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Damn. Apparently, the forum ate up my post and I didn't realise.

Thanas wrote: The first one.

The Imperial Escort carrier highlights how the Empire realised too late the use of Rebel Y-wings was a threat to Imperial convoys and their response to it.
The Lancer frigate is explict in mentioning the Empire lax anti-starfighter defence and the revamp post Yavin.

And I repeat...did the incident of TIE Bombers being used in that role not occur? In case you do not know it, one can reconcile the sources.

You're shifting the goalposts.

Says the guy who lost the last arguments.

By you arbitarily shifting the goalposts away from what I was actually debating, which is me finding the "every member of species must had a pyschological blindspot that nobody knows about and hasn't been compensated for by in training " is a stupid plothole.
After the whole merry go round, you finally GOT it and then claimed I'm a dumbass for not stating this in the begining, even though my opening sentence had the "stupid" claim attached.

Oh wait. You're DOING it again.
How on god green earth is Imperial doctrine does not consider snubfighters a valid threat to anything other than another snubfighter, extrapolated in the EU to demonstrate that the Empire does not invest significantly in anti-starfighter defences other than a TIE fighter screen = Show the Empire doesn't use snubfighters?

So what? The TIE Fighter was in existence long before that.

So? Its a fighter...... You know, threat against other snubfighters?

Wrong.

During the Battle of Hoth, several TIE bomber squadrons attacked escaping Rebel transports trying to run the blockade, causing significant losses among them. Only the intervention of Rogue Squadron in holding off enough of the bombers allowed the greater part of the Rebels to escape.

You can see those events in Rogue Squadron.

You're taking this way out of context, when I was referring to movie canon events.

But hey, let us revisit that quote from Dodonna again.

Let's revisit the quote from ANh novelisation, which adds the "threat to other snubfighters" line.

Thanas wrote:They do, because otherwise the Imperials were even more stupid when they ordered fighter attacks against the rebel ships at endor.

Do you have a quote? My understanding was the entire purpose of the Task Force was to disable Rebel ships if they attempted to escape and the starfighters were supposed to screen the smaller Imperial ships.

General Schatten wrote:

Thanas wrote:They do, because otherwise the Imperials were even more stupid when they ordered fighter attacks against the rebel ships at endor.

Do you have a quote? My understanding was the entire purpose of the Task Force was to disable Rebel ships if they attempted to escape and the starfighters were supposed to screen the smaller Imperial ships.

What smaller Imperial ships do we see attacking? Do you mean the Star Destroyers? IMO the Imperials clearly start throwing fighters at the Rebel fleet as a sort of alpha strike, which attack fighters as well as capital ships.

Battle video.
Fighter attack starts at 2:11 - notice how Lando immediately says "Keep their fire away from the cruisers?" Clearly he seems to think they are a threat.

PainRack wrote:The Imperial Escort carrier highlights how the Empire realised too late the use of Rebel Y-wings was a threat to Imperial convoys and their response to it.
The Lancer frigate is explict in mentioning the Empire lax anti-starfighter defence and the revamp post Yavin.

Doesn't prove that the empire considered them no threat or not useful, all it proves is that the Imperials placed the wrong emphasis on Force structure.

PainRack wrote:You're shifting the goalposts.

How the heck is reconciliation shifting the goalposts? Especially since your own quote does not say what you claimed it to be.

PainRack wrote: By you arbitarily shifting the goalposts away from what I was actually debating, which is me finding the "every member of species must had a pyschological blindspot that nobody knows about and hasn't been compensated for by in training " is a stupid plothole.
After the whole merry go round, you finally GOT it and then claimed I'm a dumbass for not stating this in the begining, even though my opening sentence had the "stupid" claim attached.

That is of course now what is happening here or happened there. Your choices would make the NR complete retards just because you just do not get the notion of Thrawn either being a genius or lucky.

How on god green earth is Imperial doctrine does not consider snubfighters a valid threat to anything other than another snubfighter, extrapolated in the EU to demonstrate that the Empire does not invest significantly in anti-starfighter defences other than a TIE fighter screen = Show the Empire doesn't use snubfighters?

Again, nice wall of ignorance here. Did you even read my posts?

Justify the assumption that the Imperials do not consider snubfighters as anything than anti-snubfighter or scout forces
Because your own quote does not say they do so in general, only when considering the DS. Likewise, the very notion and use of snubfighters in anti-ship roles before and after Yavin says something different.

PainRack wrote:You're taking this way out of context, when I was referring to movie canon events.

