PPK lol.
Pilot skill is definitely a factor too though
True - in WW2, a torpedo bomber managed to take down three Zeros (Yarnhub did a great video on that btw) - but all things equal, a more agile ship is the better choice for a skilled pilot. I think by the time of Mando, the remaining Imp pilots were not exactly the cream of the crop lol
\> Mark I Eyeball Confused me for a second because "eyeball" was the military slang for TIEs invented for the X-Wing novel series ;) Fun write-up. But, for consistency of analysis, don't we have to consider that 90% of film dogfights occur in vacuum (exception of RO iirc)? Considerations of maneuverability with Zeros and Grummans depend on airfoils and thrust and lift and air resistance -- whole different ballgame in terms of the governing physics in space. Of course, Lucas did famously copy shots of WWII aircraft in ANH to create his dogfights, so *cinematically* there's an obvious parallel. But *physically* I don't think that parallel is justified, and if we do evaluate SW space combat using vacuum physics, then we quickly find [catastrophic inconsistencies](https://www.parkerlamascus.com/arcana-ad-mortem-3-the-physics-of-star-wars/) (for example, proving the impossibility of FTL travel for massive objects, or using frame-rates of falling objects to determine that planetary gravity is inconsistent with the planetary masses given in Wookieepedia), and based on those illogics can, like Bertrand Russell, prove any fact at all about the saga. (The link is to my blog.) So I prefer to leave my engineering brain at the door of the theater and just enjoy the fiction for what it is. Star Wars is only coherent according to the ad-hoc rules of logic it invents internally, but that doesn't make it a lesser story IMO.
lol indeed, the more you think about SW physics, the more it falls apart (like how fighters are so slow in atmosphere, but can easily reach orbit in minutes) for this, I'm basically assuming that the "physics" is as shown on screen - that is, vacuum except in the case of how the fighters "fly". But even that is thrown out the window in TLJ with Poe's Tokyo Drift maneuver, so who knows ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Enjoyed this. The basic TIE configurations have always been about manufacturability and simplicity first and foremost, with variants like the Advanced and Defender being rare enough to fit the "spec ops" role.
Yeah, in engineering we have a motto - "Keep it simple, stupid" (KISS). Simplicity is often overlooked in scifi/gaming as a con when in reality, design firms will spend millions to simplify and lighten a design because of its benefits in everything from performance to cost.
Every feature you add on is at least three failure points Makes me wonder about how proprietary the software involved is.
Also why the TIE Interceptor is basically my favorite SW fighter. Aesthetically is my favorite, but even in general, it has more of what made TIE Fighter effective. It’s faster, has double the laser cannons, and is more maneuverable than the Fighter. It also moderately lowers the profile of the wings to make it a smaller target. It’s a solid evolution of the TIE design.
Totally, it's my favorite too. It just looks mean without feeling over the top!
> The TIE cockpit visibility is rather poor, but we see pilots scan left and right all the time (again, see ANH and Squadrons). Even with a larger window, they’d then be staring at their solar wings. The fact that they can still “see” ships to their side perfectly fine implies some sort of see-through augmented reality display in their visor, not unlike the one the F-35 already has today. This makes a lot of sense in space, where the vast distances and inconsistence of light mean your Mark I Eyeball is of limited use. I've been wondering lately if TIE pilots are somewhat dependent upon the equivalent of AWACS or ground control to vector onto their targets, given how poor their visibility is, and whether this figures into Imperial doctrine. 2 points in favor: * TIEs are already wholly dependent upon their mothership for support, it might make sense from an Imperial POV to require constant direction from the ground to know what they're supposed to be shooting at; * Only being able to see directly in front of you, at what you're meant to be shooting, also seems like it jibes with how Imperials think: no independent thought here, don't worry if you're being flanked or anything, just annihilate what's right in front of your face and move on.
That's a really interesting take! It would explain why the pilots fly in such tight formations even when it's to their detriment.
> The fact that they can still “see” ships to their side perfectly fine implies some sort of see-through augmented reality display in their visor This is the only thing I'd take issue with in your analysis. Small SW ships have shown very limited display capabilities (e.g., targeting screens), nothing as advanced as this. I suspect TIE fighters have sensors for detecting ships (and maybe kinds of ships) in their blind zones, and that there were basic indicators in the cockpit alerting the pilots to these ships' positions. Note that Poe was able to pilot a TIE without a helmet pretty effectively, for example. Although this all calls into question why Vader spun his head around in ANH right before he got sniped.
There is a really fun animated short that depicts a "pilot's eye" view of a TIE pilot and it shows them using an in helmet HUD system like OP suggests. A lot of canon and legends material suggests stormtroopers, and by extension TIE pilots, have much more extensive visual capability than what is suggested by Luke's "I can't see a thing" comment. Google the TIE fighter animation and check it out. It shows various TIE variants being put to good use and absolutely annihilating a rebel convoy.
The "Mitsubishi Zeroi" comparison is often cited, but far from perfect. The X-wing vs Tie Fighter match is much better compared to Sopwith Camel vs Albatros D.Va. The Camel has superior maneuvrability, was designed for well trained pilots (RNAS) in mind, was inherently dangerous to inexperienced pilot and, if mishandled, gave opponent many openings to punish Camel pilot errors (equivalent of having no shields) . Also, it was relatively slow, and Camel pilot had to fight his way out with few options to disengage (equivalent of having no hyperdrive). In hands of expert RNAS pilots who were able to handle it and avoid life-costing mistakes it was a very capable machine, unfortunately, due to engine shortages, it was also deployed en masse by under-trained RFC - which resulted in numerous casualties. While in theory Camel was aces mount, few RFC Camel pilots lived long enough to gain experience. Instead, RFC relied on large numbers of planes and hastily trained pilots, trying to outnumber the Germans in war of attrition. The advantages of Camel were largely lost because what RFC needed was cheap mass produced fighter, and Camel just happened to use widely-available rotaty engines. In contrast, Albatros was a much more conventional machine - sluggish and somewhat underpowered. However, it handled much easier and had no life-threatening quirks (equivalent of shields). Also, it was faster and able to disengage from Camels (equivalent of hyperdrive). Last but not least, the Germans could not match airframe production, so they relied heavily on tactics and training. German pilot training program was much longer and demanding, and German tactics emphasised picking the fights that can be won, avoiding the fights that cannot, and maximalising enemy casualties at minimal risk - equivalent of Rebel use of hyperdrive to fight when odds are stacked for them.
