Say Generation Tech, could you do a video comparing Clone Trooper training to Stormtrooper training? I always figure that the difference between Republic and Imperial training was that the latter is influenced by Sith culture while the former is a darker version of Jedi training. What do you think?
The TIE was one of Tarkin's ideas. He wanted a cheap but maneuverable fighter that sacrificed basically everything - including life support - for speed. And it worked. It was also a tremendous tactical and financial blunder that most other officers recognized after Tarkin's death, hence the development of ships like the TIE Interceptor.
@user-yq9im9dk9z he created the Tarkin Doctrine! He was a former admiral, turn politician. Yes, he didn't make the weapons themselves or design them, but he made the guidelines for those weapons, what the requirements were and how they would function in the military. Star wars fans are idiots who have no clue how military procurement works.
@@АлексейМомот-щ7о it’s the Tarkin Doctrine. It stressed fairly low numbers of starfighters and reliance on the Star destroyers in use to inflict terror. Tarkin forgot the Venator 2 star destroyer with its large fighter compliment of over 100 fighters could significantly increase its firepower with them. The ISD as a rule only flew with 72 TIEs as its full complement. For reference a US Ford class aircraft carrier or a Nimitz class runs on average 75 to 80 aircraft. An ISD is significantly bigger than a Ford class CVN yet its fighter compliment matches. 72 TIES was not enough fighters for a single ISD. That’s just one example of the mistake called the Tarkin doctrine. That’s why he gets blamed for dumb military moves only intended to terrorize civilians
@@matthewcaughey8898 In Legends, an ISD modified to remove the ground assault complement could double it's fighter complement. The main issue with the Star Destroyers is that the Empire wanted them to be able to do everything...so a large chunk of their hangar space is devoted to things like walkers, ground invasion stuff, deployable ground bases, and everything to support that.
The Tie fighter feels like it came about the same way Mitsubishi made the Zero in WW2, sacrificing safety and structural integrity in order to meet the otherwise impossible design requirements.
George Lucas took heavy inspiration from movies depicting WW2. The rebel fighters were supposed to remind people of american fighters in WW2 movies while imperial fighters were supposed to remind them of japanese fighters. I know TIE looks nothing like a Zero, but the way the come in fast, turn tightly, are nearly impossible to shake unless a pal takes them off your back, is exactly like the Zero - at least as WW2 movies depict them.
@engravertom Actually you meet someone like that in the Star Wars: Resistance cartoon: Griff. He's explicitly described as a former TIE fighter pilot and his racing ship is a combination of components from several Imperial attack vessels. He even comments on the problem with the cut-throat training the Imperial pilots went through: "I thought you Imperials weren't real big on cooperation, Griff." "That's why we lost."
@engravertom "It would be really cool to see a Star Wars novel about a TIE pilot who was a high level ace and survived the war" There was Soontir Fel who in Legends was an ace pilot fighting for the Empire. His descendants became the leaders of the Imperial Remnants. Then there was Maarek Stele from the TIE Fighter game. He started out as a regular TIE Fighter pilot and on his first mission, several fighters from his squadron were taken out. This experience shook him and pushed him to get recommended for promotion, as that would guarantee him better crafts to fly in instead of the shoddy TIE Fighter. In fact, he would end up getting Thrawn's attention, and end up piloting the TIE Defender, as well as its counter, the Torpedo Boat.
For the first 14 years of the Empire, the Tie Squadrons were unstoppable under the cover of their ISD. Ties tore through A-Wings and Y-Wings. Ties didn't start getting ripped to shreds until the Rebels got the X-Wing around 5 BBY.
@@celticlad3251Thats what the US did in WW2. Quantity is a quality as it allows force multiplication. If you have 2 fighters vs their 1; you have another person who can provide support, check sensors, cover your back, extra ground support, and etc. The TIE fighter is a good fighter (not the best), but it served its purpose well protecting capital ships. The main fault of the Empire was their authoritarianism and with a good solid blow to the empire's prestige and authority from both destructon of death stars. The Empire still had massive control after the destruction of the first one; it wasn't until the Emperor was killed that the empire fractured. The TIE fighters did their job well in defending the ISD's from A Wing's, X-Wings, and etc.
@@MasterGhostf I think if you are doing ww2 comparison then the Tie fighter can be compared to sherman tanks against tiger tanks 4 against 1 tiger to hit and destroy the tiger because the shermans had light armor compared to heavy armor of the tiger. same with Ties and later on the x-wings
@@karlrovey No. The only exception might be if the enemy was running on low power lasers (with the corresponding wimpy sound effect), then maybe 4 or 5 hits to be destroyed in a TIE.
@@orokusaki1243 It also depended on whether or not the lasers were firing simultaneously or individually. If I remember correctly, the AI went with individual shots by default. If you grouped them in two (or even 4 in the case of the TIE Intercepter, TIE Advanced, or TIE Defender), it was one or two shots. ION canons could also destroy TIEs even though they didn't damage the hull.
@@karlrovey Yup, twin/quad linked weapons was a fun feature, looked just like the films! The power management did matter (regular vs weaker shots). 4 regular power shots was significantly more of a punch than 4 weaker power shots. Every weapon cycle put power drain on the system, so 4 at once drained like 4 bars out of 10 and at regular recharge rate, you'd get 1 bar restored every few seconds. Had the regular and the reserve charge gauges., so when on reserve, it was the weaker shots, like 1/2 or 1/3 the damage output. I don't remember the Ion being able to destroy a TIE, but I do remember that they were quite effective at taking out capital ships so could then pick off components until it was bare..and then blow that Star Destroyer up with your lone A-wing after like 3 hours of playing the same mission like a cat with a mouse. Thanks resupply tug! 🤣
@@orokusaki1243 There were definitely some missions where I had to turn on invincibility (one of them was when you have to clear a minefield in an unshielded TIE interceptor before it turns out the mission was just so an Admiral, possibly Zaarin, could get rid of you in order to defect: _This is a coup'de'tad. Gamma One is the Emperor's stool pigeon. Gamma Two and Three, destroy Gamma One now_ ).
TIE's were never confirmed to be fragile ships. They were mass produced, yes, but they were also state-of-the-art. Remember only 6 ships were deployed at Yavin before Vader himself took over, and they took down rebels without much effort.
They've been dying in one or two hits for the last 50 years of movies, except for the one that Finn and Poe stole and gifted with plot armor. We don't need a visual dictionary to tell us they're fragile.
It has no shields so it’s by default more fragile than other comparable ships with shields, also the reason only 6 ties were deployed was because Tarkin was convinced enemy snub fighters would have no effect on his battle station if I recall correctly
@roderickhickey1309 To be fair, the movies just show ships blowing up whenever the plot demands it. Shields, hull strength, and other factors are practically never shown or considered. Presumably, shielded fighters have probably taken a few hits offscreen before blowing up and so-on, but again, we are not shown that. Games give you a better idea of the durability of shields and ships, but the balance on that is always different because it is decided for gameplay reasons rather than lore reasons. There is only a correlation between shields, health, speed, missike counts, etc in games and their actual in-universe performance.
@@chrishakala528 I'll grant that any universe with a lot of different stories in it is going to have some inconsistencies, like the Bad Batch showing a proton torpedo being the size of a human torso while the Y-wing can carry 8 with no bomb bay, but I really don't think you need external confirmation of things that are consistently shown across the movies and shows. I mean, if a technical manual came out that said, "the TIE fighter is extremely durable, able to take several direct hits from blaster cannons and keep fighting", you'd say, "that's BS, we see them die instantly all the time", so why would you need to have a manual say, "the TIE fighter is highly fragile, often being destroyed by a single direct hit" to tell you they were fragile? "Official" confirmation is just a trap to force you to buy extra books you don't need. Don't give in to the pressure. Be free. Fight the power!
I know this is a silly universe where real physics doesn’t apply, but some kids learning real physics might be watching so a small correction: Momentum affects you even if you’re in a vacuum. Love your show!
Okay, so hear me out here: it was deliberate. Palpatine always, ALWAYS had an eye towards sabotaging the Republic, and I don't believe this stopped when it became the Empire. Just look at Operation Cinder, for example. I strongly suspect that, much like the CIS before it, Palpatine set the Empire up for intentional failure. His reasons for doing so would be quintessentially Sith -- both revenge upon the Republic and keeping potential threats to his power suppressed. The Star Wars setting proves time and again that skilled pilots in small but potent fighters can radically swing the outcome of major power struggles, and I firmly believe Palpatine knew this and saw it as cause for concern.
@@cybersmith_videos In the Star Wars Squadrons short film, an ejection system sure would've been helpful once they broke atmosphere. Besides, you'd think training would be on-planet vs space. NASA doesn't train their astronauts in space lol
X wings can eject but they eject the whole cockpit because their pilots do not have life support built into their suits. In a new hope one of the x wing pilots yells for Porkins to eject before he is shot down
The classic TIE fighter game on PC was so much fun and really gave you a good idea of what it was like to be a TIE fighter pilot. When flying the regular TIE fighter it would only take 3 to 4 laser blasts to take you out and usually just one missile. Flying it was so much fun you had to be smart about how you attacked. Also good luck on taking out an A wing in a TIE fighter. You could take out X-wings as long as you managed to get behind them. You really felt like you accomplished something when finishing a mission in a TIE fighter. Then on some missons you had to fly the bomber, that was a bit more challenging. even if you diverted all power from your lasers to the engines you still moved pretty slow. When you finally got to fly the Interceptor, you could hold your own against X-wings and a-wings a bit better thanks to the increased speed but you still didn't want to take them head on. Then when you finally got to do a missons in a ship that had shields it was like night and day you finally could survive better. The first shielded ship you usually got to fly was the gunboat. It has medium speed but had lasers, missles, and ion canons. It could take a lot of damage. You eventually got to fly the TIE advance, flying that ship really made you feel like a badass pilot, then you felt like more of a badass when you got to fly the TIE Defender.
TIE Defender > all others Tractor Beam? Yes please! Was also fun having different warheads. Proton bombs to take out space stations and capital ships - they were slow AF but so devastating!
@@orokusaki1243 oh yes very devastating. I haven't checked it out, but someone made a mod for X-wing:Alliance, which is a remaster of TIE Fighter with updated graphics.
@@thepayne7862 My least favorite thing about those games was the enemy's AI. They'd always try to get your 6'oclock, meanwhile you'd be trying to get theirs. It became a huge loop chasing each other, dog chasing it's tail. I remember spending considerable time doing this to defeat the faster ships, and it was so draining - but I persisted for that total victory kill count.
Loved that game but the one thing I was bitter about is that the ROF was so slow. In the movies you see them get a gun luck and then burst fire the lasers but in Tie Fighter game you're relegated to something much slower which legit takes the experience down a few notches for me. I think this was corrected in the more modern starfighter game released by EA circa 2022
Star Wars Squadrons added so much depth to being a fighter pilot. Although it doesn't make sense having different speeds in space, it is still super cool to play and balance resources. I play the story on repeat, sadly in the UK there are no multiplayer servers to have real battles in. Still fun though
I don't know if it's a fact or a theory, but space in Star Wars galaxy is NOT vacume, it's filled with something gas-like. I heard that someone named that substance "Ether" (probably, if i remebered it correctly).
