I find it funny how this is supposed to apparently be a new better fighter to combat the A-Wing, yet the TIE Intercepter does exactly the same. Both lack shields and hyperdrives, just that the TIE Intercepter had more guns and armor on it
Interceptors can have shielding, missiles, 4 blaster cannons and 2 laser cannons, and a hyperdrives. Sometimes they would nitpick and have something like the upgraded 4 blaster lasers with the 2 lasers cannons, instead of just the 6 laser cannons, but leave out the hyperdrive and shields. These weren’t THAT rare to have.
Multiple competing projects from competing design teams. Makes sense to me. And then maybe political pressure from one high ranking official to keep the clearly inferior design from being scrapped...
Sounds like the exact only reason that these things exist is that they're easier to land than TIEs. They have landing gear, and that means they're easier to train for.
At least with that write-up for the D6 System, you would still take it over any TIE/in. Hands down. Everyone else would take it only because it was available (and nothing comparable).
I almost get the impression this thing was meant to be automated and the pilot was added at the last minute... In my head it makes more sense to remove the cockpit, use the resulting space to add a integrated droid pilot and a torpedo/missile launcher and then have a heavy armored carrier deploy hundreds of these things at once, but what do I know.
that probably was the original design, and it makes sense why they cut that out at the last minute, remember, Droids weren't particularly trusted because of the Clone Wars
@@samuelhaverghast2442 True, still automation is pretty much the only way it makes sense to me. I mean it looks to neat to be a last ditch we-need-anything-that-works design...
The A-9 wasn't the only company starfighter to see rival Imperial service against Sienar's TIE series Starfighters in the Dark Empire comics. Incom also had the I-7 Howlrunner in service.
Video games have done a lot of reputation damage for TIE Fighters (and Stormtroopers, for that matter). The original trilogy clearly established that they were dangerous and could hold their own against Rebel ships. When we did a starfighter fan film, we had an X-wing get destroyed by a TIE Fighter. We had so many people comment that "X-wings have shields" and they therefore couldn't be destroyed that we made a montage of TIE Fighters destroying X-wings from the OT as a response.
It's almost sad, in a way, that Dark Empire and its sourcebook's writers made a hotshot new starfighter, wrote about its good qualities, and then was straight out contradicted by later material so that their ship becomes a useless mistake.
I was thinking the same thing... "Hmm, says here this thing has 2 heavy turbolasers, is really fast and a great interceptor" "Turbolasers? Seems silly to me, make them normal lasers" "Ok" "HAH only 2 lasers, this thing doesn't have squat for firepower! Lol, it isn't even a good dogfighter!" "But... You decreased the firepower, and it's an interceptor" "Haha bad design"
@@Omega_1111 turnolasers on a starfighter or small ship aren't generally feasible due to power requirements. The only reason ships like the B-wing and D-5 Mantis were able to use them is because they were designed to have dedicated generators and power banks just to power the turbolasers, and even then the B-wing could only use light ones and that's the smallest a ship can be to equip one
I like the idea that cost cutting, bureaucracy and backing bad designs(slow tanks that trip! TWO Death Stars!, etc.) contributed heavily to the fall of the empire.
One of the things mentioned about the fighter was that each engine and the laser cannons. Had their own power generator. Allowing power to be diverted if any of the generators were disabled. Only really useful if the engines are still working. Also it was created by Kuat to steal some of the lucrative fighter contracts from Sienar Fleet Systems for their TIE fighters.
Hey Eck! Devils Advocate here. So certain elements of this fighter are definitely better than a regular tie. The biggest is the field of view. This ship would allow pilots to see what looks like more than 90 degrees more than a tie which in a dogfight could be extremely preferable. Also, the whole armor thing seems a bit silly to me. How many times have we seen a tie fighter survive a hit anyway? All this fighter really needs is a missile rack to give it some flexibility and it would be blatantly better than a tie fighter imo.
I like what you said. I’m kinda a fan as well. I’d say that there are factors that make it better. It’s def better than a standard tie. I’d say it’s better in surprise attacks than the interceptor but maybe not as good of a dog fighter. If I had a fleet, I’d probably employ some of these for atleast one specific role. And I’d look forward to seeing Kuat make their promised improved version.
Field of view was addressed in another video where the pilots' helmets likely allowed them to see 'through' the TIE's sides, at least as a tactical display.