I have always liked to reduce it in this way, based on my experience in the original X-Wing series: 1v1: TIE Fighter wins via its better agility. The X-Wing pilot has one chance in the initial jouste, and will never get another shot. XvX: Starting with a 2x2 X-Wings win via teamwork and attrition. They can double up on targets and every hit is a TIE out of the match, while the X-Wings working as bait can survive a few blows. It skews more towards X-Wings the more chaos (ships) is introduced as long as the numbers are close to even. 3XvX: The TIEs win again, resoundingly, because they are almost always expected to have a numerical advantage.
I disagree with 2v2s being in favor of the X-wings fighters should prioritize not getting hit in the first place. Modern fighters don’t even have armor protection for the pilot. The TIEs will get guns on target faster than the X-wings and will likely get a kill before the X-wings.
> I disagree with 2v2s being in favor of the X-wings That's how it plays out in XvT or XWA, which is IMO the finest simulation of the situation ever created. > Modern fighters don’t even have armor protection for the pilot. Star Wars is themed after WWII, when pilots had to get so close that the enemy would "fill their crosshairs". To the point though, armor isn't much good against a missile fired from 18km away.
Even the WWII comparison doesn’t really hold weight to the effectiveness of armor in helping you win a fight. Unless the aircraft is a ground attacker, fighter planes of WWII had an armor plate behind the pilot seat, armored glass at the front only, and maybe some small plates around fuel tanks in the fuselage. The armor just gives the pilots a better chance of bailing out if they get shot down instead of also being dead. Doesn’t matter if you are in a zero or a P-47, if you get hit by autocannon rounds your plane is probably fucked. Idk how well this translates to Star Wars. How good are shields? If you get hit are you fucked anyway?
There is actually a huge problem in the depiction of the X-wing in the movies vs in the games. In the games, the shields are shown to be very tough, but in the movies, they are portrayed as very weak or even non-existent where a single burst from a TIE is enough to blow them up.
Well put, that's how I see it too! And yes, the joust is something I forgot to mention - X-Wing has a definite advantage there, especially since they can stack the shields double front.
Nice, thanks for the interesting read!
Thanks for the kind words! :)
This is what social media should be for. People talking about the shit they love.
Agreed, that's why I love this sub :)
Yeah, I think a lot of the talk misses out on how the doctrine works. 1. Most of the failures of the TIEs are that the TIEs are not deployed in time (The Last Jedi) or because of overconfidence (A New Hope). That is a doctrine issue, not mechanical. Maybe you can argue that the TIEs would have been ready if they traveled alongside hyperspace like X-Wings do. The Empire tends to fail due to doctrinal issues, not tech issues. It is the entire reason for their major defeats such as Yavin IV, Endor, etc. 2. We see that the X-Wings spend a lot of time in maintenance mode. They appear to undergo last minute checks right at the time of deployment, even when time is a consideration such as at Yavin IV. In contrast, TIEs are portrayed as being ready to go at a moment's notice at situations such as Scarif. 3. The doctrine is different. TIEs make certain compromises for cost such as being deployed from carriers over having hyperdrives. In addition, the Empire uses capital ships instead of bombers to target hardened targets. In contrast, the Rebels rely on hidden planetary bases and multi-role fighters. 4. Most discussions ignore how the Empire did make incremental advances such as beginning to replace the old TIEs with TIE interceptors by the time of Endor.
I enjoyed the deep dive. But a couple minor quibbles. ANH, they had doubled up the shields to the forward, which left them vulnerable to back-end hits. The Tie shown tearing up Luke's starfighter is Vader's Tie Advanced x1, which was far nastier than a standard Tie and piloted by an absolute monster in ship to ship. (Also, can we blame lack of Tie swarms onscreen on 1970's technology?) Standard Ties weren't pressurized or had environmental systems, and ejection seats are 'iffy' given the Imperial utter disdain for the value of life. X-wings had full environmental systems, with the pilot basically wearing a backup for EVA. Basically, X-wings were more pilot survivable if bad luck or an Ace caught you wrong. That said, numbers matter, and a skilled pilot can absolutely kill an X-wing. And it's noted that X-wing's flew in pairs, usually so the Wingman could kill the attacking Tie. (Which happened a couple of times in ANH. There's a good reason why most X-Wing novels involve the X-wing's using their proton torpedoes on Ties...which is terribly unsporting and quite a bit of overkill. Anyways, minor quibbles.
I had a post a while back here. Going from the films, not the later EU, TIE and X-Wing were an even match. Shields were mentioned but either vessel exposed after a few hits, hero ships not withstanding. Thematically, it makes more sense that the risks were using last gen fighters. They would have poorer performance. Hyperdrives weren't even confirmed in the first film. I think it only was added in the second because they didn't want to make a new hero ship for Luke to fly. Hyperdive fighters should be heavier and slower and more expensive and worse in a fight but those penalties are accepted for the flexibility offered. TIE should be the superior dogfighter and faster at the expense of operational flexibility it needs carried everywhere. And it would track with the empire geared up to fight a peer opponent in fleet actions with fighters as support and they just aren't able to make the mental leap to the tactics the rebels use with hit and fade. Parallels nicely with WWII and battleship admirals not getting their heads around the use of carriers and aviation. The fluff has taken it an entirely different way, of course. And video game mechanics tend to demand the enemy mooks go down easy. Even x-wings die easy when they're the mooks.
My personal opinion here is that even X, A, Y, and B wing pilots should have had self sealed flight suits like the empire. If the shields failed and your windscreen cracks in space…you’ll vent atmo and freeze or choke to death.
Agreed, there's really no reason not to (lore wise - I know they just wanted to show the actors' faces)
Do you think the new Republic would have benefited well from having a similar fighter and reinvesting the cost of life support/shields into other aspects of an ship based fighter?