It's not so much the servers you're on as much as the game is almost dead. All the really good players ran everyone else off and then left themselves. Source: I have about 2200 hours in the multiplayer 😂
Alan, your channel is such a breath of fresh air. Discussing unique topics and immersing us viewers deeper into Star Wars lore. I tip my helmet to you, Sir.
I used to play X-wing v Tie fighter a lot. Even entered and won a multi-play tournament. I chose the TIE Interceptor, everyone else chose the A-wing. I cleaned up - because sheilds create a psychological weakness. You take a glancing hit, you dump power from weapons into shields, and divert power from speed to refilling your weapons. Which makes your A-Wing slow and even more undergunned. A-wing after A-wing dead, because the pilots 'trusted' their shields (and tried to get a missile lock on an interceptor). I get so sick of the 'TIE is a bad design because no shields / hyperdrive / big view port' retoric, when the TIE is a weapon system of a capital ship, and as such, can stay on mission in far off areas with better sensor coverage than the rebel pilots. But so be it.
Agreed. I played and enjoyed all 3 of those 90's sims. The challenge of TIE Fighter (and using them in XvT) was to not get hit at all. Translated to when you had shielded ships, you could run low shields without worrying so much because you had the experience without any shields at all. "..good against remotes is one thing, good against the living, that's something else.."
Although he was a master manipulator, Palpatine relied on his sychophants for the daily running of the Empire. I think him being a Sith led to the arrogance that the galaxy could be pacified with a strong hand of authority. But Palpatine also needed a way to keep the dark side dominant which was reflected in how inept their military actually was. The raid on Aldani and the Battle of Scarif showed how unprepared the Empire actually was in battling another military force. This was a military force designed to fight pirates and smugglers.
just before i forgot and continue viewing the video: The Expanse did actually a great space battle preparation scene in season 2 where Alex, the pilot of the Rocinante, run a couple of tests and simulations before the crew attacks the Thoth station. Because of the buildup before a single burst is fired, it makes more like a confrontation between submarines than a plane dogfight or... if i have to use a more recent Star Wars reference, the Luthen Rael confrontation when his ship gets intercepted by the Empire. This is why I think that even a franchise like Star Wars can sometimes use some space battles where intelligence and not the Force would be trusted, especially if you don't have any Jedi around. :)
Imagine the amount of alarms blaring on Vader’s hyperbaric meditation chamber the moment some Imperial clerk entered the name Skywalker into the Academy applicants list 😂 if Owen Lars had let Luke apply for the Academy, Vader would have known immediately his son had survived childbirth
That hard cold calculated type of warfare is pretty much The Expanse IMHO. Like when Marco sent multiple stealth coated projectiles on a collision course with the Earth that took half a season to occur
The Expanse in my opinion, has THE best space battles BECAUSE of the realism. Watching ships poking holes in each other with kinetic weapons, watching ships blow apart and others having to avoid the debris or getting damaged as they get overtaken by a blast wave.....I had more hair raising, "OMG!" moments watching battles in The Expanse than anything else to date. Watching people patching holes, or their head be taken off by a bullet that went straight through the hull, it was freaking bonkers and I want more!
One other thing with people who might wash out of the TIE training is that the ones in the last year who leave are probably not washing out, but transferring. The Imperial Army and Navy did have a pretty massive need for pilots in other positions for things like Shuttles, transports, and other things. In some of the legends material, there had been a lot of references to interservice issues with the Army and parts of the Navy poaching perspective TIE pilots that were later in their training...the Army and Stormtrooper corps also poaching several for things like the various tanks and similar that were developed off of the TIE systems (Mauler/Crawler designs as a major one) or gunships. The ARMY would largely be getting them from the 2nd year washouts because that's when the transition would happen to exo-atmospheric training and there were several cadets who had issues with null-grav environments, and later ones more for transport/shuttle training
Just think how many must have been trying out to be pilots. At it's peak, the Empire had over 25 thousand Star Destroyers. Each one typically carried 72 TIE fighters. That's nearing two MILLION in total... and that's only counting the compliment on ISDs, how many more TIEs did they have when you include other ships, space stations, and ground bases? It also doesn't take losses and replacements into consideration. With numbers that huge, the Empire needed a fighter that was cheap to produce and maintain.
The clones were too expensive? Yet two death stars aren't. Then Starkiller base, and then the whole fleet of death star, star destroyers. Seems he shoulda just made the clones.
I mean the issue with clones is you can make it a specific buyer weapon that only affects clothes that pretty much would cripple your entire military if it was still clone best not to mention I think the emperor was worried how effective order 66 was and if someone else could do that to his troops against him
@jiffypoo5029 hah, suppose I did. Still wonder how he'd have faired with just clones and star destroyers. Those can devastate a planet without losing its resources
Besides being expensive, another problem clones have is a lack of genetic diversity. This means if you have a battalion of clone troopers and they go to a world that has new viruses, or if the rebels have develop biological weapons. The lack of genetic diversity means the clones could be a 100% fatality rate a newly introduced virus before a vaccine can be developed, whereas with a diverse corp of troops that number would be much lower.
To go back to the WWII analogy, I tend to see the TIE Fighter as the Japanese Ki-43 Hayabusa (Allied codename: Oscar): Very maneuverable, only two guns, and no armor or self-sealing fuel tanks.
I prefer the MiG-21, as the Vietnam War (Rolling Thunder before Yavin, Linebacker after) is a allegory for the Rebels vs Empire, and the Rebel Starfighters were based on the VPAFs hit-and-run raids.
Just imagine if the TIE Defender had been mass produced and put into service. Thrawn's TIE Defender program was too good to be dropped in favor of Krennic's project Stardust.
In Legends they were mass produced, but considering that a single TIE Defender costs about five times that of a standard TIE Fighter, they saw limited production and were only reserved for the Empire's best pilots.
@@barbiquearea Only 5x!? With the numbers the regular fighters are produced at, the Defender is definitely economical for something more than a elite force.
If your ship is fast and can out turn your opponents, then shields and armor are nothing more than a speedbump on the way to death. Despite having no armor, no self sealing tanks, and engines that would catch fire with a single hit, the Japanese Zeros absolutely dominated the skies in the Pacific until the US developed better performing aircraft. The TIE's could outfly an Xwing so the Xwings had to come up with tactics to defeat the TIE's. This was the same with the F4F Wildcats vs the A6M Zeros. Head on attack worked well against both the TIE's and Zeros. Xwings often flew between light capital ships like Corvettes which had good anti-snub fighter weapons. This created a defensive gauntlet which TIE pilots would either have to pass through and risk destruction or break off their attack on the Xwing. Experienced pilots who recognized these tactics and/or who controlled their 1v1 egos could avoid these traps and absolutely wreck Rebel pilots. At least on paper. But lets be clear here, plot armor trumps all. For all of the fluff about the Imperial academies, the Imperial officers were always incompetent's and the TIE pilots were always mediocre. They rarely came off as extremely good in the shows even the the good guys seems to be incompetent themselves.
The TIE fighter pilot program and the tie fighter itself is almost synonymous with the imperial Japanese Navy during world war two. They had a very strict training regime, many pilots washed-out. They had a cadre of very experienced pilots that were sent into battle in the a6m zero which was not the most durable of aircraft in combat. While not a direct comparison there are definitely similarities
Some of these star wars names clearly show that they were developed during a meal break, while others are from watching TV news or maybe shopping elsewhere. Barista Coffee.. Gogurt... Halle Burtoni...
The error bars for where a ship would be at any moment in space would make it very difficult to attack anything. All long range weapons would have to be guided. By the time the light coming from a distant craft reached you, it could have made any number of small or large adjustments to its course. And it would no doubt for standard procedure for any military vessel to make random changes to velocity vectors to prevent long range attack.
Imagine how awesome it would be to go through all of that and finally get the best spot on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, it would be soooooooo rewarding
Just started reading the Thrawn books, I finished the first one and now one third of the way through "Alliance" Those comic book pages are right out of the novel... I didn't know there were comic book versions of the same story. I will be looking into those.
For the early years of the Empire, the pilot training system worked well and mass deployed base TIE Fighters (after replacing the V Wing) worked wonders when they opposed small hostile groups and ran picket for their home ships. However, (a) the creation of organized resistance groups with larger ships, (b) better fighter designs (with control systems similar to civilian "aviation", meaning T16 -> X-Wing), & (c) the Empire's resistance to change (Tarkin doctrine, established military - industrial complex, etc.) led to high losses in the latter years. Much like another commenter said, compare this to the IJN Zero in WW2. Wonderful plane, better than almost everything else. But... Japan had to stick to the same design (for the most part) and couldn't change to something better as their enemy made advances. ... This is why the old Expanded Universe had ships such as the Tie Avenger, Tie Defender, etc.. all of which wouldn't be used in mass in the fleet due to the aforementioned reasons. The story of Polish cavalry, on horses, charging German tanks in WW2 is an exaggerated example of the same.
For sure. In the latest show we do see some measure of correction. There's a point of transition into the hyperspace dimension, which is smaller by at least a factor of 1 : 3,000,000. Notice how coming out of hyperspace they are at typical realspace velocities? They're not running each other over and destroying each other. So shouldn't be different when going into hyperspace because they are still traveling at realspace velocity. Don't get me started on MGLT and G's.. 😂
The introduction of some great weakness seems to be a trait of the Emperor. Maybe it was just something that was picked up on in the writing but anything that could be a threat to him had something that looks like the story of Achilles as a small thing lets it be destroyed. You have to wonder if even the defects in the Death Star was something he know about but just did not think anyone but himself could exploit. I could see him thinking that if a group of the pilots ever tried to takeout his shuttle he did not want them in good craft with shields or his guards to be able to jump away to save themselves. Desperate people fight and can fight the hardest if they know they have only one chance to live.
Regarding "realistic" space combat, as you mention early in the video, I remember an anime from 2005 that I really liked called Starship Operators. It basically takes place on the bridge, the battles are done over huge distances, and there's very little drama in the combat. Much more suspense. Really liked that one. Only 13 episodes too.
Tie Figher is 1/3ed the cost of an x wings. Add shields, more guns, 2 ordnance launchers, and hyperdrive and poof, you are there. tie was 60k interceptor was 120k, and with that you got 4 extra cannons (much like the xwings) putting just a 30k difference between the x wing and a tie interceptor... with the difference being shields and hyperdrive. essentially to mount shields and hyperdrive on an interceptor, you'd loose some speed slowing it down to about the speed of an x-wing... but gain shields and such. Which leads to the intresting question... if the cost was so low why were they not put on, even a simple class 2 or even 5... to give pilots an escape option.