@@mathildadeer Actually, your head sits pretty high in the cockpit, so you'd have 15-20 degrees downward visibility. Not amazing, but on par with real-world fighters. Additionally, the Tie has a large panel that blocks most downward visibility. Also upwards visibility is far more important in a dogfight, the ability to look up and see the target you're pulling around on and follow it all the way into your sights cannot be overstated
The A9 seems to be like the TIE Tank. Some artist puts it in a comic forcing some writer to create lore for it to explain it's appearance, but it's so ludicrous it's written into the in-universe category of "bits of history we want to forget."
But at least the TIE Tank _looks like_ something the Empire would employ, something in keeping with the Empire's TIE aesthetic style. This thing doesn't look like an Empire vessel. Because it foregoes the established look of the TIE Fighter, you have to be told that it's an Empire fighter to know it belong to the Empire.
@@BlackOtter9 Ikr! When your creation doesn't even look like it belongs in the universe you made it for, maybe you should've refined the draft some more.
For elements of the ship that the New Republic would be incorporating into future designs, look no further than the Jumpstar HPF starfighter. It’s a fighter made and used by the Galactic Alliance, the successor to the New Republic, in and around 130~137 ABY-ish. Physically, it looks extremely similar to the A-9 Vigilance, clearly a later generation version of it. It comes with a hyperdrive, shields, laser cannons, and specialized “marker missiles” that latch homing beacons onto a targeted ship. It was used as a tracking ship by the GA, meant to pursue enemy ships through hyperspace. This all comes from the Legacy Era Campaign Guide.
The turbolaser was something those essential guides did a few times, they also gave the Ewing a light turbolaser. Personally, I like the idea that where possible, both the new repulic and empire experimented with a starfighter with a turbolaser and decided it was too much of a headache to deal with en mass, even if the resulting craft was quite powerful.
Yeah, anything armed with a turbolaser would have likely performed more like an attack craft, such as the B-wing, than a proper fighter like X-wings and most Ties.
@@bkane573 and assuming your cannons don't jam. That was the big problem with them in WWII, in only a few planes (P-38, Bf 109) could the pilot cycle the cannon manually to unjam them if they malfunctioned; and they malfunctioned a lot. In planes like the Spitfire Mk IIs the wings flexed too much and caused the cannon's feed system to jam in combat (similar to the problems the early P-51s had with their .50 cals). The more powerful but bigger and more complex gun system doesn't always work in real world conditions.
I love how you are waking up and choosing to ROAST both Star Wars, the vehicles, and the fans, in like 50+% of these videos in the recent months. Keep it up 😂😂😂😂
The gun layout on the A-9 struck me as being two things: a heavy laser cannon for hard targets, and a lighter laser cannon for dogfights. So instead of requiring torpedo bays, it just has a powerful energy weapon for strafing capital ships etc. A bit like certain WW2 fighter planes that featured a single large-caliber cannon flanked by machine guns.
@@Colonel_Overkill Perhaps. But it also has the guns on that gimbal mounting, so combined with the targetting computer I imagine it can do a lot with just the pair of laser cannon. Hardware will only take you so far. I would bet that a good pilot in an A-9 could do well against a poor pilot in an E-wing or other high-end starfighter.
@@SethLunchquest that may be true, many light, medium and heavy bombers have gun positions or turrets. Even in the lightest craft assuming you can dogfight perfectly may still mean nothing. If a craft with specialized gear is used for roles it isnt designed for it can achieve a victorious failure. Take a Y wing for example. You have an amazing pilot who get into a dogfight and downs a dozen TIE singlehandedly. Sounds impressive no? If in doing this the opportunity is ignored to drop a bomb or torpedo into a hangar or ship that is still a failure counting the dozen kills. Turrets and ths like are there to get rid of uncomfortable attention but if you are flying a strike craft they are defensive only. IIRC the TIE bomber had a pair of cannon identical to the fighter. Both can shoot down small craft but only one can threaten large craft. Its needlessly risking a valuable capability if a less specialized craft can do the job just as good.
while it seems plausible it wouldn't make a lot of sense in universe considering how heavily shielded are capital ships. Yes, you can skim the surface under it's shields and do damage then, but with an unshielded fighter it's really a dead wish
@@miqvPL I think the shit stain bombers in the lasr jedi make that perfectly clear. Personally I was thinking of a more distract and slash attack or atmospheric operations. A small number against a ship is a suicide dash, but honestly these dont seem like line of battle craft. I didn't really elaborate earlier but against smugglers, cartel warlords, insurrection planetside, situations like this is where I see these shining. A second line unit good enough to do the job. Kind of like the old addage "a bad tank is better than no tank". Especially if you enjoy air or space supremacy these would be perfect for cargo ship interdiction or low intensity operations. As unimpressive as that activity list sounds it actually has far more effect on a war than two battle lines reducing each other to component atoms. Cargo and trade interdiction ends wars far easier than bombardment, and you have all of the enemy facilities intact to use yourself as a happy bonus. Im aware actual war tactics have little place in universe but I can see a couple squadrons of these based near a jump point shutting down shipping completely and leaving the important ships unused, therefore fit and ready to assist if something too big for the strike craft comes out to play.