How is me introducing information from other sources taking this out of context, when you yourself use other EU information to justify your assumptions? Is it out of context because it disagrees with you?

PainRack wrote:Let's revisit the quote from ANh novelisation, which adds the "threat to other snubfighters" line.

From where? From Dodonna? If they claim he said that when in the movie he clearly did not, then the novelization is contradicted by the movies.

@Thanas:
To make sure, that there are no misunderstandings: You think that when Dodonna says, that the empire doesn’t consider a snubfighter to be a threat he actually means “no threat to the DeathStars”, while they are well aware, that fighters can present a danger to capital ships?

I would have no problems with that as long as we are talking about small capships (nothing larger, than a Nebulon-B).

Thanas wrote:

FTeik wrote: At the moment only from Wookiepedia:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/sa

I know, I know, its no official side and not always reliable, but considering how anal some of the contributors are about sources ... .

Meh, good enough. Still, that is no proof it was used exclusively in that role.

I never said it was. What I am suggesting is, that the empire purchased and intended to use it as such and when they found out, that they needed a bomber for naval engagements they had - in most cases - nothing else available.

Thanas wrote: They do, because otherwise the Imperials were even more stupid when they ordered fighter attacks against the rebel ships at endor.

Since this is the empire we are talking about, which isn’t supposed to care about its pilots and also considering the amounts of stupidity we have seen during that battle I don’t dare to make a guess.

Sending the fighters in to deal with those ships too small for the DS-superlaser to destroy however would make sense.

Thanas wrote:

FTeik wrote:Where do you get the idea, that the Assault Gunboat is a scout most of the time? I understand how it can be a possibility, but the empire already has several TIE-variants, that serve as scouts and then there are also the Skipray-blastboats.

Well, because these are the missions we see it on in TIE Fighter. Also, wookiepedia:

It proved very useful in conducting hyperspace raids against convoys and space stations, and also served in a reconnaissance capacity.

Hmmm, it seems the only thing we disagree on here is the amount of scout-work the AG did. A successor to the ARC-170, although - depending on the introduction of the TIE-bomber - see below, I still think the AG was intended to fill the role of naval bomber?

Thanas wrote:

FTeik wrote:I think TIE-bombers originally started as planetary bombers, with some use as naval bombers. And while they are very good at the first job, they are less so at the second. For the few cases before the rebellion got better organized, where a better naval bomber was needed, the empire used gunboats and Skipray-blastboats.

The gunboats were introduced in 0 ABY, and the Empire actually did not like the Skipray that much.

Since I believe that the empire didn’t need naval bombers most of the time and that consequently the Skiprays were nothing but a stopgap, I have no problems if they are rarely used.

The gunboat and the TIE-bomber are another matter. I don’t know, when the TIE-bomber was introduced, but IIRC it was also around the time of ANH (I could be wrong on this). Prior to that the empire used this: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/gt

Thanas wrote:

FTeik wrote:If the Imperial Admirality actually realized/cared at all, that they should get a better naval bomber.

They did, see the scimitar assault bomber.

That doesn’t work. Not for the empire at its height. The Scimitar Assault Bomber was introduced at the time of TTT, when the empire no longer had limited access to resources and people, so in that context its logical, that start to put more emphasis on the survival of their pilots. Also nowhere in the entry on the SAB in the DFR-sourcebook is anything said about its use in naval engagements. The SAB is described as another planetary (dive-) bomber, nothing more.

Thanas wrote:What smaller Imperial ships do we see attacking? Do you mean the Star Destroyers? IMO the Imperials clearly start throwing fighters at the Rebel fleet as a sort of alpha strike, which attack fighters as well as capital ships.

We don't see any, because it's so small in relation to the other combatants. There were Carrack-class Light Cruisers like the Eminence according to the SW.com Databank.

That's said it's been a while since I deigned to watch RotJ so I'd forgotten the part where Lando says to 'keep their fire away from the cruisers', itself not an argument that they were attacking the cruisers simply that he thought they were going to attempt to.

Battle video.
Fighter attack starts at 2:11 - notice how Lando immediately says "Keep their fire away from the cruisers?" Clearly he seems to think they are a threat.

Except I never asked if they were a threat, they obviously are given that both the Empire and Rebellion have fighter-munitions that can endanger capital ships in numerous instances.

