Alliance snubfighter effectiveness.

[Simon_Jester]

Nightmare, even taking your word for the absolute numbers... 32 versus 9 is not 8-to-1 odds.

[Transbot9]

I suppose the effectiveness of shields would depend on whether or not the shields are flush (or nearly so) with the hull or put the ship in a bubble (discounting planetary based shields - those are a different ball game). If it is flush, there are no energy effects to indicate that shields were hit instead of solid stuff. If the shields are a bubble, then fighters are capable of passing through it (I've heard arguments on this forum about the shields not necessarily stopping matter, but stopping energy; there is still no visual effect). Otherwise, Luke would have not been able to blow up the Death Star in Episode 1. Footage from all 6 movies implies the latter to me, but I can see how others may disagree.

Episode 1 & 4 have the best examples of how fighters work best verses capitol ships: a tactical strike is needed on a weak point (Anakin blowing up the Lucrehulk, Luke the Death Star). This is fairly consistent in Clone Wars cartoon as well as the movies (the Malevolence's demise). With that in mind, the shift from the seemingly better thought out design of the Venator to the ISD makes sense - the IDS bulks up the armor and reduces the weak points dramatically.

[Molyneux]

And incidentally, if anyone had a numerical disadvantage, it would have been the Rebels, not the Imperials. Beyond already asking how you came up with 8-1, I can't understand how anyone can watch the OT and go "Gee these Rebels are living on Easy Street, what with outnumbering the Imperials"

The Battle of Yavin saw 32 rebel fighters vs. 8 imperial TIE/ln and Vader's x1. It should be noted that the Death Star had already thinned the rebel numbers when the Black Squadron attacked, but they were hardly outnumbered.

At the Battle of Endor the imperial fighters had a ~3.5:1 advantage, but the rebels got capship support, imps didn't.

Where are you getting those numbers from? And how on earth did the imps have no capital ship support given their massive fleet in that battle?

[Serafine666]

I've got a question to toss into this mix, if I may. On SD.net (Here; look under the section "Fighters"), Mike Wong mentions that the point-defense systems of even very outdated ships are capable of targeting and destroying photon torpedoes. In addition to the problem of overcoming shields, what effect do you think these PD systems could have on the ability of only-snub forces to take on capships?

[Bakustra]

And incidentally, if anyone had a numerical disadvantage, it would have been the Rebels, not the Imperials. Beyond already asking how you came up with 8-1, I can't understand how anyone can watch the OT and go "Gee these Rebels are living on Easy Street, what with outnumbering the Imperials"

The Battle of Yavin saw 32 rebel fighters vs. 8 imperial TIE/ln and Vader's x1. It should be noted that the Death Star had already thinned the rebel numbers when the Black Squadron attacked, but they were hardly outnumbered.

At the Battle of Endor the imperial fighters had a ~3.5:1 advantage, but the rebels got capship support, imps didn't.

Where are you getting those numbers from? And how on earth did the imps have no capital ship support given their massive fleet in that battle?

The movie shows the Imperial fighters launching attacks on Rebel capital ships unsupported by fire from their own vessels. Admiral Ackbar explicitly notes that the Star Destroyers aren't firing. The Endor starfighter numbers come from the callsigns (Gold group, Red group) implying four groups, (which are fighter units consisting of normally three wings, which are made up of six squadrons) suggesting about 864 fighters, while the thirty or so ISDs contribute 2160 fighters, which would grant them a minimum of a 2.5-to-one advantage, without any additional forces from the Executor, the communications ship (which had large hangars) and any other ships present at the battle. Granted, a 3.5-to-one advantage would require the Executor+comm ship to launch only 864 fighters between them (note that this is still as many starfighters as the Rebels had available).

Of course, using the EU Rebel wing of 36 fighters in three squadrons, we get 432 Rebel starfighters and a five-to-one advantage from the ISDs alone. For that matter, squadron size from the movies is hard to determine. Rebel squadrons may vary wildly in size depending on the mission, making Rebel numbers largely guesstimates.

I don't know where the thirty-two comes from (Oh, Wookieepedia and video games), but looking back at ANH, which I watched recently, we seem to have at least two different squadrons of indeterminate size, but larger than twelve if we presume only Red and Gold squadrons participated, since I can count at least fourteen X-wings with another four likely X-wings in the background, and 8 definite Y-wings and 3 probable Y-wings, all from an incomplete view. We have at least twenty-nine Rebel fighters from one shot alone, so thirty-two is certainly not implausible. According to the novel, we have at least four squadrons (Red, Gold, Yellow, and Green) present, which suggests that there were actually more than 32, presuming that the X-wing squadrons were at roughly equivalent strength, with at least 11 in Red Squadron, which suggests 11 more in Yellow or Green, producing 22 X-wings, with 12 Y-Wings (assuming equal strength between Gold and Yellow/Green at six each min.), producing 34, with additional A-wings/R-22 Spearheads from the games (and another squadron, Blue) which could bump the numbers up even higher.

[Bakustra]

Ghetto Edit: Of course, the presumption that the Death Star only launched eight fighters seems odd in light of two squadrons providing covering support for Red and Gold (Yellow and Green) which would leave five against the remaining parts of Red and Gold, along with the entirety of Yellow and Green, which doesn't speak well for Alliance effectiveness, unless we assume that almost all of Yellow and Green were shot down prior to the fighter's arrival. Alas, I don't have the ANH novelization handy to see the part where Yellow and Green are mentioned.