At a guess, the things that later designs would incorporate would be whatever combination of 'soft' factors that made it both easy to learn to fly and with a high skill ceiling. So often you only get one of the two, if you even get either. Whether that's HUD design, avionics, MFD placement, advanced functions interfaces, whatever. It'd be something that doesn't show on a spec sheet, not the speed or the armour or the turning rate or whatever, but something that crews praised.
I always thought the TIE's were inspired by the Jedi ETA-2 Actis star fighters, the interceptor the most resembling the ETA-2 Actis when it was in full combat mode.
From reading the Canon books "Star Wars TIE Fighter owners workshop manual" Tie prototype page- It says "After the Imperial Navy itemized their requirements and estimated the budget for developing and manufacturing the new starfighter, Raith Sienar began designing a prototype. As previously noted, Sienar incorporated design aspects . from Kuat Systems Engineering's Alpha-3 Nimbus-class "V-wing" starfighter and Eta-2 Actis-class light Interceptor for the prototype Imperial twin ion engine starfighter. Working from Imperial directives, Sienar designed the initial prototype exclusively for space combat, and not for atmospheric flight capability. But when Sienar presented his designs to Navy officials, he surprised them with an alternate design for a slightly more expensive starfighter. The alternate design featured stronger pylons within bulked-up spars that connected the wings to the cockpit module, an increase to overall structural integrity that would allow the fighter to travel through atmospheres and also the ability to land on its wings. Impressed by Sienar's presentation, Navy officials authorized Sienar to construct prototypes for both proposed designs. After testing the prototypes, the Navy agreed that Sienar's alternate design was more practical, and that the additional expense would be a worthy investment."
@@michaelandreipalon359 exactly. The Eta Actis is all well and good if your pilots are precognitive and capable of enduring G-force way beyond mundane organics. For a bunch of conscript recruits.....less so.
After my mom died when I was 7 my stepmom introduced me to Star Wars it bonded us together it has been the one thing that I can turn to when life sucks to take my mind off of it all. So thank you ECK!!!❤
I do like the unconventional approach of just bolting some naked engines to nacelle mounts straight from the factory. It's bold in not even hiding how little they expect the pilot to survive. No need to put plating on something you're not expecting to come back.
@@shilohlee4332 I believe it is, hence my confusion at the title of the video since the A-9 is a Kuat design (actually it seems Kuat has several A-line starfighters including the Clone Wars era A-6 and a later A-10).
Seems good for cheap "law enforcement" applications on shady outer rim worlds run by hutt cartels, honestly. If I was a crime lord looking for anti-rioter/protestor/peasant air-superiority on the cheap, I'd buy this. Otherwise, it looks shite.
When they were talking about elements they will use in their own fighters I think they meant the scrap metal they'll melt down to make into a better fighter
Sounds like a good interceptor in the actual IRL interceptor role: shooting down bombers. In Star Wars there's usually no climb speed (space) but this thing seems great for a mission that consists only of catching up to bombers asap and then killing them.
There is a small niche of fighter aircraft in real world air forces that is just a pure speed interceptor. The Russian MIG-25 was designed for pure speed to be able to chase down American SR-71 spy planes. These planes don't need to dogfight, drop bombs, or really do much besides being really really fast. This thing is kinda similar. Maybe it could be used as a quick response planet based defense force. Something that can get up out of the atmosphere quickly, or maybe run down hit and fade attacks before they can jump away.
I feel like if we go off of that one source book that says they have heavy turbolasers they made sense as an *actual* interceptor Very fast very hard hitting fighter made to kill or incapacitate slower larger targets. Enemy capitol ship just exited hyperspace? Launch a dozen squadrons of these things to pummel it with the fire power of an entire fleet of star destroyers before it can close to engagement range. Enemy transports trying to run? They won't get very far with this thing chasing them Enemy ship trying to escape? Blow its engines out with precise hard hitting firepower
The design elements due to be incorporated were probably the power shunting from the various generators: the ability to quickly and easily divert power is a strong positive, as would eventually be seen in Star Wars Squadrons.