The Battle of Turkana (featured in the intro to X-Wing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FTmPTip0lI

Yeah, game canon, but still. Mon-Cals outnumbered by Star Destroyers yet the one thing turning the tide is the X-Wing. A clear implication that either the bomber squadrons proved a sizable threat in addition to the Star Destroyers and those bombers were attacking ships much larger than a Nebulon-B Frigate or that X-Wings were an effective threat to Star Destroyers.
Points off for the anachronistic Tie Interceptors though.

FTeik wrote:@Thanas:
To make sure, that there are no misunderstandings: You think that when Dodonna says, that the empire doesn’t consider a snubfighter to be a threat he actually means “no threat to the DeathStars”, while they are well aware, that fighters can present a danger to capital ships?

Indeed.

I would have no problems with that as long as we are talking about small capships (nothing larger, than a Nebulon-B).

Why should it stop at the Nebulon B? To get to this point, the idea of the empire abandoning bombers as viable anti-cap ship weaponry, the empire have to be retards because we see this strategy work against even the heaviest of Seppie warships. In fact, were we to follow this scenario, officers who fought and used that tactic suddenly decided that it was not worth due to...what, exactly?

I never said it was. What I am suggesting is, that the empire purchased and intended to use it as such and when they found out, that they needed a bomber for naval engagements they had - in most cases - nothing else available.

That assumes the empire consciously abandoned that tactic in the first place. That is not how it works in any kind of military.

Since this is the empire we are talking about, which isn’t supposed to care about its pilots and also considering the amounts of stupidity we have seen during that battle I don’t dare to make a guess.

The empire cares plenty about its pilots. However, the Emperor sure as heck did not ask for a fighter alpha strike.

Thanas wrote:Hmmm, it seems the only thing we disagree on here is the amount of scout-work the AG did. A successor to the ARC-170, although - depending on the introduction of the TIE-bomber - see below, I still think the AG was intended to fill the role of naval bomber?

That is belied by the low number of it in use - 4 per ISD, iirc. And iirc the Imperial sourcebook or the SW fact file describes an ISD jumping into a battlezone after the 4 AGs determined it to be safe.

That doesn’t work. Not for the empire at its height.The Scimitar Assault Bomber was introduced at the time of TTT, when the empire no longer had limited access to resources and people, so in that context its logical, that start to put more emphasis on the survival of their pilots.

Why not? The empire at its height introduced the missile boat (best capship killer there is), the Tie Defender and Avenger - all ships which were intended to go into mass production and which were all capable of carrying ship-killing munitions. that Thrawn decided to introduce a successor to the TIE Bomber is pretty much in line with that thinking.

Also nowhere in the entry on the SAB in the DFR-sourcebook is anything said about its use in naval engagements. The SAB is described as another planetary (dive-) bomber, nothing more.

The SW fact file iirc clearly describes it as a strike bomber against capships.

Thanas wrote:

I would have no problems with that as long as we are talking about small capships (nothing larger, than a Nebulon-B).

Why should it stop at the Nebulon B? To get to this point, the idea of the empire abandoning bombers as viable anti-cap ship weaponry, the empire have to be retards because we see this strategy work against even the heaviest of Seppie warships. In fact, were we to follow this scenario, officers who fought and used that tactic suddenly decided that it was not worth due to...what, exactly?

Because the empire/galactic republic fleet turned for the most part from being a military fighting a conventional war against an equal opponent into an occupation- and police-force for the next twenty years. They also basically switched over time the entire equipment they fought with during the clone-wars against new stuff. Why wouldn't it be possible, that in the process of streamlining and standardizing their new toys some capabilities would get lost or at least underrepresented?

Thanas wrote:

Since this is the empire we are talking about, which isn’t supposed to care about its pilots and also considering the amounts of stupidity we have seen during that battle I don’t dare to make a guess.

The empire cares plenty about its pilots. However, the Emperor sure as heck did not ask for a fighter alpha strike.

No, but he ordered the star destroyers to stay back and enjoy the show of his DeathStar vaporizing MonCal-cruisers. And while I am aware of TIEs with shields and ejection-seats (which is also contrary to official opinion, which claims, that the empire DOESN'T care), those are of little use, if the they go alone against capships and fighters.

Thanas wrote: That is belied by the low number of it in use - 4 per ISD, iirc. And iirc the Imperial sourcebook or the SW fact file describes an ISD jumping into a battlezone after the 4 AGs determined it to be safe.

For the love of god, I already agreed that the AGs could serve as scouts.

And couldn't it be, that there were only five AGs aboard an ISD as naval bombers, since the empire considered them to be enough? I mean, most of the ships in the Imperial Navy don't have any bombers at all.