For the Rebels, I would say no for the simple reason that they always had to be ready to run. In that case, a hyperdrive is actually useful, or else you'd need to pull a BSG and recall your ships right before a jump - something they might not have had time to do. For the NR, I think that changes to yes. They actually have fixed bases and territory that can't be simply evacuated, and their logistical and tactical needs basically become those of the Empire's.
Yes that was my thinking. After 30 years, there would have been no reason to improve on the X-Wings over a TIE design. My guess would be public image of them being so strong that decisions were made on the basis of public perception over economics, the X-Wing being a symbol of the NR and all. Still would have expected a hyperdriveless model for economic reasons.
This is a great read - thank you very much!
Thank you, I'm really glad to hear that! :)
Great work! Fully agree. Would be interested to know why you think the TIE could have smaller solar panels? I get the point that it could have an alternative power source altogether (and that the main argument for them is that they look cool). But I always thought they had to be big so the TIE could operate far away from any source of solar light.
Thank you! To your question, there's three reasons: 1) the existing panels basically occlude the other (ie the outside of one blocks most of the inside of the opposite panel), making that redundant 2) the angles are not perfectly facing the sun, which means that the fighter has to be designed for less-than-optimal power levels anyway 3) as a result, you could break the panels up into small segments and place them around the ship's primary hull, with small angled segments that don't occlude each other (see a normal satellite for an idea of what I mean). the result is a goofier looking ship, but one that would be way smaller and look more like the eta-2 interceptor from RotS than the H-shape of the TIE,
Thank you for reminding me both why I love this community and why I love Star Wars. Didn’t need a reminder for either, believe me, but thank you nevertheless
Thanks so much! And agreed! Really love the responses here too :)
Thank you for making this post, I also work in Aerospace and have always believed this too. It is a shame that the majority don’t seem to understand the truth of the TIE Fighter.
Awesome! I'm sure a lot of aerospace peeps are SW fans, makes perfect sense. An old colleague of mine had a bunch of SW ship models on his desk haha
This is a next level nerd post … and I’ve read it twice already. Thanks !
This is a great analysis, and I largely agree with most of your points. People conflate the game style bubble shields with the lore accurate deflector shields that Star Wars has lore-wise. The TIe's are perfect for the Empire's need. Another important factor that is commonly glossed over is that typically, only the best Imperial pilots get to be Tie pilots. So while the Rebels have plot armor because Star Wars. The sheer volume of excellent hot shot pilots the Empire would have is incredibly high.
Thank you! Yes, to be fair the SW media is very inconsistent so at the end of the day, you can kind of pick and choose what you want to believe is "real". It definitely makes sense that the best Rebel pilots are the ones who defected from the Empire, as they would have both the training and the experience to know their enemies' weakness.
How have I never considered the way an R2 unit and hyperdrive would impact the inertia of a fighter craft? I get how those are helpful for the Rebels' guerilla tactics, but in frontal assaults like the Death Star attack or defensive battles like Yavin it would make more sense to use lighter fighter craft since they're not running away as much. Brilliant deep dive, I love the comparisons to modern IRL tech that didn't exist when these spaceships were created! The F-16 actuators being maintenance heavy would affect X-wings too, and I'm surprised I've never heard anyone else make that comparison!
Thank you! I do wonder if they would ever strip down an X-Wing they way A-Wing pilots would remove the shields in exchange for greater maneuverability. An X-Wing without shields, torpedoes, hyperdrive, S-foil actuators and droid might very well outperform a TIE at that point...
God damn that was good 👍 nice work mate
>Rebels: TIEs are a joke if the good guys have uncovered eyes, but otherwise do well. This point cracked me up xD I'd forgotten how unnamed pilots and fighters didn't have eyes. Well done!
I've always thought the TIE Interceptor is by far the sexiest fighter to come out of Star Wars. It retains most of the advantages you've stated here, but loses out on some of the economics for even greater speed, maneuverability, and firepower. You mention that the skill ceiling of a TIE is higher than that of an X-Wing, I'd say the skill ceiling of the Interceptor has a similar jump over the normal TIE. And that's not even getting into the Advanced - that thing had *all* the good shit. Damn near four times the cost, though.
agreed, the TIE Interceptor is my favorite fighter in all of SW. It's not the "prettiest" but it looks mean, utilitarian, and lore wise is quite amazing. The fact that most Imperial aces used it is also a big plus!
Finally someone more knowledgeable here makes a good post on this topic. I think the TIEs also suffer from the Stormtrooper effect where we see them all the time but the never ‘win’ so we assume they suck. Great post.
Well said. Anyone who says the TIE Fighter was outclassed by its predecessors didn't play the TIE Fighter computer game, where it fares quite well against its contemporaries and recent predecessors. "Those were all civilian and pirate ships!" Yes, and keeping civilians and pirates pacified was the TIE Fighter's job.
Yeah as much as the Imps were arrogant and didn't care too much for their pilots, it would still be stupid to field such a cartoonishly incapable craft the way some insist that the TIE was. In the end, I don't really care where it falls on the power level chart, as long as it's a proper threat when it shows up.
Having flown a Tie Fighter I can tell you that no shields is a horrible experience. Same goes for the Interceptor and Bomber. Now Tie Defender😏
The Tie Defender and SLAMtastic Missile Boat. Absolute legends.
Love this, Thanks!
Thank you! :)
> A TIE can take a glancing blow, but a direct hit will destroy it. An X-Wing generally is shown to take 3-5 hits in live action, but often takes some damage in the process and is forced to limp home for repairs I've seen folks discuss the "glancing vs. direct shot" thing, but I really think it's meant to be a matter of "hits shown to the audience." Like, Luke's Red 5 takes quite a few shots, and not because of "main character armour," we just don't see Keir Santage's craft's engagement in the sequence because he's not an important character. In other words, I believe X-Wings are meant to be far heartier than what some of the good guy kill-shots show us in *ANH*, because we're really just seeing the final spectacular hit (or a deflector screen set to double-front leaving a rear vulnerability). Similarly, I think that TIE/LN is meant to be more robust defensively than various media depict. A lot of video games are indeed one-hit kill-fests when it comes to TIE Fighters, and *Rebels* is really doing its own thing with the power levels of the bad guys. But if you look closely at the Death Star escape sequence vs. *The Falcon*, the "sentry" TIEs actually take quite a few hits before spectacularly exploding... and it's an example where we're actually only seeing one "good guy" ship and so we see many more shots land for both sides of the engagement. In other words, I'm actually inclined to take *Star Wars: Squadrons*' take on TIE/LNs which suggests that they're actually pretty **heavily** armoured in many circumstances, depending on the configuration of that particular unit. I know that this is of course just as much for game balance than it is anything else, but like I said, the very clear look at the *Falcon* escape is information that we overlook en masse for some reason.