A craft of that style does exist, the T.I.E. experimental 1 “bizarro”. 2 cockpits attached to one wing, with one cockpit turned into a housing for a turbolaser.
Granted but it was slow but more high powered. I was thinking something STUPID FAST that could knock out engines on a fleeing Nebulon B or something. Think like a poor mans version of a gravity well generator, lol. If they aren't expecting it, then it starts costing the rebelion just 1 mid tier Capital ship for 1 squad of V9s then the Empire gets its moneys worth and prisoners. It also makes the rebelion wary of attacking what they think are "unprotected" imperial convoys that could be a trap...
@@sonicninja3434 : Any turbolaser that could effectively be powered by a fighter craft would probably only be effective against proper capital ships in prolonged combat, better to leave that to proper bombers. Targeting Gallofreys, those light freighters (e.g. the Falcon), and things in between would be a more interesting use case, but you'd still want at least one faster-firing laser cannon to clear out opposing fighters first.
Im thinking more along the lines of having a powerful fast strike capability at cheap cost that has one main goal. Specialized for sure, but the empire wouldn't mind wasting 9 lives for 3000 people to interrogate and equipment to go over with forensics.....
I recently started learning about different IRL military hardware. The superlight weight fighter sounds more like the f16 compared to its predecessors of the f14 and f15, as well as its backwards step of being design focused around dog fights, something that peer state airframe were moving away from.
The F-16 could have been worse, the F-5 Tiger & relatives didn't have radar or missile capability because the exec overseeing it had similar views to the later "Fighter Mafia".
So, the A9 was spearheaded by the Star Wars counterparts of the Reformers, but without people coming along later and fixing the design by adding necessary equipment (they didn't even want radar on the F-16)?
It's actually a lot like real life interceptors, very high top speed and powerful weaponary but terrible manouvreability. Its description says it's a territorial defence interceptor, with the y-wing's defence turrets on the top, being able to fire directly downwards means you can fly upside down under them and start blasting with very little risk. Then speed away before they can hit you. Come back round after and repeat on the way back to the ship if they're not dead yet. But against a fighter, it's gonna die real quick, you might be able to outrun laser bolts because they'll dissipate but missiles have the range and speed to hit the A9. It also probably won't work against anything with proper all round turrets and a good enough sensor array. But tie bombers and y-wings don't have those.
To go over all the things they would need to do to fix this: Fuselage: - Bring the cockpit forward so the pilot can actually see where they are going. - Reduce the size and length of the thruster pylons. The closer to the centre of mass they can bring it the better. - Make the shape more streamlined with a narrower front facing profile to make it harder to hit. Engines: - Add in a third engine right behind the craft's centre of mass. - Upgrade engine gimballing (or whatever equivalent Star Wars uses) to increase maneuverability. - Increase engine power and throughput (like the ability to divert all power to engines) Weapons: - Upgrade primary laser turrets to heavy lasers. - Add an underslung torpedo launcher with 2-4 rounds of ammo. Equipment: - Upgrade its reactor to something much bigger. - Add shield system. - Add hyperdrive. If all of these things were done, I could see this ship taking on a useful role as a surprise hit and run raider or pre-invasion scout ship. It won't be cheap if they did, but at least you would be getting something serviceable for your credits.
If you just take it as escribed in Dark Empire, its an excellent fighter. Or rather, an excellent interceptor. Really fast, reasonably maneuverable - and with turbolasers. Yes, you pooh-poohed the idea, but it makes PERFECT sense if you consider it a ship that NEVER dogfights. It sweeps in at extreme speed, starts firing well out of the range of whoever it is attacking, probably makes at least one one-hit kill on the enemy formation (because fighters can't take turbolaser hits), then sweeps through the enemy formation and accelerates away, not even trying to engage. Get well out of range, swing around, and do it again. Basically, the "Splash" tactic used by US fighters against A6M Zeroes in WWII. If you try and use it as a space superiority fighter, you'll get your head handed to you. Use it as intended and it's a terror.
That’s basically the definition of an interceptor right? This seems like it’d be great for swooping in to take out y-wings and such then leaving before anyone can dogfight them
For surprise attacks, I could see this ship being workable in an Imperial Escort Carrier, which itself is a fast and nimble pocket carrier designed for ambushes and spec ops. But at the same time, you could stock an IEC with almost any TIE Fighter [Especially the elite TIE Hunters they would often run with] and it would work just as well if not better, so the only way I could justify using Vigilances in an IEC is if there wasn't anything better availible.