Defection was a constant risk in the Empire. Even something as large as a Nebulon B Frigate could be (and regularly would be) stolen and used by rebel factions. Putting hyperdrives on Tie Fighters greatly increased the risk that they could be stolen and used by rebels. Putting shields on Tie Fighters would also increase the risk that the Rebels could take them and escape. Linden Javes, one of the major characters in Star Wars Squadrons, managed to defect in a Tie fighter variant. His Tie fighter at the time appeared to be a Tie advanced variant (the new cannon variant where the solar arrays have a consistent curved shape), so it probably had shields, if not also a hyperdrive.
I wouldn't be surprised if the life expectancy for TIE pilots would remain at 1 year for the early years of the rebellion. The rebels were a relatively small force so it was highly unlikely that an Imperial pilot would ever have any contact with rebel pilots. TIE pilots were more likely to run into smugglers, pirates or other criminal elements and many didn't really see any action. I imagine TIE casualties might have been high because of the ship's vulnerability to simple debris, consider what happened to the TIEs that chased Andor and company after the Aldhani heist.
@@jiffypoo5029For Y-wings it was probably a maneuverability issue more than anything. Those ships are at least ostensibly supposed to be tanks. Part of the idea behind Y-Wings in the Clone Wars was that they could ignore vulture droids (just soaking damage with their shields and firing back with the ion turrets) while they took care of their bombing runs. Now, maybe the Rebels couldn't always keep their Y-Wings functioning at anything close to peak performance. The maintenance crews did intentionally leave off the armor so that they could quickly deal with the crafts' frequent issues, but even if the shield generators were functioning at half capacity, a Y-wing would still be fairly tough to kill.
@@chrishakala528Y-Wings are tanks but like tanks, they need an escort to be effective and not get picked off. A-Wings were interceptors and were terrible at the escort role. The Y-Wings with A-Wings combo consistently got wiped out by Tie Fighters.
@@jiffypoo5029 True, A-Wings were never effective in cases where they were forced to slow down. Y-Wings didn't have the maneuverability to compete with TIE Fighters with good pilots.
@@jiffypoo5029 Old model Y wings have a topside gunner , in addition to a droid socket. A wings have a trick with their laser cannons; they are able to swivel and rotate 360 degrees to target anything tailing them at their six.
If you think about it logically, then the more advanced they become the more restrictive they become in engaging at range. If they launch missiles at long range then the missiles would need the fuel reserves in addition the payload to reach the target, and at that distance the enemy would have plenty of time to notice then shoot the missiles down or just evade them. So they kinda have to close range where they can be more sure their weapons will be effective.
I think that I prefer the original Legends lore of the Imperial Academies. Essentially, everyone got to be a TIE fighter pilot for a year while they were something like Midshipmen on Imperial ships. If you found that you enjoyed being a tie pilot, there were advanced academies for people who flew Interceptors and other more advanced TIEs, but everyone did it. Like how every marine is a marksman, every Imperial Navy man can fly a TIE. But it was just one step on your career.
It makes sense for TIE to not have hyperdrives they were carrier ships. It would however have made sense for there to be a specific longer range TIE patrol fighter that did.
@@Reoh0z They had those. They were TIE Scouts. However they saw limited service, mainly because the Empire relied more on probe droids for reconnaissance.
Right off the bat. In most situations, drop in and out would not work in a lot of scenarios because the space battles are usually the thing that happens before they take the fight planetside, so at least one side can't really bail, and the side that can bail would lose the advantage on ground aka the whole reason they do the space battle in the first place.
Surely, without hyperspace capability, TIE's pilots can't run away and need to rely on their support ships/stations, the Empire prefer stay sure than having a better flexibility, also if they had to expose their ships on direct contact with the enemy, contrary to the rebels, that could launch their fighters from another systems, and waiting for them coming back.
@@barbiquearea Exactly, as I just said (also if in legends, in the old Young Jedi Knights serie, it was alluded about some form of conditioning for imperial personnel).
Probably because most of the time we see TIEs getting shot down within seconds by rebel pilots. They don't exactly have time to react to their craft being destroyed and hit the ejection button.
The Empire is big. Like 2/3 of the entire galaxy. 10% of the galaxy is still a lot of people. Although i can see the Empire just being lazy and putting random people into there TIE fighters.
The recruit heavily charge for training and send the washouts into the imperial army to payoff their debt. Storm troopers are thier own branch equal to marines.
@@theauraone7755 Even at the end of the war the empire still wouldn’t just throw anyone into a tie fighter. A massive chunk of shuttle pilots and such were tie pilots that couldn’t make the chopping block. I could see them being brought back into the Tie fighter program but it took a lot of skill to fly a tie fighter, it was very similar to Jedi fighters in that way. Super light, super maneuverable, minimal assistance from computer systems. I mean, even then, a star destroyer took 25,000 men to crew. With a compliment of about 75 tie fighters. Which means there’s roughly 150 pilots on standby for the ties. It wouldn’t be that hard to pick 150 good pilots when you’re talking about populations in the millions and billions
@@stuglife5514 i agree. The empire's real flaw is that they didn't even add shields to there average TIE fighters. All that training, gone to waste because they couldn't even do that basic thing. The jedi are fine because they had the force. And also enough brains to have shields on. Most of the time.
Empire hast making 5milion If tie Fighter,alot of tie variand have Schild anti laser anti protonraket yuo can y Wing kill Marek Stele, and admiral with the dar force was Veteran acest If tie Fighter,the Baron tie Fighter hast not force Power he ist corelianbthe Sam age of han solo,
Since the pilots had life support in the suit, i am sure that even if the TF were destroyed, an important number survived floating in space. They always were around a destroyer, so for sure they will be searched for on every battle.
tie pilots are often flying body bags in unshielded crafts. But then again, they use high speeds, super charged laser gun cannons and those solar panels to offset the lack of deflector shielding systems.
tie-fighters always reminded me of the Japanese Zero, when they first arrived they seemed superior; faster and more agile then anything else in the sky. but later they found out it had basically no armor to protect them. So, once faster airplanes showed up, it became relatively easy to shoot them down.
It also show how well train imperial pilots were by the fact every pilot that went to the rebels became an absolute menace once they were given a sturdier fighter
Reminds me a lot of the IJN during WW2. The pilots were very well trained, but the planes did not keep up with the advancements as the war progressed and they never increased the pilot pipeline like the US did.
One thing that is easily forgotten: stealth in this universe is so great it even hampers manouverability (stated as early as ANH, during the Rebel briefing for the Death Star raid). That's why they don't have so many guided munitions, they just don't work very well.
bridge officers would not be yelling at each other. Naval officers tend to be quite composed and calm when it comes to their job because they're taught that anything else contributes to getting sunk.
I think they went with the imperial Japanese navy model there pilot training was incredibly hard and only small number graduated each year the zero was basically the same design ideas as the TIE
In SW legends the galaxy gun actually just uses planet busting warheads that go into hyperspace, and drop out right before they impact the planet they're targeted at. It's literally impossible to stop it once the projectile is fired.
The Star Wars universe has hugely advanced AI in the form of commonplace droids, cheap targeting computers, and widely accessible navigation computers that plot galaxy wide courses in seconds, etc. Ships even down to the starfighter size can have shielding (of several kinds) and basically infinite fuel/power output (consider how much maneuvering they do in combat) compared against 'hard' sci-fi universes. You see even star destroyers changing course, heading, speed, incredibly quickly for something of such mass. Which this in mind, it seems like combat moving back to point blank dogfighting with unguided or seemingly unsophisticated guidance would be the end result. If AI's are so advanced + cheap that even basic maintenance droids are basically sentient (R2D2, C3PO), able to interfacing with a huge array of technologies, plot complicated hyperspace courses, or just command entire vessels on their own, imagine the kind of ECM warfare and jamming abilities available to every ship in the galaxy. Even your basic freighter with a navigation computer and light shielding is hugely agile and survivable compared to an 'hard' space universe equivalent. Shooting at long range against defensive abilities like this would be feasible, but a waste of time. You're plinking at a target that can evade in any direction, can plot likely projectiles courses with ease and has the ability to take multiple hits even if you don't miss. At some point moving to what is 'point blank' in any other sci-fi and Saturating an entire grid with volume of fire becomes the best way to kill an opposing vessel. In this context, the Tie fighter design makes a lot of sense. You don't need escort fighters to have hyperdrive or shielding, it's purpose is to protect the capitol ship. Enemy fighters Have to close the distance to even have a chance to hit your large vessels, otherwise ECM and active countermeasures pick off your torpedoes/missiles well in advance. At a range where this won't happen, TIEs swarms can knock them out or make launching extremely difficult, while the Star Destroyers fill the sector with heavy turbolasers and destroy the enemy main fleet. This is my head cannon anyway, for why fleet combat in Star Wars always depicts lasers flying seemingly everywhere, despite advanced targeting computers and droid assist. The space equivalent of 'Dodge This', except you're using also using a minigun in each hand
@GenerationTech, 3:12 to 3:25 You’ll have a better chance of becoming a tie fighter pilot than a U.S fighter pilot here on earth; out of 1,000 tie fighter trainies only 10.0% graduate, meanwhile only 0.30% of 1,000 U.S fighter pilots graduate. That means that there is a 3233.33% difference. Meaning that some tie fighter pilots may not even qualify to become U.S fighter pilots here on our big blue dirt planet we call earth.
One benefit is that Palpatine gets the chance to strip the empire of all of their best pilots, by throwing them into the grinder. Thus reducing the pool of qualified fighters that may oppose him in the future.
Funny. As Alan was speaking about what space combat should actually look like, I thought of The Expanse, (except no hyperspace.) BTW, Amos Burton is my favorite character.
Everyone knows that TIE fighter pilots are 100% disposable , that is why we send out so many at one time . We give them ridiculously big side profiles. We don't bother to give them shields. We make them hilariously loud so that we can hear them from a galaxy away . And sometimes we don't even waste our time training them . Sometimes , I like to take a underling that I don't like and throw him into a TIE and launch him out into battle just for shits and giggles . Personally , I get off on sending them on kamikaze missions to clear asteroid fields . ( then set course in a different direction. )
The Imperial Academy seems to draw a lot of inspiration from the Chinese Imperial Examination. The Examination was basically a massive test that all Chinese citizens could take. It was supposed to promote a meritocratic society, with it ensuring those who passed it were China’s best and brightest, who could end up in a governmental position. However, it was almost impossible for anyone to pass unless they had advanced knowledge of the content and had prepared for many years to take the test (and even then it wasn’t always enough), and since the majority of the population couldn’t afford the time or money to prepare for it, very few in the lower classes actually managed to pass it. Meanwhile, the elite and wealthy could basically pay their way through it, since not only could they prepare for the test in a way the lower classes couldn’t, they could also bribe the examiner to make sure their kids got in. So while it was supposed to promote social mobility and equal opportunity, it just ended up helping reinforce the social status quo.