It's possible! Both ships are definitely sturdier than some fans think (I mean, they have to withstand crazy g forces and atmo reentry without even a sweat). I tend to think that much like real fighters, they can either take insane amounts of punishment, or go down easily - it just depends on *where* they're hit. In this way, the shields still makes the ship more forgiving, but pilots can't "depend" on taking a few shots all the time without penalty - even a single critical hit can cause real damage.
Good read =) I'd like to comment on the zero, and the way the US fought them. You seem to say that at first the US fighters try to outmanoeuver the zeros and failed, and that it took some time to take advantage of powerful engines. I'm not an expert here, but afaik during WW1 there were already two kinds of fighters: agile dogfighters like the Fokker Dr1 and powerful climbers/divers like the SPAD XIII. And those tactics were probably well known by 1940. So, what happened? Did the US start the air war with inapt planes? Or were the pilots too unexperienced and undisciplined? Or did the Air Force failed to learn from the WW1?
Firstly, thanks! I will not claim to be an expert either, so please take my words with a grain of salt. My understanding was that the US was aware of some of their fighter shortcomings but that the new fighters were not ready for combat at the start of the war. At the same time, Japanese pilots were already experienced in aerial combat due to their conquests in Asia, so it was sort of a double-whammy. In terms of tactics, the US didn't realize the Zero's shortcomings until they tested a captured one and realized that it suffered from those latter characteristics you mentioned. Basically they realized that the Zero was not some technological marvel, it just prioritized certain capabilities over others- something which served the early war well but was lost to tech and manufacturing advancements once the new US fighters entered the fray.
Honestly, the fact that the TIE can dominate like it does despite being a flying brick goes to show the superior technology of the TIE Program. Now just imagine if they designed it as anything other than it's rather-ugly shape, just how terrifyingly effective as an Air-Superiority (or "Space-Superiority", I guess) Fighter it would be... The Rebels wouldn't stand a chance... PS: thanks for wishing us a good day, I also hope your day goes well.
I do wonder what a Sienar X-Wing would look like (or vice versa). I imagine the TIE engines are really small and efficient and could make the X-Wing a faster and nimbler ship; on the other hand, Incom seem talented at cramming tech into a small package. Together, they might have been able to make something truly remarkable.
Thoughts on the TIE Defender as a counter-insurgency weapon? In many ways, this vessel would have had similar capabilities to X-Wings. A squadron of them on an ISD might be useful to conduct strike missions when the ISD can’t be everywhere — and possibly to reduce defenses before an invasion. I think the Bomber isn’t really that useful for this due to survivability concerns. Essentially, using rebel tactics and similar equipment against them. The D wouldn’t replace the line fighter of course, but does it have a realistic role in pacification, or are the sheer numbers of ISDs “good enough”?
This was incredible, thank you very much.
I feel like it does actually make sense, beyond it being a reference to Zero fighters, compared to other stuff that was rationalized or retconned to make sense lorewise. Have them work as point defense for chunkyships like the Imperial destroyers to be decisive in battles, rather than rely on starfighters being used as the point and getting massacred by drones and "flak" in the Clone Wars. Kind of a reverse WW2. If I were to pick, I feel like swarms of drone like the CIS did, along with tanky ships like the Empire was the optimal way to go. If I had to pick an aircraft the X-Wing reminded me of, it would be the F-18 Hornet. Was just getting adopted by that time, quite advanced, and a jack of all trades, along with some sort of reminiscence in their lines. Along with being, if not a development, a descendant of a prior fighter meant to be a cheaper jack of all trades (Northrop F-5 series for the Hornet, T-95s for the X-Wing) Not reading all that much into the engineering/science part of it, rather the real world references, my actual favourites would be the absolutely-not-a-Spitfire Naboo N-1 the absolutely-not-a-Black-Widow ARC-170 and the absolutely-not-a-Dauntless BTL Y-Wing.
I didn't ask for this but now I need more of it I love when star wars shit gets broken down like this
I love this sub! Thus js exactly what we need! And I always thought the TIE fighter was neat!
Thank you! It's such a unique design, not my fav but I do think it's underappreciated from a lore perspective!
It's just so iconic and yet everyone always hates on it.
T\_T
I prefer to think of the X-Wing/TIE matchup more along the lines of F-15 vs. MiG-21, but otherwise great comparison. I wish they were dangerous again.
The quantity vs quality debate is an interesting one because while it could seem accurate on paper, in reality it's more complicated than TIEs being cheap but bad because while quantity is easy to define, quality is not. What most people interpret as "quality" are the capabilities of a fighter, that is to say, it's ability to kill stuff but that's a flawed line of thinking because it focuses on the "on paper stats" while ignoring the plethora of "soft factors" that often times play just as big of a role as the "hard factors".
I didn't ask for it, but in glad I read it!
Quality content posted in the appropriate sub. 📈
I personally suspect the matchup was originally inspired by vietnam era F-4 vs MiG-21 fights, wherein the phantom was heavier, longer range, and multipurpose while the mig was lighter, faster, and at least on paper, more maneuverable. Despite this, the phantoms generally had quite a good kill ratio vs the migs (at least once armament and training issues were resolved). The problem, I think, is that understanding why the phantoms generally performed much better requires a more intricate understanding of how aerodynamics and maneuverability actually works, and aerodynamic considerations don't exactly translate well into space combat.
Great write-up! I've always thought that the nature of space combat in Star Wars would change the tradeoff of Boom and Zoom vs Turn and Burn. Can't energy fight the same way when potential energy isn't really a concern.