The best use I can imagine for this thing is planetary defense on a budget. If you're never leaving a system, the lack of hyperdrive becomes meaningless. And while the heavy lasers make for poor dogfighting, the biggest threat to a planetary invasion is the capital ships, which this could make good hit-and-run strikes against. Of course, this could be done much better by dedicated bombers with fighter escort, but at least it's something.
I think these are perfect for planetary defense, militias, and private security/mercenaries. These are entities that don't have larger budgets compared to larger organizations so they need to be mindful of acquiring and maintenance cost. Plus most of them really only deal with pirates and criminals or the occasional planetary civil/interplanetary conflicts. They might not need fighters that are more capable than the task at hand.
I just like the way it looks. I was such a fan of the Dark Empire artwork that I think I just liked the look. I had no knowledge of the quality of the craft.
The change in quality after the sourcebook sounds like the same thing that happened to the E Wing. Dark Empire was still pretty early EU and the new fighters were meant to replace the classics. They were unpopular because the designs leave something to be desired and people just like the iconic ships. So, later, Borge the Vigilance and the E-Wing were retconned as having significant design issues necessitating the return of the classic fighters.
#askeck How were the Seperatists able to get past Coruscant’s planetary shields when they attacked in Episode III? Lore ship Versus video request: Resurgent vs. Starhawk Tie Striker vs. New Republic V-Wing World Devastator vs. Vong Worldship Tie Silencer vs. X-83 Twintail Tie Silencer vs. Tie Defender (legends version) Keldabe vs. ISD II MC90 vs. Nebula class star destroyer Nebula class vs. Pellaeon class Majestic class vs. Bothan Assault Cruiser EAWX: FOTR’s Mandator II portrayal vs. Subjugator Praetor vs. Subjugator EAWX: TR’s Mediator portrayal vs. Resurgent Starhawk vs. Bulwark MK III
The “Nexus Route” discussed in the Citadel arc of clone wars. Some how the lane leads to separatist homeworlds and coruscant. Palps eventually got his hands on it, I can imagine he gave it Dooku who gave it to Grevious.
@@lifevest1 not talking about how the Separatists got to coruscant, I’m asking how their ground assault force got past the planetary shields protecting the planet
(I could be remembering wrong. Need to be verified but what i remember reading since the movie came out. Can't remember the exact source materials) Once that the CIS came in close on top of the planet and then the planetary shield was activated that's why the didn't leave and stayed as long as it did in the film because the shield was in place. So my taking of it is was that the Shield was around the planet and some of the space they came in Above the planet then the shield activated they were in the shielded area so they were able to go to the surface of the planet. The main thing I remember reading was the Planetary shield blocked at the exit of the CIS that's why thay didn't just leave with the Chancellor.
My thought on the Vigilance as a series, A-9, then the (plot armor we fixed everything!) A-10 was always "we can't SAY it's a government contract NOT for pirates... BUT..." it is meant for sudden surprise attacks but needs a carrier... like a disguised freighter. Great in a straight line or surprise cone... like it was launched by a disguised freighter or something? I think it was meant to be a special operations fighter, why they'd dump money into its development. And the closest public sector to SPECOPS? Pirates. In starwars, seldom a difference, ask omega squad in Triple Zero
@@thebananaclub I get that, I wasn't referring to appearance either (though the cylinder engines and a central gun might be common design notes). But the use case for the two are completely different. The A-10 is designed as a slow moving, low altitude ground support and anti-armor plane capable of taking a beating and coming around to dish out 10x the Brrrt before returning to base or lingering over the engagement zone to deploy further Brrrt as requested. The A-9 Vigilance is a high speed interceptor that dies to a stiff breeze or a near miss with a hand gun. While it would be possible to use it in a similar manner to the A10 with the moveable gun, it wouldn't be able to do so effectively. If it slows down to maintain fire on a hard target, it becomes an easy mark itself because it can't take a hit. If it maintains speed to be hard to hit, it's only going to have a second or two on target, and most of that at long range, with the ideal engagement range flashing by in an instant before the thing has to loop around again for a second pass. Which, with it's speed is likely going to be at higher altitudes than are advisable if the target has any AA capability. It would also likely require a big loop potentially taking them out of the engagement. I think if we wanted to make an in-universe equivalent of the A10, I'd start with a TIE Bomber hull, empty the secondary hull of it's grab bag of warheads and replace that with as big a turbo laser as possible (or a converging beam lance like the B-wing prototype from Rebels), then stuff either a big generator or a massive bank of capacitors to power the weapon. This gives it a hardier hull to take some hits, lower speed allowing it to linger over a battlefield and stay closer to the ground troops it's supporting and keeping the targeting system from the Bomber allows it to deploy the main weapon on precision strikes against ground targets or capital ship hull emplacements. It's not perfect, but I think it's be better for the purpose than the A9.