I, I would very much like to watch that, then again, i love the Honor Harrington book series and there combat is usualy fought over entire star systems and not just around a single planet. After all, if you have missle tech with light minutes range, the comand and control loop is your biggest problem. The tech stuff and technical solutions to those problems are fascinating.
Remembering Star Wars episode 3, the ties vs x-wing hit ratio for a tie is higher than first thought. The swarm tactics of the fighters could wipeout an x-wings or y-wings shields, while to totally obliterate a tie like the one chasing Luke in that battle needed Wedge to hit the tie with all four x-wing cannons, so not a weak fighter craft. Not counting Vader tie, the tie could paste slower y-wings, however the couldn't maneuver like a x-wing unll the tie interceptor, which could go head to head with an a-wing as far as maneuvering.
Thing is, most if not all designs aim to improve on former experiences. In this case to the question how to effectively fight a gazillion of tiny droid fighters. So combining cheap and mass produced tiny, nimble fighters with cheap labor (as you stated, manpower isn't an issue) does make sense. Then again beating masses of TIEs with higher cost and thereby quality fighters while dealing with low manpower issues like the Alliance to restore the Republic had to deal with...the X-Wing does make sense as an evolution step in tech just as the TIE did before.
16:38 During the Battle of Yavin (which culminated with the destruction of the first Death Star) the Galactic Empire lost only three flight groups of TIE fighters in full-scale combat, all belonging to the Black Squadron, under the direct command of Lord Vader. On the other hand, it is not clear how many regular squadrons have been deployed at the space station itself, though it is more then clear that the Grand Moff Tarkin was so overly confident in the Death Star that he refused to send any fighters to defend it. Let's assume that the entire fighter group (joint formation of three or four fighter squadrons) regularly served at the first Death Star just before the battle - in that case, the total amount of TIE pilot casualties would be around 60 (48 of them died as members of the first Death Star's fighter group contingent in non-combat conditions, plus 12 TIE pilots of Lord Vader's Black Squadron that got themselves killed during the space combat phase). On the whole, the loss of approximately sixty TIE pilots would not be classified as a mass casualty event by the Imperial standards, as these numbers were actually quickly replaced by the newly-formed units of pilot recruits. The loss of the first Death Star was completely different story.
Given how much Lucas drew from WW2 TIE fighters were doubtlessly inspired by the Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero' which was a highly maneuverable, well-armed but extrememely vulnerable craft. Plus both craft served in villainous 'Empires'
In comparison of WWII air combat to Star Wars starfighter combat, you can see the similarities between Japan's air-combat doctrine and the Empire's starfighter doctrine. Both used, for the most part, combat craft that were designed to be inexpensive, so to be manufactured in large quantities, and were more focused on maneuverability and powerful standard weaponry. However, Japan's doctrine would also include the necessity of long-range abilities. The results being the Japanese "Zero" and the Imperial "Tie-fighter." How the pilots were trained and deployed also carry similar aspects. Japanese pilots, at the beginning of the war were given long training schedules to eventually become the "best of the best," and were expected to perform their duties without question, and absolutely devoted to giving their lives to their emperor. This doctrine would keep these elite pilots in air combat for as long as the war lasted, or more often, until their deaths. Of course, as the war dragged on longer than Imperial Japan had expected/hoped, more and more of their elite pilots were KIA and subsequently being replaced by lesser trained and experienced pilots. And although, initially, Allied pilots were less experienced with, typically only adequate training, and therefore were often outmatched by their Japanese counterparts in generally superior aircraft, the Allies had a very different air-combat doctrine. The Allies, in particular the U.S. which conducted the bulk of the Pacific Theater naval combat against Japan, were keener to develop counter-tactics with their inferior aircraft until the USN could develop and receive more advanced air-fighters to dominate the Zeros, plus the USN maintained a training strategy of recalling experienced pilots, who had served for a specified time period, so to instruct and pass on their knowledge to trainees. This passed on knowledge would be critical to the rookie pilots who would have significantly more knowledge of air-combat than their poorly trained opposition who were not given the knowledge from experienced pilots since the experience pilots of the IJN were too busy continually fighting and being eliminated from the equation.
I think this is how cannon and expanded universe clash. The more we get into details the less it makes sense. The rebels just won cause the creator wanted it. The "shields" very rarely have an impact except if they are main characters. We should go with what is just in main material. Also they went for the evil guys dont care about safety but have very good training trope.
commenting earlier but since you mentioned how some starfighters mirror old ww2 planes, the A wing is just a F14 without a cockpit, center body and wings lol
Only the best of the best are crazy enough to try and chase people through rock canyons, asteroid belts, meteor showers, and all other potentially lethal environments and situations. They might look like fodder, and sure deploying them in the way that the Empire does indeed means the TIEs do tend to be destroyed rather quickly and in large numbers, but the skill and bravery of the pilots for even trying to fight in these situations is always to be recognized.
I think the reason they did what they did is a combination of things: False sense of security thinking the galaxy was already basically theirs so more expensive harder to destroy ships were unnecessary, especially given the quantity they could make. They likely anticipated not taking such heavy losses on pilots and even when they did, it's like the stormtrooper corps. They aren't everywhere, just where they need to be. You said the pilots may never fly the same fighter twice. The Empire probably kept way more fighters than they had pilots for them. Just move the pilots wherever you need the fighters flown and then move them again when they're needed elsewhere. Palpatine, Tarkin, or whoever called the shots on the amount of protection put to the TIEs was likely of the opinion that no matter the casualties suffered, the battle would be won, and the losses replaced; It's not like they were fighting an actual military (from their perspective). My thoughts.
I'm just shocked all this came about in less than 20 years. Like how did this culture, created practically from whole cloth, just come into being so quickly? Also, if TIE fighter battle survival was not entirely luck-dependent then I would have to imagine after surviving five or more battles, those pilots must've been fearsome opponents
With regards to the Academy Luke and Biggs are talking about there are some views it was the Merchant Marine Academy and Biggs had graduated to become a 3rd mate.
"Entering the right Trajectories, Stealth and avoidance, I don't know how many people would actually want to watch that, who wants to watch a bunch of bridge officers yelling at each other making calculations and then boom, ships just explode." The very second you were describing this I was thinking, The Expanse, the ship combat is incredible in that series. I'm glad you're aware of it. Legend of the galactic heroes 「銀貨英雄伝説」 is actually a really cool example of a different outlook on space combat as well. One that focuses on absolutely massive fleet formation movements, and battles that take place over several days or weeks as the ships have to cover massive distances carefully only taking a fight when they believe they will win. There are actually fighters in the series as well, they work very very different from the ones in many sci-fi shows. I do suggest the OG show over the remake as the show really does not benefit from the condensing of the plot with the remake.
According to legends continuity, there was a conflict in the navy between starfighter-centric types who wanted the Incom starfighter, and the capital ship advocates who wanted ISDs. The second group won. The ISD is the centerpiece, and fighter production was deliberately cheapened so that they could build more ISDs. The TIE fighter doesn't need a hyperdrive because it is not an independent weapons system; it is an extension of the ISD's own anti-starfighter turbolaser defenses. This is also why it doesn't have shields; if you're attacking an opponent where those shields would be critical , such as a capital ship, you're doing something wrong. A TIE fighter is not a ship for heroes; it is one part of a combined arms system, responsible for patrol, inspection, and defeating starfighter assaults on the capital ship. It is ... adequate ... in this role. But if you try to use it like an X-wing, there is going to be trouble. Incom took its starfighter to the Rebels. And the rest is history.
All of that is already for the most part true. The latest Top Gun movie had to come up with a very specific scenario to make the all the entertaining dramatic dog fighting plausible.
Maybe it does not exist now, decades ago there was a test called the ASVAB, which was taken by sophomores/juniors in US high schools. The results of the test were used by the Dept of Defense to look for potential promising recruits. The test was oddly weighted by questions that would be a cake walk if the test taker came from a rural area with questions about home improvement and agriculture. If the academy system of Star Wars used a similar evaluation test, Luke Skywalker could have aced the exam. (As a note, the group that I belonged to destroyed the scoring curve. I received about a couple of inches of recruitment literature sent by all 5 branches and their sub-branches of the armed forces.)
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Say Generation Tech, could you do a video comparing Clone Trooper training to Stormtrooper training? I always figure that the difference between Republic and Imperial training was that the latter is influenced by Sith culture while the former is a darker version of Jedi training. What do you think?
They really need to make a replica of Asajj Ventress's original light sabers from the Clone Wars.
what's with the occasional "surprise motherf***er" playing in the background?
@@hullutsuhna For laughs, is my guess.
TIE Fighter animated film was the best portrayal of TIE Fighter pilots being pure unadulterated awesomeness.
Don’t forget “hunted”
Both are awesome, and I still randomly watch em. I'd love to see the tie film made into a full show😮
@@blackc1479do you know the name of the film?
Agreed but …. Also knew they where supporting something that was evil… watch Andor
@@KaylumHSQ It's lterally just TIE Fighter by otaking animation.
The TIE was one of Tarkin's ideas. He wanted a cheap but maneuverable fighter that sacrificed basically everything - including life support - for speed. And it worked. It was also a tremendous tactical and financial blunder that most other officers recognized after Tarkin's death, hence the development of ships like the TIE Interceptor.
People will just make up lore to blame Tarkin for everything 😂 He's not even a weapon designer
@@АлексейМомот-щ7о Don't let the Tarkin Doctrine hit you on the ass on the way out.
@user-yq9im9dk9z he created the Tarkin Doctrine! He was a former admiral, turn politician.
Yes, he didn't make the weapons themselves or design them, but he made the guidelines for those weapons, what the requirements were and how they would function in the military.
Star wars fans are idiots who have no clue how military procurement works.
@@АлексейМомот-щ7о it’s the Tarkin Doctrine. It stressed fairly low numbers of starfighters and reliance on the Star destroyers in use to inflict terror. Tarkin forgot the Venator 2 star destroyer with its large fighter compliment of over 100 fighters could significantly increase its firepower with them. The ISD as a rule only flew with 72 TIEs as its full complement. For reference a US Ford class aircraft carrier or a Nimitz class runs on average 75 to 80 aircraft. An ISD is significantly bigger than a Ford class CVN yet its fighter compliment matches. 72 TIES was not enough fighters for a single ISD. That’s just one example of the mistake called the Tarkin doctrine. That’s why he gets blamed for dumb military moves only intended to terrorize civilians
@@matthewcaughey8898 In Legends, an ISD modified to remove the ground assault complement could double it's fighter complement.
The main issue with the Star Destroyers is that the Empire wanted them to be able to do everything...so a large chunk of their hangar space is devoted to things like walkers, ground invasion stuff, deployable ground bases, and everything to support that.
The Tie fighter feels like it came about the same way Mitsubishi made the Zero in WW2, sacrificing safety and structural integrity in order to meet the otherwise impossible design requirements.
