StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Excellent.

There is a good example of this "mobbing" attack in X-Wing Isard's Revenge, where 6 Corellian Corvettes (The Mantooine, Dantoine, Ryloth, Sullust, Chandrilla and Mrlsst) and three Nebulon-B frigates (Peacemaker, Pride of Eiattu and Thunderchild) swarm the VSD Emperor's Wisdom They come in at extreme angle, forcing the Imperial gunners to crank their weapons "to the highest elevation and lowest depression" to get a decent shot.

A note on that battle (Second Ciutric) - the Imperial forces have two ISd-II's (Reckoning, Decisive), the aofrementioned VSD and an Interdictor, Binder. The New Republic has Home One and an ISD-II Emancipator, plus the aforementionedd frigates and corvettes.

The Imperial forces are described as having "a sickening advantage in firepower." If we consider the Decisive countering Emancipator and Reckoning countering Home One, the VSD must outgun the nine smaller vessels by a wide margin to make Ackbar's "sickening" comment seem reasonable.

This only lends credence to the idea that small, agile ships cannot individually harm ISD's.

There was a comment on the first page about an Imperial regulation against engaging Rebel fighters without a 3-to-1 numerical advantage. This actually may make more sense than it appears at first blush, as between the Rebel's hyperdrives, their slightly better durability, Star Wars FTL comms reliability and travel speeds in general, and the fact that they are a guerrilla force, it's plausible that a statistically significant amount of the time that Imperial fighters pounced on a force they had an advantage over, Rebel fighters hypered in and turned the tables on them.

A 3-to-1 advantage not only means that a larger force has to hyper in to have an advantage, but also means that you might wipe out, or nearly so, the initial force before their possible reinforcements arrive, or even before a given pilot has a chance to breathe and make the call, as well as meaning that you have more remaining fighters to take out the reinforcements, and upping the chance that the reinforcements won't get released to attack you in the first place, because it's a forlorn hope mission.

Or at least, that's what it seems like to me.

Also, given the sheer volume of TIE production, it's really not that difficult to amass 3x TIEs to handle x Y-wings...