@@see317 it's still a legitimate air to ground attack craft. Like he said in the video, it has tons of straight line speed. This gives it a chance to hit targets and bug out. Plus it has a gun that could shoot perpendicular to the starship so they won't have to dive bomb to stay on target. Per my original comment, it is a quick and weak A10 that should only have air to ground duties or maybe another example would be a Japanese zero (fast, weak, and agile) but the zero was actually competitive with aircraft of it's time. That's why the A10 is the best example for something in our time.
I have always thought an advancement on the A-wing would be a centrally located trio of lasers and external missiles packs on the wings that could be jettisoned once empty. So in such a case the A-9's cannon mount would be useful info. Of course the sequel trilogy DID come out with a new A-wing. It had a longer nose. Peak design!
Didn't realize that and just looked it up. Kinda bad tbh, less downward visibility and the guns are further out meaning worse convergence. I guess it could be worth it depending on what the improvements are though
Ironically, the A-9 still has better visibility for the pilot than a TIE because its cockpit layout *isn't* a window on a single side blinkered by huge panels.
space ships, space battles, and more specifcially, dogfights in space, are what got me most into star wars next to lightsabers. I love learning about the ships in star wars honestly. the recent videos have been very interesting lately for sure.
It seems that the A-9 would more useful as a police vessel rather than a frontline fighter. About the only military use for something like this is as an advanced trainer.
This is just another case of something being introduced in a Star Wars book/comic and being nerfed in every other showing. The main one everyone knows being the Hapans.
It’s called an “interceptor” Which suggests it’s meant to have a role like IRL interceptors, scrambling to meet enemy bombers before they drop on their targets. Since bombers (IRL, pre-stealth Cold War and earlier) don’t have to maneuver, their wing geometry and multiple engines can carry them faster and higher than fighters. So “interceptors” originate from a specifically bomber-killing role IRL. Through the Cold War this varied to interceptors being look-down radar specialists, able to cruise at high altitudes and lock on to enemy planes from a commanding viewpoint. All this material makes it seem like the various authors and artists coming later might not have had an awareness of the IRL reference
It strikes me as an ultra cheap, easy to fly fighter, that Kuat tried to upsell by claiming it was for performance reasons not production costs. In the (Legends) lore, the TIE is actually very hard to make, even though it is simple in theory, because it requires a high degree of manufacturing precision. Only the Empire has the resources to make something like it and treat it as disposable. And even they can only afford it due to the huge numbers they buy. And it apparently is very difficult to fly at a high level, and train on. So a more restricted Empire, possible without access to Sienars plants, might find an easy to fly, cheap fighter of more conventional construction advantageous, even if it was a downgrade from the TIE.
Boom & Zoom fighter tactics are a real life thing which would be the A-9's bread and butter which mean maneuverability isn't such a big deal. Obviously not against capital ships but against slower fighters and bombers. It's an interceptor, so it's role is to intercept enemy fighters and bombers as quickly as possible. It's not an offense geared fighter but a defensive one. When you detect Y-Wings or B-Wings the A-9 intercepts them as far away from your base as possible to support patrolling fighters which will be the first to engage. TBH, I would argue the Empire doesn't have a true fighter craft and tries to force interceptors into the role.
Hey Ecks. Video idea question: do you think that if, somehow, a Star Trek exploration ship would make it into the Star Wars Galaxy, it would have success in charting the unknown regions since it isn’t reliant on Hyperspace lanes?
Partial quote from Joseph Reinemann a Sci-Fi writer and Star Trek fan. Excerpt from response to question: What would happen if a ship were to ram a planet at warp or transwarp speed? "... The way that warp drive works, the ship never actually exceeds the speed of light. It merely simulates it by warping space around itself and forcing a small pocket of normal space containing the ship into what's known as subspace. By doing so it can still observe its surroundings, which most warp drives wouldn't be able to do, and reintegrate with normal space by cutting power to the warp nacelles and essentially letting subspace “push” the ship's little normal space bubble back into place. The thing is, the warp field is subject to a lot of different forms of interference. Mostly other warp fields. When these get disrupted, more often than not the bubble will implode, vaporizing everything inside, or distort and form a localized (and more often than not lethal) wormhole that catapults the ship off on a random direction at high speeds (though generally not very far.) Planets, stars, and other celestial bodies naturally warp space with their gravitational fields. ..." Based on Reinemann's write up. I would say that the constantly shifting gravitational fields and spatial disruptions of the unknown regions could cause warp travel to range from unreliable to lethal. Though I would still be interested in hearing ecks opinion. This comment has been edited, because I made a mistake.