Thanas wrote:Why not? The empire at its height introduced the missile boat (best capship killer there is), the Tie Defender and Avenger - all ships which were intended to go into mass production and which were all capable of carrying ship-killing munitions. that Thrawn decided to introduce a successor to the TIE Bomber is pretty much in line with that thinking.

First it is still questionable, if the empire truly intended to put TIE-Defenders and Avengers into mass-production (according to official sources the empire discarded the use of the TIE-Avengers in favour of the cheaper TIE-Interceptor) and the surviving missile boats were put into storage, not set up for mass-production. If Thrawn, who had a large part in the conception and development of the missile boat wanted a new naval bomber, why didn't he just start a new production of the missile boat? Instead he wastes time and resources on another new bomber. What happened makes only sense, if the SAB isn't a naval bomber, but a replacement for a no longer adequat planetary TIE-bomber.

Thanas wrote: The SW fact file iirc clearly describes it as a strike bomber against capships.

I am not surprised by that. It wouldn't the first time a specialized craft got turned into a jack-of-all-trades. Source A says the vessel can do "this", while source B says the vessel can do "that". As a result we get Source C, that says the ship is capable of "this and that".

FTeik wrote:Because the empire/galactic republic fleet turned for the most part from being a military fighting a conventional war against an equal opponent into an occupation- and police-force for the next twenty years. They also basically switched over time the entire equipment they fought with during the clone-wars against new stuff. Why wouldn't it be possible, that in the process of streamlining and standardizing their new toys some capabilities would get lost or at least underrepresented?

I'd like some proof for that statement. As far we know, the GR is actually fielding more powerful and more capable starships than the OR, not the other way around. Besides, we are not talking about some obscure capability, we are talking about one of the most important weapons from the last war. It may be argued that in fact it was the weapon that won the war. So why would the empire suddenly stop fielding it? It would be akin the USA suddenly not using heavy bombers anymore after WWII.

No, but he ordered the star destroyers to stay back and enjoy the show of his DeathStar vaporizing MonCal-cruisers. And while I am aware of TIEs with shields and ejection-seats (which is also contrary to official opinion, which claims, that the empire DOESN'T care), those are of little use, if the they go alone against capships and fighters.

Why? It has been shown plenty of times that torpedo-equipped craft can destroy capships and are a threat to them, if only knocking out the bridge shields of the Executor, crippling the Malevolence or destroying key systems.

And couldn't it be, that there were only five AGs aboard an ISD as naval bombers, since the empire considered them to be enough? I mean, most of the ships in the Imperial Navy don't have any bombers at all.

So this is another the empire must be retards argument. So what is it? Four torpedo-carrying Fighters are a threat to capital ships, or they are not (enough) and the empire are retards again.

First it is still questionable, if the empire truly intended to put TIE-Defenders and Avengers into mass-production (according to official sources the empire discarded the use of the TIE-Avengers in favour of the cheaper TIE-Interceptor) and the surviving missile boats were put into storage, not set up for mass-production. If Thrawn, who had a large part in the conception and development of the missile boat wanted a new naval bomber, why didn't he just start a new production of the missile boat? Instead he wastes time and resources on another new bomber. What happened makes only sense, if the SAB isn't a naval bomber, but a replacement for a no longer adequat planetary TIE-bomber.

Because as you know from TIE fighter, Zaarin destroyed all the production facilities for the advanced craft and killed most of the scientists involved. And then the empire collapsed, putting an end to those expansion plans.

I am not surprised by that. It wouldn't the first time a specialized craft got turned into a jack-of-all-trades. Source A says the vessel can do "this", while source B says the vessel can do "that". As a result we get Source C, that says the ship is capable of "this and that".

However, both sources state the armament of the Scimitar bombers, which are sixteen missile racks along bomb chutes etc. This makes me think the ship was intended to be both from the start (it wouldn't also be the first time for a multirole craft to be designed and it makes perfect sense considering the limited resources available).

Thanas wrote: Doesn't prove that the empire considered them no threat or not useful, all it proves is that the Imperials placed the wrong emphasis on Force structure.

What's your point again? cause I'm utterly lost.

How the heck is reconciliation shifting the goalposts? Especially since your own quote does not say what you claimed it to be.

What reconciliation? Your posts so far has been aimed at asking me to demonstrate that the Empire doesn't use starfighters.

This when my argument is that the Empire doesn't place as much prestige on starfighters than the Republic, to the extent that TIE pilots are considered to be expendable.

How is me introducing information from other sources taking this out of context, when you yourself use other EU information to justify your assumptions? Is it out of context because it disagrees with you?