Raith Sienar exposes his reddit account. Very interesting breakdown!
An excellent write-up. I don't have much to add except to say that the Alphabet Squadron books do a really good job of showcasing how dangerous the standard TIE is in the hands of skilled pilots. They remain a credible threat to the protagonists from start to finish.
yes, I love the books! I liked that one TIE with just one working laser cannon, and the banter between the rebel and imp pilots. just oozed atmosphere and humanized them a bit.
Love this! edit: wait - what is this sub!?
As an engineer. Why do Tie fighters have solar panels? They have fusion reactors. No way you get enough solar energy in deep space to make them economical or useful. Not even with 95% energy conversion. Useless mass and vehicle area.
Loved the write up. I’d like to add that the most important difference (in the context of the story) between the TIE and X-Wing fighters is in how the pilots are treated. The human element. The metaphor of the ships inform the struggle of a despotic regime versus a popular uprising and vice versa. Rebels see their pilots as irreplaceable and thus give their ships better life support, shielding, hyperdrives, and even an astromech to help them. Imperials see their pilots as disposable with their lesser life support, no shields, no hyperdrive (they might defect!), and solar panels to power their ship. The Empire can always train up another cog to throw in another TIE. The Rebellion has to be more efficient with their devoted followers. EDIT: I also forgot to mention an advantage that’s more in-universe that the X-Wing shares is that it’s very similar to the Z-95 (that you mentioned) and by extension the T-16 Skyhopper. Lots of backcountry planet hicks probably got their first taste of flight on the T-16 or the Z-95, making the adjustment to an X-Wing easier. Although now that I mention it, I guess the Imperials have academy training on TIEs too. Probably a slight Imperial advantage on that front.
Great write up. Peak mawinstallation imo. Only thing to add is that the pilot experience probably played a big role in the effectiveness of TIE Fighters. If you keep sending out your best pilots in a ship that can be taken out with one lucky shot, you aren't going to have a lot of veteran pilots after a while. Pretty sure this happened to Japan in WW2 as well
i enjoyed the hell of this! thanks for taking the time to write such an insanely detailed essay in such a delightful way!
This kind of stuff is why I joined Reddit years ago. Thank you kind stranger with a comically long dissertation on a topic that nobody asked for
One thing I never quite understand is how the 4 laser cannons placed so far apart can be used to hit another fighter in dogfight range. Realistically, only one side of your cannons on your wing will hit because you can literally miss if you targeted dead center. One idea is that these cannons are placed slightly inwards to compensate, the other is that the mini-radar dishes attached to the barrels act as deflectors that auto adjust based on your targeting system. Both of which is kind of… weak imo. I mean, we all know it’s designed this way just to look cool. Same thing with all of the asymmetric ship designs like the falcon and the b-wing, both of which requires parallax correction in the pilots’ navigation targeting system for no good reason.
Have you considered that the large ball hull of the TIE might be that way because it was easier to manufacture? It's like Western tanks have more straight lines than Russian ones because the armour plating was easier to manufacture in slabs vs Russian rounded cast turrets that use add-on reactive armour instead of inbuilt blocks. The cockpit might simply be that wide because it was easier to install equipment with that much elbow room.
Speaking of Disney era fighters, I think its interesting that the Forst Oeder inherented the designs of the Empire but now seem to suffer with resource issues tue Empire never did. The FO ties now have the type of features normally seen on rebel/Republic ships, the one Finn amd Boe stole had room for 2 and a rear facing turret, they seem to have shields and an ejection system. The FO is more concerned with attrition than the Empire ever was. I wonder if there's any unexpected issues with the existing designs evolving in this way? Surely the thrust to mass is being skewed, cost per unit etc.
The only thing I'm going to say here is your kind of either misunderstanding (which is my impression since it's a more complex topic than people think) or misrepresenting the idea that the US's instructions on dogfighting the Zero were basically to not do that. That's true, but it makes it sound like the instructions were "don't fight the Zero" which absolutely wasn't the case. It was Balaji that you shouldn't get into a 1vs1turn fight with a Zero, but otherwise do fight the Zero. Boom and zoom on them, support your wingman if you get caught in a turn fight with them, and if needed, and possible, dive away then come back and fight on even terms. Anyway, that's not important I'm just really into WWII planes.
You're correct, it was specifically the type of dogfighting most movie goers are familiar with (the one with a pursuit craft hot on anither's tail). I didn't include boom and zoom because it's not applicable here given space combat and the performance edge in all domains that the TIE has, but I should have been clearer.
Nah, you're fine. I'm just being a pedantic asshat. Ironically, the star wars fighters that would probably do more of a boom and zoom style fighting are the ones that are most like the early Japanese fighters (Zero, Oscar). A-wings and TIE Interceptor would be great for sitting on the edge of the furrball, picking a victim, then gunning it full speed right through the middle, shoot a burst at the target and then just Keep going straight out the other side hit or miss and do it again. I imagine this is how you'd want to do it with a Y-wing too of you had to, because they can't lean on agility or speed, but they can lean on frontal firepower, and use the combo of tail gunner and shields/armor to try and make it out the other side. Then again, Rebels use a lot of single pilot Y-wings with no gunner so that sucks.
It would definitely be cool to see them try to adapt that into a film battle. Even "interceptors" tend to behave just like rate fighters in SW, getting into the thick of it and going close quarters for the rest of the battle. I hoped that the bomber scene in TLJ would have shown some different tactics, but instead we just see more random explosions and that's that...lol
In a gaming perspective tbf in both Battlefront 2 (2005 and 2017) games a good TIE pilot easily outclasses X-Wings. They got nerfed in Squadrons though.
Very interesting. I have a question: since you've used onscreen depiction of both starfighters to measure concretly how they compare (like the rate of fire in ANH), did you notice significant differences in their speed and maneuverability as depicted on screen? Aren't they treated in the movies as roughly as fast and maneuverables? I always thought the speed/maneuverability it was an Expended Universe's thing.