George Lucas took heavy inspiration from movies depicting WW2. The rebel fighters were supposed to remind people of american fighters in WW2 movies while imperial fighters were supposed to remind them of japanese fighters. I know TIE looks nothing like a Zero, but the way the come in fast, turn tightly, are nearly impossible to shake unless a pal takes them off your back, is exactly like the Zero - at least as WW2 movies depict them.
Ties were great until rebels got the X-Wing around 5 bby.
You beat to the punch, I was thinking the same thing. The Tie was like the Zero while the X-Wing was like the F6F Hellcat.
@engravertom Actually you meet someone like that in the Star Wars: Resistance cartoon: Griff.
He's explicitly described as a former TIE fighter pilot and his racing ship is a combination of components from several Imperial attack vessels.
He even comments on the problem with the cut-throat training the Imperial pilots went through:
"I thought you Imperials weren't real big on cooperation, Griff."
"That's why we lost."
@engravertom "It would be really cool to see a Star Wars novel about a TIE pilot who was a high level ace and survived the war"
There was Soontir Fel who in Legends was an ace pilot fighting for the Empire. His descendants became the leaders of the Imperial Remnants. Then there was Maarek Stele from the TIE Fighter game. He started out as a regular TIE Fighter pilot and on his first mission, several fighters from his squadron were taken out. This experience shook him and pushed him to get recommended for promotion, as that would guarantee him better crafts to fly in instead of the shoddy TIE Fighter. In fact, he would end up getting Thrawn's attention, and end up piloting the TIE Defender, as well as its counter, the Torpedo Boat.
For the first 14 years of the Empire, the Tie Squadrons were unstoppable under the cover of their ISD. Ties tore through A-Wings and Y-Wings. Ties didn't start getting ripped to shreds until the Rebels got the X-Wing around 5 BBY.
Pretty easy to do when you outnumber and swarm attack your opponent 50 - 1
Well, unless there's a hero vessel.
@@celticlad3251Thats what the US did in WW2. Quantity is a quality as it allows force multiplication. If you have 2 fighters vs their 1; you have another person who can provide support, check sensors, cover your back, extra ground support, and etc. The TIE fighter is a good fighter (not the best), but it served its purpose well protecting capital ships. The main fault of the Empire was their authoritarianism and with a good solid blow to the empire's prestige and authority from both destructon of death stars. The Empire still had massive control after the destruction of the first one; it wasn't until the Emperor was killed that the empire fractured. The TIE fighters did their job well in defending the ISD's from A Wing's, X-Wings, and etc.
The cheapness of Tie fighters allowed huge numerical advantages. X wing with better shields
@@MasterGhostf I think if you are doing ww2 comparison then the Tie fighter can be compared to sherman tanks against tiger tanks 4 against 1 tiger to hit and destroy the tiger because the shermans had light armor compared to heavy armor of the tiger. same with Ties and later on the x-wings
Playing TIE Fighter in the 90's was a blast. 1st hit, might knock out targeting. 2nd might take out the ejection system. 3rd hit was destruction.
They were a bit more durable than that in the Tie Fighter game.
@@karlrovey No.
The only exception might be if the enemy was running on low power lasers (with the corresponding wimpy sound effect), then maybe 4 or 5 hits to be destroyed in a TIE.
@@orokusaki1243 It also depended on whether or not the lasers were firing simultaneously or individually. If I remember correctly, the AI went with individual shots by default. If you grouped them in two (or even 4 in the case of the TIE Intercepter, TIE Advanced, or TIE Defender), it was one or two shots. ION canons could also destroy TIEs even though they didn't damage the hull.
@@karlrovey Yup, twin/quad linked weapons was a fun feature, looked just like the films!
The power management did matter (regular vs weaker shots). 4 regular power shots was significantly more of a punch than 4 weaker power shots.
Every weapon cycle put power drain on the system, so 4 at once drained like 4 bars out of 10 and at regular recharge rate, you'd get 1 bar restored every few seconds.
Had the regular and the reserve charge gauges., so when on reserve, it was the weaker shots, like 1/2 or 1/3 the damage output.
I don't remember the Ion being able to destroy a TIE, but I do remember that they were quite effective at taking out capital ships so could then pick off components until it was bare..and then blow that Star Destroyer up with your lone A-wing after like 3 hours of playing the same mission like a cat with a mouse. Thanks resupply tug! 🤣
@@orokusaki1243 There were definitely some missions where I had to turn on invincibility (one of them was when you have to clear a minefield in an unshielded TIE interceptor before it turns out the mission was just so an Admiral, possibly Zaarin, could get rid of you in order to defect: _This is a coup'de'tad. Gamma One is the Emperor's stool pigeon. Gamma Two and Three, destroy Gamma One now_ ).
TIE's were never confirmed to be fragile ships. They were mass produced, yes, but they were also state-of-the-art.
Remember only 6 ships were deployed at Yavin before Vader himself took over, and they took down rebels without much effort.
Tie Squadrons were super effective until the Rebels got the X-Wing at the last years of the war.
They've been dying in one or two hits for the last 50 years of movies, except for the one that Finn and Poe stole and gifted with plot armor. We don't need a visual dictionary to tell us they're fragile.
It has no shields so it’s by default more fragile than other comparable ships with shields, also the reason only 6 ties were deployed was because Tarkin was convinced enemy snub fighters would have no effect on his battle station if I recall correctly
@roderickhickey1309 To be fair, the movies just show ships blowing up whenever the plot demands it. Shields, hull strength, and other factors are practically never shown or considered. Presumably, shielded fighters have probably taken a few hits offscreen before blowing up and so-on, but again, we are not shown that.
Games give you a better idea of the durability of shields and ships, but the balance on that is always different because it is decided for gameplay reasons rather than lore reasons. There is only a correlation between shields, health, speed, missike counts, etc in games and their actual in-universe performance.
@@chrishakala528 I'll grant that any universe with a lot of different stories in it is going to have some inconsistencies, like the Bad Batch showing a proton torpedo being the size of a human torso while the Y-wing can carry 8 with no bomb bay, but I really don't think you need external confirmation of things that are consistently shown across the movies and shows. I mean, if a technical manual came out that said, "the TIE fighter is extremely durable, able to take several direct hits from blaster cannons and keep fighting", you'd say, "that's BS, we see them die instantly all the time", so why would you need to have a manual say, "the TIE fighter is highly fragile, often being destroyed by a single direct hit" to tell you they were fragile? "Official" confirmation is just a trap to force you to buy extra books you don't need. Don't give in to the pressure. Be free. Fight the power!
I know this is a silly universe where real physics doesn’t apply, but some kids learning real physics might be watching so a small correction: Momentum affects you even if you’re in a vacuum. Love your show!
momentum would effect you even more in a vacuum! you wouldn't have drag to counteract it, so you ONLY have momentum and acceleration
@@comet.xiirc the expanse show he mentioned actually showed that off a lot, those space scenes were awesome
Okay, so hear me out here: it was deliberate.
Palpatine always, ALWAYS had an eye towards sabotaging the Republic, and I don't believe this stopped when it became the Empire. Just look at Operation Cinder, for example. I strongly suspect that, much like the CIS before it, Palpatine set the Empire up for intentional failure. His reasons for doing so would be quintessentially Sith -- both revenge upon the Republic and keeping potential threats to his power suppressed. The Star Wars setting proves time and again that skilled pilots in small but potent fighters can radically swing the outcome of major power struggles, and I firmly believe Palpatine knew this and saw it as cause for concern.
Considering no fighter ships have safety ejects, almost any fighter pilot training in the Star Wars universe is incredibly dangerous
Apperantly the Ties do have ejection seats. Check SW Aftermath.
@@luisemoralesfalcon4716 If we're acting like tv/movies treat the books like canon, sure.
Where would you eject to? Space is not a safe environment.
@@cybersmith_videos In the Star Wars Squadrons short film, an ejection system sure would've been helpful once they broke atmosphere. Besides, you'd think training would be on-planet vs space. NASA doesn't train their astronauts in space lol
X wings can eject but they eject the whole cockpit because their pilots do not have life support built into their suits. In a new hope one of the x wing pilots yells for Porkins to eject before he is shot down
The classic TIE fighter game on PC was so much fun and really gave you a good idea of what it was like to be a TIE fighter pilot.
When flying the regular TIE fighter it would only take 3 to 4 laser blasts to take you out and usually just one missile. Flying it was so much fun you had to be smart about how you attacked. Also good luck on taking out an A wing in a TIE fighter. You could take out X-wings as long as you managed to get behind them. You really felt like you accomplished something when finishing a mission in a TIE fighter.
Then on some missons you had to fly the bomber, that was a bit more challenging. even if you diverted all power from your lasers to the engines you still moved pretty slow.
When you finally got to fly the Interceptor, you could hold your own against X-wings and a-wings a bit better thanks to the increased speed but you still didn't want to take them head on.
Then when you finally got to do a missons in a ship that had shields it was like night and day you finally could survive better. The first shielded ship you usually got to fly was the gunboat. It has medium speed but had lasers, missles, and ion canons. It could take a lot of damage.
You eventually got to fly the TIE advance, flying that ship really made you feel like a badass pilot, then you felt like more of a badass when you got to fly the TIE Defender.
TIE Defender > all others
Tractor Beam? Yes please!
Was also fun having different warheads. Proton bombs to take out space stations and capital ships - they were slow AF but so devastating!
@@orokusaki1243 oh yes very devastating. I haven't checked it out, but someone made a mod for X-wing:Alliance, which is a remaster of TIE Fighter with updated graphics.
@@thepayne7862 My least favorite thing about those games was the enemy's AI. They'd always try to get your 6'oclock, meanwhile you'd be trying to get theirs. It became a huge loop chasing each other, dog chasing it's tail. I remember spending considerable time doing this to defeat the faster ships, and it was so draining - but I persisted for that total victory kill count.
@@orokusaki1243 Yeah that could be a pain but once you managed to take them out, it did feel good.
Loved that game but the one thing I was bitter about is that the ROF was so slow. In the movies you see them get a gun luck and then burst fire the lasers but in Tie Fighter game you're relegated to something much slower which legit takes the experience down a few notches for me. I think this was corrected in the more modern starfighter game released by EA circa 2022
Star Wars Squadrons added so much depth to being a fighter pilot. Although it doesn't make sense having different speeds in space, it is still super cool to play and balance resources. I play the story on repeat, sadly in the UK there are no multiplayer servers to have real battles in. Still fun though
I don't know if it's a fact or a theory, but space in Star Wars galaxy is NOT vacume, it's filled with something gas-like. I heard that someone named that substance "Ether" (probably, if i remebered it correctly).
@@Taron_HaiTarthe Luminiferous Aether. Everything that's old is new again.
It's not so much the servers you're on as much as the game is almost dead. All the really good players ran everyone else off and then left themselves. Source: I have about 2200 hours in the multiplayer 😂
Alan, your channel is such a breath of fresh air. Discussing unique topics and immersing us viewers deeper into Star Wars lore.
I tip my helmet to you, Sir.