Your rebuttal then makes no sense.
This the sequence..

The easiest answer is that Dodonna is wrong, as evidenced in TIE Fighter and the very existence of the TIE Bomber itself

The TIE bomber in TESB was used to flush out the Millenium Falcon and not any other anti-capital ship role. Similarly, outside of the X-wing linked series, TIE bombers were never used in anti capital ship roles.

Because we never see any capship battle during Hoth or TESB. How could they have been used against capships there, pray tell?

You can see those events in Rogue Squadron.

So.... let's continue, shall we?
You attempt to rebut my point that Tie bombers aren't used in a anti cap ship role in any series outside of the X-wing series........ by pointing me to an X-wing series source.


Similarly, the existence of the TIE bomber simply doesn't suggest that Dodonna was wrong at all because we don't see TIE bombers being used that way.
With regards to Endor, one must also point out that in the novelisation, a long range gunnery duel between the two fleets was occuring. Indeed, the ONLY long range gunnery duel we see in the higher canon.

PainRack wrote: From where? From Dodonna? If they claim he said that when in the movie he clearly did not, then the novelization is contradicted by the movies.

How is it contradicted by the movies?
Or are we going to throw away the Stormtroopers are precise to shoot away load bearing structures on sandcrawler, because its not mentioned in the movie? Even though its a natural lead on to the "only stormtroopers could be so precise" statement made in both the movie or the novel?

Furthermore, additional EU sources support this viewpoint that the Empire places little emphasis on starfighter forces pre Yavin.

Thanas wrote:I'd like some proof for that statement. As far we know, the GR is actually fielding more powerful and more capable starships than the OR, not the other way around. Besides, we are not talking about some obscure capability, we are talking about one of the most important weapons from the last war. It may be argued that in fact it was the weapon that won the war. So why would the empire suddenly stop fielding it? It would be akin the USA suddenly not using heavy bombers anymore after WWII.

Starships =/= bombers.

And where during the clone-wars do you see the use of naval bombers as one of the most important weapons of the clone-wars? If we are willing to accept, that the ARC-170 does the job of bomber (note that being a scout-craft is actually part of the name), than it is superior to the TIE-bomber in several regards: it has shields, superior acceleration and is hyperspace-capable, all things the TIE-bomber isn't. Aside from that a Venator-SD carries 36 of the things, while an ISD does only twelve. The only area, where the TIE/sa is superior is the payload, but that on the other side would be indicative, that the ARC-170 isn't a bomber at all.

It wouldn't be akin to the US not using heavy bombers after WWII, where they were still needed as deterrent against the Soviets (note that the empire doesn't have such a competitor for galactic domination), but more like the US reducing its heavy tanks in favour of the Stryker-program.

Thanas wrote: Why? It has been shown plenty of times that torpedo-equipped craft can destroy capships and are a threat to them, if only knocking out the bridge shields of the Executor, crippling the Malevolence or destroying key systems.

And here I thought it was the capital ships of the Rebel-Alliance, that were responsible for the shield-loss of Executor. From the ROTJ-novel:
Admiral Ackbar: "Concentrate your fire on that Super Star Destroyer. If we knock out their shields, our fighters might stand a chance."

Thanas wrote: So this is another the empire must be retards argument. So what is it? Four torpedo-carrying Fighters are a threat to capital ships, or they are not (enough) and the empire are retards again.

No, no and no. Stop twisting around, what I say. What I say is, that for the twenty years the GE was unchallenged hegemon of the galaxy without any organized resistance against it it had no need for lots of naval bombers or other huge numbers of fighter-craft to be shipped around. Don't you wonder, why they switched from Venators with 432 fighters to ISDs with only 72? And in the few cases where they needed them five AGs per ISD were enough.

Thanas wrote: Because as you know from TIE fighter, Zaarin destroyed all the production facilities for the advanced craft and killed most of the scientists involved. And then the empire collapsed, putting an end to those expansion plans.

From the sw.databank: http://www.starwars.com/databank/starsh ... index.html

The important part is this: "Though successful in combat operations, the costly TIE avenger was eventually phased out with the increasing popularity of the more economical TIE interceptor."

I don't doubt, that we would have seen more TIE-Defenders, if the empire hadn't collapsed. The military always wants better toys. What I am contesting is the idea, that the empire cared much for its pilots based on getting them better fighters. Not when they sent them out against the rebel-fleet at Endor without the support of capital ships. Independent of the Imperial fighters at Endor being Interceptors or Defenders, the attitude with which they were sent out would have been the same.