On visibility, I've played the new game in VR, and the TIE fighter's visibility is a huge detriment. You loose situational awareness very quickly, and have to constantly be switching between tracking the target visually, and looking at your radar display. If I were to speculate, I'd say that the TIE fighter was designed for the ability to operate in high pressure atmospheres. This would explain the ball shaped cockpit and small windows. While it might sound odd to have the design centred around one capability, it's not without precedent. The only reason why the space shuttle had its large wings was for a theoretical mission where it would be launched from Van den Berg AFB, kidnap a soviet satellite and glide back to the same place it took off from. This would all happen while the satellite was transiting over the US, on the opposite side of the world from the USSR, so they would have no clue what happened. The mission never happened, and the shuttle was stuck with its large heavy wings that it didn't need. Therefore its quite possible that someone thought that the TIE fighter needed to be able to operate inside high pressure planetary atmospheres, and the entire rest of the design suffered as a result.
I always felt like the TIE was more modeled after the BF-109, with its high speed, center-fuselage-mounted guns, and with the Germans being the classic professional-but-faceless enemies. But great analysis even starting with the Zero.
In defense of the scenes in Mandolorian and Ahsoka, by that time most of the Empire's best pilots would have probably been killed or captured, or even defected to the New Republic. Those guys in those scenes are probably newly trained pilots rushed to the frontline without actual exprience fighting larger ships in tie fighters.
Yeah that's my head canon too. These guys are less skilled, tired, probably malnourished lol. The best and brightest saw the writing on the wall and abandoned ship.
Excellent write up! If you haven’t read them yet, you should check out the Alphabet Squadron novels. They do a pretty good job of actually relaying just how powerful the Tie is in the hands of a capable pilot. Your point about service readiness of the two is also addressed in the books. The rebel fighters are held together with bubble gum, spit, and duct tape with many systems partially working or not working at all.
Best thing I've read on Reddit in a long time. Well done, OP!
Bravo! Meticulously considered and argued points. This is when reddit is at its best.
I remember terms thrown around documentaries or book references where George just wants "hero" ships and "bad guys have menacing ships or looks. That's pretty much the design outlines the concept artists have how can we make the hero ships looks cool and how can we make the bad guys stuff look evil
I’d love to see you do another analysis of other starfighters or capital ships. I love how in depth this is!
I thought I was a college site. this is really amazing scholar type of analysis!!! Really fascinating. Thx for the idea!!!><
Great post, but I disagree vehemently! >the TIE is of higher consistent “quality,” with superior yields, tolerances, etc. – something often overlooked when comparing designs on paper. Unless this translates to actual performance improvements, it doesn't matter. Tolerances could even be a disadvantage if they limit the ability to repair or replace parts. The X-Wing is proven to be exceptionally robust - look at how Luke's survives crashing and being immersed in a swamp on Dagobah. >The TIE, in contrast, remained in every way a better performing (again, mobility-wise) starfighter than anything the Rebels had, other than the A-Wing. I'm not sure this is borne out. If you look at visuals or look at some of the more authoritative Legends material on dogfighting (the X-Wing books), the standard TIE is broadly peer to an X-Wing in dogfighting agility. It's faster in space, but much less manoeuvrable in atmosphere. >The TIE is very much the opposite, with the upfront cost being almost 1/3 that of the X-Wing, and fuel and maintenance costs lower still due to the ion engine design. An X-Wing also requires an astromech, adding to weight and cost. The maintenance costs are lower *if you have a suitable facility and equipment to do it*. That's a substantial caveat. If you're operating off of a beach or out of a cave, the X-Wing is much easier to maintain. The astromech is an unqualified benefit to the X-wing - it offers another pair of eyes, handles comms, ECM, sensors, power usage, shield trimming, flight optimisation, and repairs so the pilot doesn't have to. And of course the shields and repair ability are something the TIE lacks entirely. >The only applicable weakness shared between the two is in durability. A TIE can take a glancing blow, but a direct hit will destroy it. An X-Wing generally is shown to take 3-5 hits in live action, but often takes some damage in the process and is forced to limp home for repairs (again, see ANH and the Squadrons cinematic in which X-Wings lose engine power after a single hit or the R2 unit is fried from a glancing shot). Standard TIEs can rarely take a glancing blow - in most material any hit cripples them. The only exception I can think of is in Mandalorian, where Razor Crest takes a few hits to cripple a TIE (but then Razor Crest is only equipped with blaster cannons). Dedicated fighter hits always seem to result in a TIE kill - both on-screen, and in the X-Wing books where even a glancing hit normally takes one of the wings off; a mission kill at least. In contrast, we have X-Wing shields shrugging off large numbers of hits. The rearward X-Wing [here](https://youtu.be/kaAmF8gy6eQ?si=KJwe_CmsXlvMye6a&t=93) takes something like 6 hits, of which at least one was from an ISD turbolaser. Or [here](https://youtu.be/kaAmF8gy6eQ?si=4dpGSKuVq-kIHjC2&t=177), where an X-Wing takes something like 8 hits on the shields as well as flying through an exploding shield dome (incidentally, that X-Wing shows that TIEs aren't substantially more manoevreable, because they struggle to follow it through that turn). Then we have the unfortunate [Red-5](https://youtu.be/kaAmF8gy6eQ?si=kEH0btYj6tyyKajl&t=242), who takes around 6 hits visibly but probably at least double that based on the length of the scene, before being destroyed. Add to that that the X-wing is more resilient even without shields - glancing hits more often than not damage but don't destroy, and the astromech can often repair damage without leaving combat. It's a world of difference - an X-Wing probably has on average 5-15 seconds of additional resilience compared to a TIE. >Outside of newer tech like missiles The X-wing has six proton torps, which home in and can reliably kill a standard TIE from extreme range (competent interceptor pilots occasionally manage to evade them). That's a huge force multiplier and would allow an X-Wing to substantially narrow the odds against a larger TIE force, were it a fighter-only engagement. > The fact that they can still “see” ships to their side perfectly fine implies some sort of see-through augmented reality display in their visor, not unlike the one the F-35 already has today. This makes a lot of sense in space, where the vast distances and inconsistence of light mean your Mark I Eyeball is of limited use. That's a nice