I used to play X-wing v Tie fighter a lot. Even entered and won a multi-play tournament. I chose the TIE Interceptor, everyone else chose the A-wing. I cleaned up - because sheilds create a psychological weakness. You take a glancing hit, you dump power from weapons into shields, and divert power from speed to refilling your weapons. Which makes your A-Wing slow and even more undergunned. A-wing after A-wing dead, because the pilots 'trusted' their shields (and tried to get a missile lock on an interceptor). I get so sick of the 'TIE is a bad design because no shields / hyperdrive / big view port' retoric, when the TIE is a weapon system of a capital ship, and as such, can stay on mission in far off areas with better sensor coverage than the rebel pilots. But so be it.
Agreed. I played and enjoyed all 3 of those 90's sims. The challenge of TIE Fighter (and using them in XvT) was to not get hit at all.
Translated to when you had shielded ships, you could run low shields without worrying so much because you had the experience without any shields at all.
"..good against remotes is one thing, good against the living, that's something else.."
TIEs get a bad rap. They are excellently designed for the role they were intended for. Shields are overrated for starfighters.
@@dianabarnett6886 Spoken like a true TIE pilot. Nah, I actually agree with you!
Although he was a master manipulator, Palpatine relied on his sychophants for the daily running of the Empire. I think him being a Sith led to the arrogance that the galaxy could be pacified with a strong hand of authority. But Palpatine also needed a way to keep the dark side dominant which was reflected in how inept their military actually was. The raid on Aldani and the Battle of Scarif showed how unprepared the Empire actually was in battling another military force. This was a military force designed to fight pirates and smugglers.
just before i forgot and continue viewing the video: The Expanse did actually a great space battle preparation scene in season 2 where Alex, the pilot of the Rocinante, run a couple of tests and simulations before the crew attacks the Thoth station. Because of the buildup before a single burst is fired, it makes more like a confrontation between submarines than a plane dogfight or... if i have to use a more recent Star Wars reference, the Luthen Rael confrontation when his ship gets intercepted by the Empire. This is why I think that even a franchise like Star Wars can sometimes use some space battles where intelligence and not the Force would be trusted, especially if you don't have any Jedi around. :)
Imagine the amount of alarms blaring on Vader’s hyperbaric meditation chamber the moment some Imperial clerk entered the name Skywalker into the Academy applicants list 😂 if Owen Lars had let Luke apply for the Academy, Vader would have known immediately his son had survived childbirth
That hard cold calculated type of warfare is pretty much The Expanse IMHO.
Like when Marco sent multiple stealth coated projectiles on a collision course with the Earth that took half a season to occur
The Expanse in my opinion, has THE best space battles BECAUSE of the realism. Watching ships poking holes in each other with kinetic weapons, watching ships blow apart and others having to avoid the debris or getting damaged as they get overtaken by a blast wave.....I had more hair raising, "OMG!" moments watching battles in The Expanse than anything else to date. Watching people patching holes, or their head be taken off by a bullet that went straight through the hull, it was freaking bonkers and I want more!
The Expanse is pretty good, definitely check it out.
One other thing with people who might wash out of the TIE training is that the ones in the last year who leave are probably not washing out, but transferring. The Imperial Army and Navy did have a pretty massive need for pilots in other positions for things like Shuttles, transports, and other things. In some of the legends material, there had been a lot of references to interservice issues with the Army and parts of the Navy poaching perspective TIE pilots that were later in their training...the Army and Stormtrooper corps also poaching several for things like the various tanks and similar that were developed off of the TIE systems (Mauler/Crawler designs as a major one) or gunships. The ARMY would largely be getting them from the 2nd year washouts because that's when the transition would happen to exo-atmospheric training and there were several cadets who had issues with null-grav environments, and later ones more for transport/shuttle training
Lol. As you described the "boring" battle, all I could think of was The Expanse. In case my handle wasn't already a clue, big fan. Huge.
Just think how many must have been trying out to be pilots. At it's peak, the Empire had over 25 thousand Star Destroyers. Each one typically carried 72 TIE fighters. That's nearing two MILLION in total... and that's only counting the compliment on ISDs, how many more TIEs did they have when you include other ships, space stations, and ground bases? It also doesn't take losses and replacements into consideration.
With numbers that huge, the Empire needed a fighter that was cheap to produce and maintain.
I just started rewatching ‘The Expanse’ and it’s even better the millionth time lol
The clones were too expensive? Yet two death stars aren't. Then Starkiller base, and then the whole fleet of death star, star destroyers. Seems he shoulda just made the clones.
I mean the issue with clones is you can make it a specific buyer weapon that only affects clothes that pretty much would cripple your entire military if it was still clone best not to mention I think the emperor was worried how effective order 66 was and if someone else could do that to his troops against him
You explained it in your own comment. Emperor stopped doing clone troops so he could put resources into the death star program.
@jiffypoo5029 hah, suppose I did. Still wonder how he'd have faired with just clones and star destroyers. Those can devastate a planet without losing its resources
Probably got a few coupons on the deathstar so the destroyers were basically free….you never seen those extreme coupons tv shows?
Besides being expensive, another problem clones have is a lack of genetic diversity. This means if you have a battalion of clone troopers and they go to a world that has new viruses, or if the rebels have develop biological weapons. The lack of genetic diversity means the clones could be a 100% fatality rate a newly introduced virus before a vaccine can be developed, whereas with a diverse corp of troops that number would be much lower.
To go back to the WWII analogy, I tend to see the TIE Fighter as the Japanese Ki-43 Hayabusa (Allied codename: Oscar): Very maneuverable, only two guns, and no armor or self-sealing fuel tanks.
I prefer the MiG-21, as the Vietnam War (Rolling Thunder before Yavin, Linebacker after) is a allegory for the Rebels vs Empire, and the Rebel Starfighters were based on the VPAFs hit-and-run raids.
I was just going to say you described the expanse, amazing show!!!
Brings back some great memories. Will always miss climbing into the cockpit of a F/A-18 E/F
That was the best breakdown of the psychology and training involved in the production of TIE fighters and their pilots. Keep up the good work!
Just imagine if the TIE Defender had been mass produced and put into service.
Thrawn's TIE Defender program was too good to be dropped in favor of Krennic's project Stardust.
In Legends they were mass produced, but considering that a single TIE Defender costs about five times that of a standard TIE Fighter, they saw limited production and were only reserved for the Empire's best pilots.
@@barbiquearea Only 5x!? With the numbers the regular fighters are produced at, the Defender is definitely economical for something more than a elite force.
If your ship is fast and can out turn your opponents, then shields and armor are nothing more than a speedbump on the way to death.
Despite having no armor, no self sealing tanks, and engines that would catch fire with a single hit, the Japanese Zeros absolutely dominated the skies in the Pacific until the US developed better performing aircraft. The TIE's could outfly an Xwing so the Xwings had to come up with tactics to defeat the TIE's. This was the same with the F4F Wildcats vs the A6M Zeros. Head on attack worked well against both the TIE's and Zeros. Xwings often flew between light capital ships like Corvettes which had good anti-snub fighter weapons. This created a defensive gauntlet which TIE pilots would either have to pass through and risk destruction or break off their attack on the Xwing.
Experienced pilots who recognized these tactics and/or who controlled their 1v1 egos could avoid these traps and absolutely wreck Rebel pilots. At least on paper. But lets be clear here, plot armor trumps all. For all of the fluff about the Imperial academies, the Imperial officers were always incompetent's and the TIE pilots were always mediocre. They rarely came off as extremely good in the shows even the the good guys seems to be incompetent themselves.
The TIE fighter pilot program and the tie fighter itself is almost synonymous with the imperial Japanese Navy during world war two. They had a very strict training regime, many pilots washed-out. They had a cadre of very experienced pilots that were sent into battle in the a6m zero which was not the most durable of aircraft in combat. While not a direct comparison there are definitely similarities
You know what I just realized. Savage Opress is just the words "savage opresser" with two less letters. And it also is an acurate descrpition of him.
Some of these star wars names clearly show that they were developed during a meal break, while others are from watching TV news or maybe shopping elsewhere.
Barista Coffee.. Gogurt... Halle Burtoni...
The error bars for where a ship would be at any moment in space would make it very difficult to attack anything. All long range weapons would have to be guided. By the time the light coming from a distant craft reached you, it could have made any number of small or large adjustments to its course. And it would no doubt for standard procedure for any military vessel to make random changes to velocity vectors to prevent long range attack.
Imagine how awesome it would be to go through all of that and finally get the best spot on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, it would be soooooooo rewarding
“Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder”
"military grade"
Just started reading the Thrawn books, I finished the first one and now one third of the way through "Alliance"
Those comic book pages are right out of the novel... I didn't know there were comic book versions of the same story. I will be looking into those.
For the early years of the Empire, the pilot training system worked well and mass deployed base TIE Fighters (after replacing the V Wing) worked wonders when they opposed small hostile groups and ran picket for their home ships.
However, (a) the creation of organized resistance groups with larger ships, (b) better fighter designs (with control systems similar to civilian "aviation", meaning T16 -> X-Wing), & (c) the Empire's resistance to change (Tarkin doctrine, established military - industrial complex, etc.) led to high losses in the latter years.
Much like another commenter said, compare this to the IJN Zero in WW2. Wonderful plane, better than almost everything else. But... Japan had to stick to the same design (for the most part) and couldn't change to something better as their enemy made advances. ... This is why the old Expanded Universe had ships such as the Tie Avenger, Tie Defender, etc.. all of which wouldn't be used in mass in the fleet due to the aforementioned reasons.
The story of Polish cavalry, on horses, charging German tanks in WW2 is an exaggerated example of the same.
I hope they fix hyperspace ramming
For sure. In the latest show we do see some measure of correction.
There's a point of transition into the hyperspace dimension, which is smaller by at least a factor of 1 : 3,000,000.
Notice how coming out of hyperspace they are at typical realspace velocities? They're not running each other over and destroying each other. So shouldn't be different when going into hyperspace because they are still traveling at realspace velocity.
Don't get me started on MGLT and G's.. 😂
To some extent, you can say the TIE fighter is a munition delivery platform and not much else xD
I love this channel because I can learn about Star Wars, world history, and humanity all in one go
My head canon is that shielding is so good that slow, powerful lasers are the only way to take them down. Kind of like the knife fighting in Dune.
The introduction of some great weakness seems to be a trait of the Emperor. Maybe it was just something that was picked up on in the writing but anything that could be a threat to him had something that looks like the story of Achilles as a small thing lets it be destroyed. You have to wonder if even the defects in the Death Star was something he know about but just did not think anyone but himself could exploit. I could see him thinking that if a group of the pilots ever tried to takeout his shuttle he did not want them in good craft with shields or his guards to be able to jump away to save themselves. Desperate people fight and can fight the hardest if they know they have only one chance to live.