Thanas wrote:

I am not surprised by that. It wouldn't the first time a specialized craft got turned into a jack-of-all-trades. Source A says the vessel can do "this", while source B says the vessel can do "that". As a result we get Source C, that says the ship is capable of "this and that".

However, both sources state the armament of the Scimitar bombers, which are sixteen missile racks along bomb chutes etc. This makes me think the ship was intended to be both from the start (it wouldn't also be the first time for a multirole craft to be designed and it makes perfect sense considering the limited resources available).

[/quote]
Just because the thing has racks for missiles (which are pointing downwards by the way, see this picture: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Sci ... r_egvv.jpg ) doesn't mean they are meant to fight targets in space. And as I've already said, Thrawn knew there was a perfectly capable bomber already available with the missile boat, without the time needed to develop anything new.

Fteik wrote:And where during the clone-wars do you see the use of naval bombers as one of the most important weapons of the clone-wars?

Right here:

Bombers cripple the Malevolence


Fighter destroys bridge of a Munificient Frigate, causing it to...


...plummet out of the battle


BTL-Bs destroy Munificient Frigate #1


Continued from picture above, as can be seen, no counter battery fire from the Venator in the vicinity, that's all bombers doing the work, destroying in the end six Munificients, winning the battle over Ryloth for the Republic


I think that underlines the importance of fighters and bombers in the Clone Wars quite nicely.

I can understand the thing about the Malevolence - the emitter/barrel of that huge cannon was probably less protected than the rest of the ship.

As far as the Munificents are concerned I am at a loss - do we know how they compare to ships like Nebulon-Bs, Carracks or Lancer-class frigates? Power-Output-wise?

According to the ROTS ICS the Munificient Star Frigate has a peak power output of 2,07 × 10^23 W. I don't know the data for the Nebulon-B or the Carrack Light Cruiser, but a Venator in comparison has a peak power output of 3,6 × 10^24 W and an Imperial I Class Star Destroyer one of 7,73 × 10^24 W (from Star Wars CCS).

Metahive wrote:According to the ROTS ICS the Munificient Star Frigate has a peak power output of 2,07 × 10^23 W. I don't know the data for the Nebulon-B or the Carrack Light Cruiser, but a Venator in comparison has a peak power output of 3,6 × 10^24 W and an Imperial I Class Star Destroyer one of 7,73 × 10^24 W (from Star Wars CCS).

I know the numbers from the Cross-Sections except the one for the ISD-I. Is that really genuine? I would have expected around 1.4*10^25 Watt or even more (based on the size compared to Victory- and Venator-SD). If we scale that down to the Carrack, we should get a fuel-consumption of ~ 3,000 tons at maximum. Enough to justify the label of "light cruiser" and within the range where I'm willing to see fighters and bombers be effective against capships. I can live with that.

Let me just throw something out there as a thought.

We know that the Tarkin doctrine or what ever it was called effectively called for bigger and better super weapons, ideally culminating in things like the Eclipse and Death Stars being mass produced and that it called for a top heavy fleet in terms of star destroyers.

Could it be that, operating on a limited budget and under doctrinal limitations from the few people that were pushing for a different approach the Imperial Navy simply did not have enough resources to go around. And once they spent all that money on the shiny new star destroyers they needed a cheap fighter to fill the gap. Something similar to the reasons why Germans newer did heavy bombers in WW2.

The rebels meanwhile having to operate from concealed bases with less support ships and different tactical requirements could afford to invest more into the kind of FTL capable dedicated ship hunter bomber craft.

They had the funds to create better fighters like the Avenger, the Defender and the Missile boat. Then however the first fleet to receive the Avenger defected to the Rebels and the inventor of the Defender attempted a coup d'etat, destroying the Empire's advanced starfighter manufacturing facilities in the process. The will and the resources were definitely there, fate however decided differently. Imagine the Battle of Endor where X-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings have to face those advanced TIEs. The Mariana's Turkey Shoot would have been nothing in comparison.

Yeah all those poor TIE Avengers. Remember the Imperials were arrogant and through all their star-fighters in unsupported, which is still against Clone Wars doctrine.

That isn't a winning strategy even if you have better equipment like the Avengers. Even then none of them are materially superior to a rebel fighter so I still can't see any changes in the battle.

In the battle of Endor, the Emperor specifically ordered the capships not to attack. He wanted a special demonstration of his fully combat ready battlestation. Pay attention.