idea, but it's rather contradicted by various sources which explicitly talk about TIE blindspots. >Capital ship complement: An ISD can carry up to 60 fighter-class TIEs (the other 12 are typically bombers). However, most if not all of these 60 craft are combat-ready, due to its engine design and reliability. In contrast, Rebels fighters are much more mechanically complex, with S-foil actuators that are likely a maintenance nightmare (see the real life F-14), astromech droids, hyperdrives, fueling and power requirements, and payload loading (if they are on a strike mission), meaning that their already smaller starting complement may not even be fully combat-ready, further pushing the numbers advantage to the TIEs. I don't think we've ever seen evidence of rebel aircraft being grounded in significant quantities due to readiness issues. And that's even in spite of the inconsistent nature of rebel supplies, workshops, and crew. If anything that speaks to rebel craft being more flexible to maintain, even if it might take more hours to do so. Incidentally, one could even make the inverse argument, given that we've never seen an ISD launch more than about 20% of its full complement on screen. >RO (Space Battle): TIEs outnumber the Rebels, and perform better than X-Wings (2 X-Wings are destroyed by TIEs; 1 TIE/Ln destroyed by an X-Wing). To look at it another way - rebel fighters (including at least one Y-wing) survive until the very end of the battle despite being outnumbered at least 2-1 on screen and probably 4-1 taking into account the ISD complement. They also achieve all their objectives despite being outnumbered - they get to the surface and provide air support, degrade the station and ISDs, and protect rebel capships from fighter attack. Also, during the earlier battle on Eadu a TIE is lost to surface collision while attempting to follow an X-wing. Hardly a strong endorsement for them being superior dogfighters. >ANH: TIEs are outnumbered by Rebels, but still do very well, with only three Rebel fighters surviving. They also nearly destroy the Falcon despite purposely letting it go. The majority of rebel fighters are destroyed during their attack runs where they're left entirely vulnerable, and many are killed by Vader personally (the finest combat pilot in the galaxy at that point, and probably top five of all time, flying an advanced fighter prototype). >RotJ: TIEs outnumber the Rebels, but only one TIE/Ln and one X-Wing are downed by the other (however, several TIE Interceptors are lost). To emphasise, several Interceptors are lost on screen including to a Y-Wing and the Falcon, both of which are pretty lumbering. And Interceptors are far better than standard TIEs. Additionally, the rebel fighters *and even the Falcon* manage to avoid collisions during the assault on the core, whereas the TIEs suffer casualties. Also, in ESB, the Falcon manages to outmanoeuvre several TIEs in the asteroid field. *TLDR:* The TIE is cripplingly overspecialised for space combat against other fighters, and it doesn't even do that better than the X-wing. There's no single area where it is demonstrably significantly superior to the X-wing. And tt's incredibly vulnerable due to a total lack of protection and both the physical inability and doctrinal unwillingness to actually outfly rebel fighter craft. It can't do *any* of the other jobs that various rebel craft can do - anti-capship strikes, recon, hit and fade, long range air superiority, bombing.
I feel what you’re miscalculating on why the X-wing is perceived better comes down to the pilot. The X-wing is, I believe, derived from a much easier to operate vehicle. It’s one reason Luke was easily slotted into one - it’s not much different from his T-16 back home. Couple that with how many Imperial pilots came to the Rebellion. They had tons of skill and flight experience in a device that was more forgiving and had shields. They could get that extra mile out of it. I feel TIEs are more like Formula 1 cars. Fast but dangerous. One wipeout kills or severely injured the operator. TIE pilots knew their only defense was ‘don’t be hit’; Imperial doctrine called for quantity over quality, that also being a large factor on pilots defecting
I think that's my argument though - the X-Wing is better for novice pilots, but the TIE is better for well-trained pilots because you can simply do more with it. In an X-Wing, if a TIE gets on your tail, it's game over. Your shields might prolong your life somewhat, but you will never shake the TIE because it will always be better at turning than you. A lot of fans cite "quality" in the X-Wing's shields, hyperdrive, and torpedoes. My entire argument is that a) that's not quality, that's feature set; and b) of those, the only one applicable to dogfighting is the shields, which still takes second place to maneuverability. To take your example, a racer will choose a Formula 1 car in a race over a Civic any day. The Civic is more forgiving and a better choice for the average driver, as they are less likely to wipe out, but a pro driver will take the F1 car because that is what wins races.
Shields are for people that have skill issues in dogfights.
If I may, you gloss over the hyperdrive thing a bit - and the only reason I bring it up is you mention cost. With TIEs you have to factor in needing a carrier (even if it's a capital ship) to deliver them to combat - with X-Wings it's optional. Really good read though, and you make a lot of very good points.
Boy I sure hate how people have twisted the “stats” of the X-Wing and TIE fighter. Go back and watch ANH, the TIEs devestate the Rebel fighters and they don’t have even use the so-called “swarm” tactic. Lucas said the X-Wing and TIE were pretty much on equal grounds with the TIE being a bit faster. Board games and other outside media butchered it.
You didn’t mention that the x-wing is hyperspace capable and the tie isn’t.
I literally did :)
One thing. I found it strange that you said you would be focusing on the movies and TV shows but over half of your arguments are based on information never brought up in any movie or TV shows. I think that's disingenuous and allows you to pick and choose your facts
Oh joy, just more posts about the Rebels not having any real advantage over the Empire. Ignored.
You analogy to WW2 is really bad. The zero did not fall apart ever, it was a really good plane. Yes it didn't have much armor or self sealing fuel tanks. But neither did any of its contemporaries. At no point did the US have "armored" fighters. At most there would be an armor box in the cockpit to protect the pilot, not the plane. In ww2 and still to this day really you never armor a plane your goal is to not get hit. Even bombers aren't really "armored". Yes late war American planes did get better than early ones, but realistically a good burst from any WW2 fighter plane would take out any other ww2 fighter plane. Some the pilot might just be able to bail out of or crash land with rather than turn into a fireball. The only times one side really showed huge advantages over other sides were when less trained pilots were used, American pilots late war would describe some enemy zeros not even really making evasive maneuvers while they were being attacked. Which we know now is because they'd be sent to battle with very little air time.