Star Trek Warp travel is also much, much slower than hyperspace travel. Yes, there are special circumstances where Star Trek ships travel at much faster speeds, but standard warp is nothing compared to hyperspace. The U.S.S. Voyager, one of the fastest ships of its time, would have taken 70 years to get back from the far side of the galaxy. But we see Star Wars ships go back and forth across the whole galaxy in hours to days in hyperspace. Factor in that an exploration voyage would need to cover a lot more area than just a point-to-point journey, and you would have a single Star Trek ship taking many human lifetimes to map the unknown regions.
@@ajclements4627 did a quick look around, and yep I made a mistake there. I've known Joseph Reinemann as an author from a few other science fiction books, and I have seen some articles he has written dissecting, critiquing or reviewing Star Trek scenes or other works, but he has not written any Star Trek novels. I got that twisted in my head somehow. Sorry about that.
@@jackpfefferkorn3734 I don't think Mountain_Mann is looking at warp travel as a expedient alternative to hyperspace. The problem with mapping or even traveling through the unknown regions is that the hyperlanes are constantly shifting, so without a force sensitive navigator, it's impossible to go any great distance in the unknown regions in hyperspace. If I am understanding his thought process correctly, Warp travel might be a viable alternative to hyperspace because warp is not reliant upon hyperlanes.
Fleet battle between Grand admiral Thrawn vs. Ender Wiggin Each one has an equal sized fleet with equally capable subordinates, and since Ender is from a different universe each has equal understanding of the technology they’re using. They are in command of Star Wars vessels. Pick a famous fleet of your choosing I’d suggest death squadron
Hey Eck, in numerous videos you mention ships made by Kuat (koowat? kue-ott?) shipyards. Do you already have a video on these shipyards? If not, could you consider making one? (I'm new to the expanded lore.)
Turbo lasers are a strange "descriptor" The falcon for example had 2 turrets each with 4 quad linked turbo lasers. Now while we "always hear" them say its just laser cannons, when talking about how to tell the difference between lasers and turbo lasers apart... in star wars... "turbo lasers have recoil, if you see the barrels retract after firing, or recoiling, then its a turbo lasers." it was the on screen "descriptor" to tell the difference. It was source material writers that changed things later. Essentially the falcons guns were based on a 40mm bofors design.
The stats show that this is supposed to be an interceptor which charges from a higher attitute at its enemies and then regains that height instead of engaging in dogfights. In WW2 german pilots completely avoided dogfights and used this tactic.
Sounds like it would be a good rapid-response planetary defense fighter. It doesn't need a lot of firepower, just keep any attackers busy until the rest of the defenders arrive.
If the objective is to hold the line, survival is more important than firepower. You need enough firepower to punish the enemy for ignoring you and to keep them a bit cautious. In order to hold the enemy back the defesne fighters have to remain mission-effective. Armor and Shields can help more than raw speed. Especially if you're likely to lose fighters in a furball or a pass.
@@shilohlee4332 But just like in the real world, you also have to look at what you can afford and maintain. So for smaller planetary forces or other private entities you want something you can afford to purchase, train and maintain. So to them, you might not need something too expensive if you can simply throw a lot of these at the problem.
My guess for the features incorporated into future New Republic starfighters was always some features of the engine design itself and the literal flexibility of the laser cannon mount. Being able to fire off-axis or even in a fully unexpected direction could have some distinct tactical benefits. Rapid, hull-hugging attacks could hypothetically be easier to execute safely if the pilot could fly straight across the hull without needing to angle to get weapons into arc--just fly over as close as possible and possibly even under the minimum angle the defensive turrets could depress to.