Regarding "realistic" space combat, as you mention early in the video, I remember an anime from 2005 that I really liked called Starship Operators. It basically takes place on the bridge, the battles are done over huge distances, and there's very little drama in the combat. Much more suspense. Really liked that one. Only 13 episodes too.
Tie Figher is 1/3ed the cost of an x wings. Add shields, more guns, 2 ordnance launchers, and hyperdrive and poof, you are there.
tie was 60k interceptor was 120k, and with that you got 4 extra cannons (much like the xwings) putting just a 30k difference between the x wing and a tie interceptor... with the difference being shields and hyperdrive. essentially to mount shields and hyperdrive on an interceptor, you'd loose some speed slowing it down to about the speed of an x-wing... but gain shields and such.
Which leads to the intresting question... if the cost was so low why were they not put on, even a simple class 2 or even 5... to give pilots an escape option.
Defection was a constant risk in the Empire. Even something as large as a Nebulon B Frigate could be (and regularly would be) stolen and used by rebel factions. Putting hyperdrives on Tie Fighters greatly increased the risk that they could be stolen and used by rebels.
Putting shields on Tie Fighters would also increase the risk that the Rebels could take them and escape.
Linden Javes, one of the major characters in Star Wars Squadrons, managed to defect in a Tie fighter variant. His Tie fighter at the time appeared to be a Tie advanced variant (the new cannon variant where the solar arrays have a consistent curved shape), so it probably had shields, if not also a hyperdrive.
I wouldn't be surprised if the life expectancy for TIE pilots would remain at 1 year for the early years of the rebellion. The rebels were a relatively small force so it was highly unlikely that an Imperial pilot would ever have any contact with rebel pilots. TIE pilots were more likely to run into smugglers, pirates or other criminal elements and many didn't really see any action. I imagine TIE casualties might have been high because of the ship's vulnerability to simple debris, consider what happened to the TIEs that chased Andor and company after the Aldhani heist.
Rebels didn't get the X-Wing until the end of the war around 5 BBY. Ties tore through Y-Wings and A-Wings without any problem.
@@jiffypoo5029For Y-wings it was probably a maneuverability issue more than anything. Those ships are at least ostensibly supposed to be tanks.
Part of the idea behind Y-Wings in the Clone Wars was that they could ignore vulture droids (just soaking damage with their shields and firing back with the ion turrets) while they took care of their bombing runs.
Now, maybe the Rebels couldn't always keep their Y-Wings functioning at anything close to peak performance. The maintenance crews did intentionally leave off the armor so that they could quickly deal with the crafts' frequent issues, but even if the shield generators were functioning at half capacity, a Y-wing would still be fairly tough to kill.
@@chrishakala528Y-Wings are tanks but like tanks, they need an escort to be effective and not get picked off. A-Wings were interceptors and were terrible at the escort role. The Y-Wings with A-Wings combo consistently got wiped out by Tie Fighters.
@@jiffypoo5029 True, A-Wings were never effective in cases where they were forced to slow down. Y-Wings didn't have the maneuverability to compete with TIE Fighters with good pilots.
@@jiffypoo5029 Old model Y wings have a topside gunner , in addition to a droid socket. A wings have a trick with their laser cannons; they are able to swivel and rotate 360 degrees to target anything tailing them at their six.
If you think about it logically, then the more advanced they become the more restrictive they become in engaging at range. If they launch missiles at long range then the missiles would need the fuel reserves in addition the payload to reach the target, and at that distance the enemy would have plenty of time to notice then shoot the missiles down or just evade them. So they kinda have to close range where they can be more sure their weapons will be effective.
I think that I prefer the original Legends lore of the Imperial Academies.
Essentially, everyone got to be a TIE fighter pilot for a year while they were something like Midshipmen on Imperial ships. If you found that you enjoyed being a tie pilot, there were advanced academies for people who flew Interceptors and other more advanced TIEs, but everyone did it. Like how every marine is a marksman, every Imperial Navy man can fly a TIE.
But it was just one step on your career.
It makes sense for TIE to not have hyperdrives they were carrier ships. It would however have made sense for there to be a specific longer range TIE patrol fighter that did.
...although the Empire would probably have just sent a TIE loaded Gozanti.
@@Reoh0z They had those. They were TIE Scouts. However they saw limited service, mainly because the Empire relied more on probe droids for reconnaissance.
Dont forget the TIE hyperspace rings for a generic standard fighter .
Right off the bat. In most situations, drop in and out would not work in a lot of scenarios because the space battles are usually the thing that happens before they take the fight planetside, so at least one side can't really bail, and the side that can bail would lose the advantage on ground aka the whole reason they do the space battle in the first place.
Surely, without hyperspace capability, TIE's pilots can't run away and need to rely on their support ships/stations, the Empire prefer stay sure than having a better flexibility, also if they had to expose their ships on direct contact with the enemy, contrary to the rebels, that could launch their fighters from another systems, and waiting for them coming back.
It also limits the ability for any TIE pilot from deserting or defecting to the Rebellion.
@@barbiquearea Exactly, as I just said (also if in legends, in the old Young Jedi Knights serie, it was alluded about some form of conditioning for imperial personnel).
Ties did had an ejection function (SW Aftermath), but it seems we rarely hear from them.
Probably because most of the time we see TIEs getting shot down within seconds by rebel pilots. They don't exactly have time to react to their craft being destroyed and hit the ejection button.
@@barbiquearea now that is a fact.
Great vid GenTech, fascinating discussion.
If only 10% of the students from the Imperial Academies made it as pilots of the TIE-Fighters, then how the Empire has so many of them?
The Empire is big. Like 2/3 of the entire galaxy. 10% of the galaxy is still a lot of people. Although i can see the Empire just being lazy and putting random people into there TIE fighters.
The recruit heavily charge for training and send the washouts into the imperial army to payoff their debt. Storm troopers are thier own branch equal to marines.
@@theauraone7755 Even at the end of the war the empire still wouldn’t just throw anyone into a tie fighter. A massive chunk of shuttle pilots and such were tie pilots that couldn’t make the chopping block. I could see them being brought back into the Tie fighter program but it took a lot of skill to fly a tie fighter, it was very similar to Jedi fighters in that way. Super light, super maneuverable, minimal assistance from computer systems. I mean, even then, a star destroyer took 25,000 men to crew. With a compliment of about 75 tie fighters. Which means there’s roughly 150 pilots on standby for the ties. It wouldn’t be that hard to pick 150 good pilots when you’re talking about populations in the millions and billions
@@stuglife5514 i agree. The empire's real flaw is that they didn't even add shields to there average TIE fighters. All that training, gone to waste because they couldn't even do that basic thing. The jedi are fine because they had the force. And also enough brains to have shields on. Most of the time.
Empire hast making 5milion If tie Fighter,alot of tie variand have Schild anti laser anti protonraket yuo can y Wing kill Marek Stele, and admiral with the dar force was Veteran acest If tie Fighter,the Baron tie Fighter hast not force Power he ist corelianbthe Sam age of han solo,
Since the pilots had life support in the suit, i am sure that even if the TF were destroyed, an important number survived floating in space. They always were around a destroyer, so for sure they will be searched for on every battle.
Realistic space battles Sounds like battle ship
Thank you for mentioning The Expanse 🙌🏾
You Sir, are a brilliant young man.
tie pilots are often flying body bags in unshielded crafts. But then again, they use high speeds, super charged laser gun cannons and those solar panels to offset the lack of deflector shielding systems.
tie-fighters always reminded me of the Japanese Zero, when they first arrived they seemed superior; faster and more agile then anything else in the sky.
but later they found out it had basically no armor to protect them.
So, once faster airplanes showed up, it became relatively easy to shoot them down.
It also show how well train imperial pilots were by the fact every pilot that went to the rebels became an absolute menace once they were given a sturdier fighter
> "Reminds me of Dooku's"
Its perfectly normal for the shaft to have some bend to it, some even prefer it that way.
Reminds me a lot of the IJN during WW2. The pilots were very well trained, but the planes did not keep up with the advancements as the war progressed and they never increased the pilot pipeline like the US did.
A better title would be "Why its Almost Impossible to Survive as a Tie Fighter Pilot".
One thing that is easily forgotten: stealth in this universe is so great it even hampers manouverability (stated as early as ANH, during the Rebel briefing for the Death Star raid). That's why they don't have so many guided munitions, they just don't work very well.
bridge officers would not be yelling at each other. Naval officers tend to be quite composed and calm when it comes to their job because they're taught that anything else contributes to getting sunk.
I think they went with the imperial Japanese navy model there pilot training was incredibly hard and only small number graduated each year the zero was basically the same design ideas as the TIE
In SW legends the galaxy gun actually just uses planet busting warheads that go into hyperspace, and drop out right before they impact the planet they're targeted at. It's literally impossible to stop it once the projectile is fired.
The Star Wars universe has hugely advanced AI in the form of commonplace droids, cheap targeting computers, and widely accessible navigation computers that plot galaxy wide courses in seconds, etc. Ships even down to the starfighter size can have shielding (of several kinds) and basically infinite fuel/power output (consider how much maneuvering they do in combat) compared against 'hard' sci-fi universes. You see even star destroyers changing course, heading, speed, incredibly quickly for something of such mass.
Which this in mind, it seems like combat moving back to point blank dogfighting with unguided or seemingly unsophisticated guidance would be the end result. If AI's are so advanced + cheap that even basic maintenance droids are basically sentient (R2D2, C3PO), able to interfacing with a huge array of technologies, plot complicated hyperspace courses, or just command entire vessels on their own, imagine the kind of ECM warfare and jamming abilities available to every ship in the galaxy. Even your basic freighter with a navigation computer and light shielding is hugely agile and survivable compared to an 'hard' space universe equivalent. Shooting at long range against defensive abilities like this would be feasible, but a waste of time. You're plinking at a target that can evade in any direction, can plot likely projectiles courses with ease and has the ability to take multiple hits even if you don't miss.
At some point moving to what is 'point blank' in any other sci-fi and Saturating an entire grid with volume of fire becomes the best way to kill an opposing vessel. In this context, the Tie fighter design makes a lot of sense. You don't need escort fighters to have hyperdrive or shielding, it's purpose is to protect the capitol ship. Enemy fighters Have to close the distance to even have a chance to hit your large vessels, otherwise ECM and active countermeasures pick off your torpedoes/missiles well in advance. At a range where this won't happen, TIEs swarms can knock them out or make launching extremely difficult, while the Star Destroyers fill the sector with heavy turbolasers and destroy the enemy main fleet.
This is my head cannon anyway, for why fleet combat in Star Wars always depicts lasers flying seemingly everywhere, despite advanced targeting computers and droid assist. The space equivalent of 'Dodge This', except you're using also using a minigun in each hand
Now imagine being posted on one of those ISD's....such as the Avenger , Stalker, Relentless, Conquest etc.
@GenerationTech, 3:12 to 3:25
You’ll have a better chance of becoming a tie fighter pilot than a U.S fighter pilot here on earth; out of 1,000 tie fighter trainies only 10.0% graduate, meanwhile only 0.30% of 1,000 U.S fighter pilots graduate.