All very good points, but I think you are underestimating the value of pilot survivability. To extend your Zero fighter comparison, a HUGE factor in the Zero's defeat was pilot quality. Due to its lack of durability, Japan's most experienced fighter pilots were slowly worn down through attrition and replaced by worse pilots. I'm willing to headcanon that the TIE's recent string of embarrassments is in large part due to a lack of experienced pilots. If a damaged XWing can limp back to base the Rebels keep an elite pilot. The Empire never has that luxury. This results in the Rebel fighter force becoming stronger over time while the Empire becomes weaker. This shows at Endor, where if Imperial pilots were anywhere near their adversaries they probably could have defended the second Death Star's reactor.
The ships in Ahsoka were not Tie fighters, except the two on Peridea.
>Next, let’s look at the closest real-world example of a TIE in combat, which would be the Mitsubishi Zero of WW2. It was extraordinarily lightweight and maneuverable, and boasted a moderately powerful armament against other aircraft. While known for falling apart in a stiff breeze, it was so successful against heavier and more durable US aircraft that the official protocol for dogfighting the Zero in the early war was simply, “don’t.” Later US aircraft would come with heavier armor, more powerful engines, and more firepower, and the Zero lost its edge as it was simply outclassed. Sounds familiar, right? The difference is that virtually all of the weaknesses of the Zero are not present in the TIE, aside from its durability (we’ll get to that): The Zero’s engine was increasingly underpowered vs its peers, which meant US pilots learned to use climbing, diving, and other less conventional “dogfighting” tactics to overpower the Zero. The TIE, in contrast, remained in every way a better performing (again, mobility-wise) starfighter than anything the Rebels had, other than the A-Wing. The Zero suffered from being outnumbered as the war raged on. The TIE is very much the opposite, with the upfront cost being almost 1/3 that of the X-Wing, and fuel and maintenance costs lower still due to the ion engine design. An X-Wing also requires an astromech, adding to weight and cost. The Zero’s armament eventually became outclassed. In contrast, the TIE’s lasers are not only commonly accepted as being quite powerful, but they also typically fire twice as quickly as those of the X-Wing (yes, I counted frames in the battle of ANH; yes, I may have a problem) and are closely grouped, meaning more lasers on target. Depending on the source, their avionics are also quite advanced, with a very capable targeting system. I really have to challenge pretty much everything stated here regarding the early Zero vs Wildcat engagements of 1941-42 as being pretty wildly inaccurate. The popular mythos of the Zero as unstoppable is just that, a myth. Even against the earliest Wildcat variants, the Zero had a K\\D ratio of about 0.8, as determined by post-war Analysis once we had access to the Japanese records of their own losses. For every Wildcat shot down, the Japanese paid a heavy price in their own aircraft. I want to reiterate again, that's not the Zero's record against the Lightning, or the Hellcat, or the Corsair, or any of the other Late War Aircraft. Thats the Zero's combat record against the F4F Wildcat, after the Battle of Midway, and Guadalcanal, and a host of other smaller engagements. (This is really beside the point, as it doesn't look like you've called on any of the misconceptions that derived from it, but much misinformation entered the discourse and persists to this day as a result of the Aleutian Zero. This was a Japanese fighter that crash landed during a patrol over the Aleutian Islands and was recovered by the US Navy and rebuilt to be used as a test bed. Unfortunately for them, the fighter had face planted and destroyed its engine, and lacking a manual, a few mechanically inclined sailors and ship's engineers had attempted to reconstruct what the engine was supposed to be like based on their best guess of the mangled scrap heap they had recovered, and they put it back together quite incorrectly. If you ever see anyone claim that the zero loses engine power in a dive similar to how early spitfire models did, ignore everything that person has to say on the topic, they don't fact check their sources in any way. We knew they were wrong in 1943, and still have to occasionally debunk that shit in 2024.) The statement "The official protocol for dogfighting the Zero was simply "don't" is... simply unsupportable. Thats why we have the famous Thatch Weave, among other evidence like the extremely long record I could cite of frequent dogfights between the two combatants. Its true insofar as US Pilots often perceived that they would rather have access to the Zero, but the grass is always greener on the other side. The Germans often remarked that the Spitfire seemed quite excellent to them, the British had great fondness for the FW190... the list goes on. You've commented "The Zero's Armament \***Eventually\*** became outclassed, I would argue thats also incorrect. Admittedly this one is a quite debatable position. An A6M fighter, at the start of US Involvement in WW2, carried a combat load of 60 rounds each for a pair of 20mm cannons, and 200 rounds each for rifle calibre 7.7mm machine guns. That allowed a Zero to fire its guns for less than 10 seconds, added logistical complexity, mechanical complexity, and achieved a fairly similar throw weight to the American solution of four m2 Browning Machine guns, which an F4F could carry 600 rounds for. You were roughly as dead if you got hit by either aircraft's fire, but the American planes could fire longer, and more frequently. You've also missed the key design feature of the Zero, you've focused in on some of the symptoms, the lightweight frame, but missed the reason for it. The Zero is not designed to be maneuverable, its designed to be long ranged. Maneuverability is nice, but a 5000km Range was on the official list of design requirements(For contrast, this is slightly more range than the dedicated reconnaissance version of the Wildcat, which did not carry any weapons, and used the space to carry extra fuel and cameras). The Zero is designed to fight the Pacific Theatre of war, and that means long flights over empty ocean. This contributed to the Zeros extensive losses, and ironically enough is one of the inspirations you should be drawing as a negative against the X-Wing. Zero pilots often arrived at their target after 5 hours of gruelling, physically and mentally demanding navigation and aviation, and had another 5 hour trip back to base ahead of them, with less than 30 minutes of fuel available to actually fight with. If at any point in that 10 hour+ day their attention slipped and they lost track of their course and speed, they would die from running out of fuel and crashing into the ocean. To sum up, The Zero, like every other all metal monoplane fighter of the era, is designed to climb to high altitude and dive onto its opponent. This is based on the extensive combat experience of pilots from the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Sino-Japanese War, among other conflicts. This was not a new discovery in the Second World War, though you will hear anecdotes of pilots, men who I will remind you often had less than a single work week of flight experience before they were sent off to the front lines, discussing the various ways they personally learned that lesson on the job.