Metahive wrote:They had the funds to create better fighters like the Avenger, the Defender and the Missile boat. Then however the first fleet to receive the Avenger defected to the Rebels and the inventor of the Defender attempted a coup d'etat, destroying the Empire's advanced starfighter manufacturing facilities in the process. The will and the resources were definitely there, fate however decided differently. Imagine the Battle of Endor where X-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings have to face those advanced TIEs. The Mariana's Turkey Shoot would have been nothing in comparison.

The Avenger was discarded in favour of the Interceptor and the remaining Missile Boats put somewhere into storage after Zaarin's coup-attempt. The Defender is the only of those advanced fighter we see later in the EU. However their presence wouldn't have changed anything at the battle of Endor. Not without the support of capships. And considering the performance of even ordinary TIEs against the Rebel-fighters during ANH above the first DeathStar, I doubt more modern fighters would have even been needed, if not for the MC-cruisers and other capships.

I'm not so sure about that. Without every rebel fighter shot down, the destruction of the Death Star becomes more and more uncertain and the Rebels didn't bring in all that many to begin with. Imperial fighters in vast numbers and with an overwhelming technological edge, that could have spelled doom for the whole operation. I also don't get why people insist that the imperial fighters had no capship support, that was only in the initial part of the battle, later the two fleets did grind into each other and the battle went on for quite some time after that.

We don't know for sure how many fighters both sides had available. On the empire's side it should have been more than 2,000 (without bombers and Executor carrying only two wings). The rebels probably hadn't even half of that. The problem is, that during the initial phase of the battle the empire would have lost much of that numerical advantage in regards to fighter-craft.
And you have also to remember, that the death of Palpatine caused the end of his battle-meditation, which resulted in a significant drop in the performance of the TIE-pilots. It is questionable, if better equipment would have been able to out-balance such a factor.

It might be helpful if we started making distinctions about what sort of threat and damage people expect fighters to do against capital ships (and the kinds of capital ships.) I could join the whole "cite a specific source" bandwagon (If you're curious, both EGV&V for example portray the TIE bomber as a precision/surgical bomber for space and ground targets.) or point out how they're deployed in movies, TV, or books (which varies depending on the source, you can find at least one example for any argument.) but that will just lead to more endless argument over whose sources are better.

Now, fighters and bombers could do lots of kinds of damage, ranging from "taking out gun turrets/sensors/comms/shield arrays" (even fighters could in theory do this in the right circumstnaces) to "blasting capital ships to pieces" - often with salvoes of heavy warheads (although usually I remember they were only crippled and not outright demolished.) Now, even if you pick a specific example along that range as general, there are still lots of variables: are we talking the Imperial military at its height, or are we talking about the Imperial Warlords? Ship condition matters alot and alot of factors can alter that - access to logistics and supply lines, whether or not you have important, front-line combat ships or are stick with older (or perhaps outdated/decomissioned) ships, political factors (politics plays a HUGE role in the Imperial Military, as Tarkin demonstrates.) and so on. Ships are complicated devices, with lots of potential failure points. In some cases, like with the Warlords, its quie possible ships aren't as well maintained and prone to failures at times of stress (a point even made in Bacta War I recall with ISard's forces on Thyferra.) Ship quality is also an issue. Just because its a wedge shaped vessel doesnt neccesarily mean its a top of the line warship. Who builds it, how its armed, what sort of powerplant they stuck in it, etc. all matter - there are LOTS of Star Destroyer types and variants of a particular type.

Even beyond that, there is the issue of the technology. As I have pointed out before, there are ample evidence for devices which allow for objects to negate, weaken, or otherwise bypass shielding. Torpedo sphere proton torpedoes, the Galaxy gun missiles, Black Fleet Crisis plasma torpedoes, Individual field disruptors (Pondo Baba/EVazen short story IIRC correctly), the assassin drone that attacked Amidala in AOTC, etc. The technology, if it exists, probably is not static - there likely try to find ways to defeat shields while shield designers find ways to prevent such attacks from bypassing the defense (after all, if shields became totally nullified, who would bother using them?) Hell, fighters might even employ such technologies (Implied to be so in the ANH radio drama, although that is complicated by whether you take the "magentic field" to be the outer shields, or factor the novelization depiction into the radio drama depiction... damn inconsistencies.) which could explain the "getting close" bits we see so often.

So before deciding which sources are right or not, perhaps we could decide what it is we think fighters and bombers ought to be capable of doing to ships (and what kind of ships, and in what state, and so on?)