That means that there is a 3233.33% difference.
Meaning that some tie fighter pilots may not even qualify to become U.S fighter pilots here on our big blue dirt planet we call earth.
Putting someone as well trained as an imperial pilot in a tie fighter is like putting a formula 1 driver in a ford pinto
One benefit is that Palpatine gets the chance to strip the empire of all of their best pilots, by throwing them into the grinder.
Thus reducing the pool of qualified fighters that may oppose him in the future.
Funny. As Alan was speaking about what space combat should actually look like, I thought of The Expanse, (except no hyperspace.) BTW, Amos Burton is my favorite character.
Everyone knows that TIE fighter pilots are 100% disposable , that is why we send out so many at one time .
We give them ridiculously big side profiles.
We don't bother to give them shields.
We make them hilariously loud so that we can hear them from a galaxy away .
And sometimes we don't even waste our time training them .
Sometimes , I like to take a underling that I don't like and throw him into a TIE and launch him out into battle just for shits and giggles .
Personally , I get off on sending them on kamikaze missions to clear asteroid fields . ( then set course in a different direction. )
The Imperial Academy seems to draw a lot of inspiration from the Chinese Imperial Examination.
The Examination was basically a massive test that all Chinese citizens could take. It was supposed to promote a meritocratic society, with it ensuring those who passed it were China’s best and brightest, who could end up in a governmental position.
However, it was almost impossible for anyone to pass unless they had advanced knowledge of the content and had prepared for many years to take the test (and even then it wasn’t always enough), and since the majority of the population couldn’t afford the time or money to prepare for it, very few in the lower classes actually managed to pass it.
Meanwhile, the elite and wealthy could basically pay their way through it, since not only could they prepare for the test in a way the lower classes couldn’t, they could also bribe the examiner to make sure their kids got in.
So while it was supposed to promote social mobility and equal opportunity, it just ended up helping reinforce the social status quo.
I, I would very much like to watch that, then again, i love the Honor Harrington book series and there combat is usualy fought over entire star systems and not just around a single planet.
After all, if you have missle tech with light minutes range, the comand and control loop is your biggest problem.
The tech stuff and technical solutions to those problems are fascinating.
Remembering Star Wars episode 3, the ties vs x-wing hit ratio for a tie is higher than first thought. The swarm tactics of the fighters could wipeout an x-wings or y-wings shields, while to totally obliterate a tie like the one chasing Luke in that battle needed Wedge to hit the tie with all four x-wing cannons, so not a weak fighter craft. Not counting Vader tie, the tie could paste slower y-wings, however the couldn't maneuver like a x-wing unll the tie interceptor, which could go head to head with an a-wing as far as maneuvering.
Hyperdrives are expensive
The idea of local simulators in libraries or colleges is a brilliant addition to the lore! Is there a precedent for this or is it smth you thought up?
Hi I greatly enjoy GenTec!!
Have you ever done a video of when a Star destroyer deployed a prefabricated Base?
And what is deployed at that time?
Thing is, most if not all designs aim to improve on former experiences. In this case to the question how to effectively fight a gazillion of tiny droid fighters. So combining cheap and mass produced tiny, nimble fighters with cheap labor (as you stated, manpower isn't an issue) does make sense. Then again beating masses of TIEs with higher cost and thereby quality fighters while dealing with low manpower issues like the Alliance to restore the Republic had to deal with...the X-Wing does make sense as an evolution step in tech just as the TIE did before.
Love this breakdown and the great points raised.
16:38 During the Battle of Yavin (which culminated with the destruction of the first Death Star) the Galactic Empire lost only three flight groups of TIE fighters in full-scale combat, all belonging to the Black Squadron, under the direct command of Lord Vader. On the other hand, it is not clear how many regular squadrons have been deployed at the space station itself, though it is more then clear that the Grand Moff Tarkin was so overly confident in the Death Star that he refused to send any fighters to defend it. Let's assume that the entire fighter group (joint formation of three or four fighter squadrons) regularly served at the first Death Star just before the battle - in that case, the total amount of TIE pilot casualties would be around 60 (48 of them died as members of the first Death Star's fighter group contingent in non-combat conditions, plus 12 TIE pilots of Lord Vader's Black Squadron that got themselves killed during the space combat phase). On the whole, the loss of approximately sixty TIE pilots would not be classified as a mass casualty event by the Imperial standards, as these numbers were actually quickly replaced by the newly-formed units of pilot recruits. The loss of the first Death Star was completely different story.
Given how much Lucas drew from WW2 TIE fighters were doubtlessly inspired by the Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero' which was a highly maneuverable, well-armed but extrememely vulnerable craft. Plus both craft served in villainous 'Empires'
In comparison of WWII air combat to Star Wars starfighter combat, you can see the similarities between Japan's air-combat doctrine and the Empire's starfighter doctrine. Both used, for the most part, combat craft that were designed to be inexpensive, so to be manufactured in large quantities, and were more focused on maneuverability and powerful standard weaponry. However, Japan's doctrine would also include the necessity of long-range abilities. The results being the Japanese "Zero" and the Imperial "Tie-fighter." How the pilots were trained and deployed also carry similar aspects. Japanese pilots, at the beginning of the war were given long training schedules to eventually become the "best of the best," and were expected to perform their duties without question, and absolutely devoted to giving their lives to their emperor. This doctrine would keep these elite pilots in air combat for as long as the war lasted, or more often, until their deaths. Of course, as the war dragged on longer than Imperial Japan had expected/hoped, more and more of their elite pilots were KIA and subsequently being replaced by lesser trained and experienced pilots. And although, initially, Allied pilots were less experienced with, typically only adequate training, and therefore were often outmatched by their Japanese counterparts in generally superior aircraft, the Allies had a very different air-combat doctrine. The Allies, in particular the U.S. which conducted the bulk of the Pacific Theater naval combat against Japan, were keener to develop counter-tactics with their inferior aircraft until the USN could develop and receive more advanced air-fighters to dominate the Zeros, plus the USN maintained a training strategy of recalling experienced pilots, who had served for a specified time period, so to instruct and pass on their knowledge to trainees. This passed on knowledge would be critical to the rookie pilots who would have significantly more knowledge of air-combat than their poorly trained opposition who were not given the knowledge from experienced pilots since the experience pilots of the IJN were too busy continually fighting and being eliminated from the equation.
I think this is how cannon and expanded universe clash. The more we get into details the less it makes sense. The rebels just won cause the creator wanted it.
The "shields" very rarely have an impact except if they are main characters. We should go with what is just in main material.
Also they went for the evil guys dont care about safety but have very good training trope.
commenting earlier but since you mentioned how some starfighters mirror old ww2 planes, the A wing is just a F14 without a cockpit, center body and wings lol
Only the best of the best are crazy enough to try and chase people through rock canyons, asteroid belts, meteor showers, and all other potentially lethal environments and situations.
They might look like fodder, and sure deploying them in the way that the Empire does indeed means the TIEs do tend to be destroyed rather quickly and in large numbers, but the skill and bravery of the pilots for even trying to fight in these situations is always to be recognized.
Thanks for the RAF shout out 👍
90% of cadets don't pass, but the remaining 10% end up flying unshielded star fighters and fly to their deaths.
That's why I always fail in school 👌
Lucas actually used WWII footage to choreograph certain dogfight shots in the original Star Wars..... probably in the later movies too.
I think the reason they did what they did is a combination of things: False sense of security thinking the galaxy was already basically theirs so more expensive harder to destroy ships were unnecessary, especially given the quantity they could make. They likely anticipated not taking such heavy losses on pilots and even when they did, it's like the stormtrooper corps. They aren't everywhere, just where they need to be. You said the pilots may never fly the same fighter twice. The Empire probably kept way more fighters than they had pilots for them. Just move the pilots wherever you need the fighters flown and then move them again when they're needed elsewhere. Palpatine, Tarkin, or whoever called the shots on the amount of protection put to the TIEs was likely of the opinion that no matter the casualties suffered, the battle would be won, and the losses replaced; It's not like they were fighting an actual military (from their perspective). My thoughts.
I'm just shocked all this came about in less than 20 years. Like how did this culture, created practically from whole cloth, just come into being so quickly?
Also, if TIE fighter battle survival was not entirely luck-dependent then I would have to imagine after surviving five or more battles, those pilots must've been fearsome opponents
With regards to the Academy Luke and Biggs are talking about there are some views it was the Merchant Marine Academy and Biggs had graduated to become a 3rd mate.
"Entering the right Trajectories, Stealth and avoidance, I don't know how many people would actually want to watch that, who wants to watch a bunch of bridge officers yelling at each other making calculations and then boom, ships just explode." The very second you were describing this I was thinking, The Expanse, the ship combat is incredible in that series. I'm glad you're aware of it. Legend of the galactic heroes 「銀貨英雄伝説」 is actually a really cool example of a different outlook on space combat as well. One that focuses on absolutely massive fleet formation movements, and battles that take place over several days or weeks as the ships have to cover massive distances carefully only taking a fight when they believe they will win. There are actually fighters in the series as well, they work very very different from the ones in many sci-fi shows. I do suggest the OG show over the remake as the show really does not benefit from the condensing of the plot with the remake.
Love how you ended your thesis on this with a tactical quote from the WWII Soviet Army
According to legends continuity, there was a conflict in the navy between starfighter-centric types who wanted the Incom starfighter, and the capital ship advocates who wanted ISDs. The second group won. The ISD is the centerpiece, and fighter production was deliberately cheapened so that they could build more ISDs. The TIE fighter doesn't need a hyperdrive because it is not an independent weapons system; it is an extension of the ISD's own anti-starfighter turbolaser defenses. This is also why it doesn't have shields; if you're attacking an opponent where those shields would be critical , such as a capital ship, you're doing something wrong. A TIE fighter is not a ship for heroes; it is one part of a combined arms system, responsible for patrol, inspection, and defeating starfighter assaults on the capital ship. It is ... adequate ... in this role. But if you try to use it like an X-wing, there is going to be trouble.
Incom took its starfighter to the Rebels. And the rest is history.
1:29s Yeah, that is the point. THAT WAS WHAT GEORGE WAS DOING
All of that is already for the most part true. The latest Top Gun movie had to come up with a very specific scenario to make the all the entertaining dramatic dog fighting plausible.
There was a trench run wasn’t there 😂
Maybe it does not exist now, decades ago there was a test called the ASVAB, which was taken by sophomores/juniors in US high schools. The results of the test were used by the Dept of Defense to look for potential promising recruits. The test was oddly weighted by questions that would be a cake walk if the test taker came from a rural area with questions about home improvement and agriculture. If the academy system of Star Wars used a similar evaluation test, Luke Skywalker could have aced the exam. (As a note, the group that I belonged to destroyed the scoring curve. I received about a couple of inches of recruitment literature sent by all 5 branches and their sub-branches of the armed forces.)
ASVAB is still used to this day