Purple wrote: Could it be that, operating on a limited budget and under doctrinal limitations from the few people that were pushing for a different approach the Imperial Navy simply did not have enough resources to go around. And once they spent all that money on the shiny new star destroyers they needed a cheap fighter to fill the gap. Something similar to the reasons why Germans newer did heavy bombers in WW2.

It need not even e that complicated or extreme. Simple politics could dictate that the allocation of funding to the military is less efficient or extremely skewed. There were military and corporate interests (like KDY) who disliked the Death Star project and kept out of it, or the Adrmials who opposed Vader's building of the Executor, or Rohm Moc's Darktrooper project... I could go on. Tarkin was a very political animal, and a very influential one at that (with his own pet military officers as well, like Motti) and he could use his position and authority to requisition stuff for his own schemes. I imagine if Tarkin did it, lots of other Imperial officials did (another smaller example was that Gurdrun guy from the IG-88 story.)

When you get down to it, the Imperial Navy is just as political as any other segment of the Empire, with all the problems and restrictons that puts on things. That may even be one factor why palpy favored the Death STar - there is evidence that while he expanded and glrofied the fleet, he did not wholly trust it (There was inter-service rivarly, such as the disputes between the "generationals" - naval familes serving since the time of the Republic, and Palpy's own supporters/appointiees to the military. And the Army vs Navy rivalry, the rivalry between those two and COMPSEC, the Stormtroopers, etc.) Anyhow if Palpy didn't want to rely too heavily on the Navy, he probably wouldn't want to expand it too much unless he could keep absolute control of it (Death Stars would be easier to keep control of, in theory.) I suppose in practice its a "we got nukes so why do we need a military" mentality when it comes to deterrence and such.

Fteik wrote:On the empire's side it should have been more than 2,000 (without bombers and Executor carrying only two wings). The rebels probably hadn't even half of that. The problem is, that during the initial phase of the battle the empire would have lost much of that numerical advantage in regards to fighter-craft.

Got any numbers on that? On screen we only see a few dozen rebel fighters making the jump and even when we count the Mon-Cals launching more after the battle started, the Executor alone can potentially deploy thousands of TIEs, depending on how much the Empire bothered to load her up.

And you have also to remember, that the death of Palpatine caused the end of his battle-meditation, which resulted in a significant drop in the performance of the TIE-pilots. It is questionable, if better equipment would have been able to out-balance such a factor.

Palpatine using Battle Meditation during the Battle of Endor is only speculation in Zahn's novels, the Star Wars Insider identifies Admiral Nial Declann as the one having done it. I tend to agree since whenever we see someone using BM elswhere, it involves actual meditation, and Palpatine for sure was not meditating during the battle, he was having his attention on something else. While Palpatine's death disturbed Declann into stopping his meditation, do you think enough rebel fighters would have survived the onslaught of thousands of advanced TIEs until then? I don't think so.

We know from the novel of ROTJ, that there were a lot more rebel-ships than seen on screen making the jump. At least four HomeOne-types (that are said to be carrying 10 squadrons) and around a dozen of the smaller MC-cruiser (said to carry 3 squadrons). So we get seventy-six squadrons of rebel-fighters for 912 fighters.

The Imperials on the other hand have around 30-40 ISDs plus Executor (you are correct, that the Star Dreadnought alone can carry thousands of fighters (and maybe the only TIEs we see are actually from the Executor), but the standard contingent of fighters is described as two wings - I am trying to be conservative here). Since bombers stay within their hangars (we don't see any of those), each wing deployed counts for sixty fighters, giving us between 1,800 - and 2,400 TIEs on the Imperial side.

Concerning the battle-meditation, ROTJ makes it clear that it is the emperor's death and not Grand Admiral Declann, whose death is the root for the sudden cohesion of the Imperial Forces:

ROTJ novelization p.172 wrote: For the first time, the Death Star rocked. The collision with the exploding Destroyer was only the beginning, leading to various systems breakdowns, which led to reactor meltdowns, which led to personnel panic, abandonment of posts, further malfunctions, and general chaos.

Smoke was everywhere, substantial rumblings came from all directions at once, people were running and shouting. Electrical fires, steam explosions, cabin de-pressurizations, disruption of chain-of-command. Added to this, the continued bombardments by Rebel Cruisers- smelling fear in the enemy- merely heightened the sense of hysteria that was already pervasive.

For the Emperor was dead. The central, powerful evil that had been the cohesive force to the Empire was gone; and when the dark side was this diffused, this nondirected- this was simply where it led.

Confusion.

Desperation.

Damp fear.