Kinda reminds me of the Me-163 Komet. The Komet was rocket-powered and could climb to 34,000 in 3 minutes 45 seconds to intercept bomber formations and pepper them with 20 and 30mm shells. However there were some problems. 1: To save weight, the landing gear would be dropped after takeoff. The only landing gear was an extendable skid. It would be safe to say that landings would be extremely hard on both the pilot and the airframe itself. 2: The propellants for the rocket engine were extremely toxic and corrosive, there was an instance where a pilot was dissolved when a fuel line ruptured during a crash. 3: The fueling procedure was dangerous. The rocket engine used two propellants called "T-Stoff" and "C-Stoff". On their own they were non-flammable but when mixed together they violently exploded. If both were accidentally mixed together outside the combustion chamber then the unfortunate ground crewman would simply wind up as a fine red mist. 4: Powered flight only lasted 7 1/2 minutes. After that the flyer was simply a glider and was easy picking for any fighters.
DESB really didn't seem to understand WHAT a turbolaser is. They had infantry turbolasers, TIE Crawlers had turbolasers "with the firepower of an E-Web" (so... a naval gun as good as a 50 cal machine gun?!), and the "turbolasers" of the A-9.
Ya know, a cool strategey for the fighter would be to jump a few carriers on either side of an enemy fleet. The figters would launch, speed through the enemy fleet while firing before landing in the carriers on the opposite side. Finally the carriers would hyperdrive away. Because ther fighter is so cheep, you could probably bring hundreds. And because of their speed the whole manuver might only take a few minutes. Is that a good idea? Eck?
Sounds like a cool move to pull off once in a story. I am reminded of the first halo book (I think) where they pulled off a kill on two covenant capital ships by detonating a nuke behind them, doing a 180 and firing the rail gun times with the detonation or some such. If they were human piloted I don't think you could pull off that maneuver more than once if the attrition was serious.
It's really the perfect fighter for a government like the Empire: it's cheap, so they don't have to raise taxes on the Core Worlds while KDY can still take kickbacks; they don't have to invest a lot in training pilots and it's so fragile they'll be plenty of jobs for Mid-Rim manufacturing worlds.
Do you think a turbolaser fighter could be a niche role, if we do take its weaponry as written in the sourcebook? Perhaps a high speed standoff craft for poking corvettes and pickets?
In lore, this sounds like a corporate poison pill. Assign all the people you want to can to this project, anybody who disagreed with the TIE line. Effectively a career sterilizer to have this in your portfolio.
You know what...? I think this thing would be a blast to fly! It's pretty small, probably has great acceleration, and that laser canon is enticing. I wouldn't downplay the potential of that laser cannon; sustained fire from laser cannons can exceed the total damage potential of proton torpedoes. I don't believe a laser cannon set up like that would ONLY be able to fire straight down. I think it's more likely that it was gimbaled and could fire in a large forward cone, and ALSO a larger firing range downward. This would mean it doesn't need to approach its target head-on to fire, giving it more evasion in an initial pass. This gimbaled laser canon could also partially make up for its inferior maneuverability. However, controlling a gimbaled gun simultaneously with piloting a ship would be quite challenging. That's why I want to fly it! On that very matter, I discovered something interesting a few months ago: the earliest sources covering the A-Wing did NOT grant it any kind of missile launcher, but DID grant it gimbaled laser cannons. "A Guide to the Star Wars Universe," the WEG's "The Star Wars Sourcebook," and "The Farlander Papers" which came packaged with Star Wars: X-Wing all list it this way. I think it's only starting with the actual Star Wars: X-Wing *game* that the gimbaled laser cannons are removed and concussion missile launchers are added. I think Totally Games probably strongly considered implementing the A-Wing as originally described, but was unable to do so for technical reasons, or because there were no commercial joysticks at the time that would allow such a thing. Maybe they thought controlling it with the keyboard would suffice, but it never panned out. Anyway, from that moment on, the A-Wing lore changed. Later sources claimed that Incom made a New Republic version of the A-Wing that supported gimbaled laser cannons, in contrast to earlier models. My headcanonization is as follows: "Star Wars: X-Wing," "The Farlander Papers," and "The Star Wars Sourcebook" indicate that the A-Wing was designed by Jan Dodonna and Walex Blissex, and manufactured in small numbers by Rebel engineers. Other sources claim early A-Wings were made by hand out of whatever materials were available, and this seems to jive with the previous fact. I believe all these original A-Wings were built with gimbaled laser cannons and no missile launchers, as the early - primarily BBY - sources claim. Then the Rebellion got the capacity to manufacture A-Wings en masse, but couldn't do so at the previous specifications. Perhaps the amount of downtime repairing the laser gimbals was too much, or perhaps some parts did not exist in large quantities. However, these new A-Wings were able to add concussion missile launchers instead. When Incom took over production during the New Republic era, they made A-Wings that had the best of both worlds, and included more reliable gimbal-mounted laser cannons as well as the standard concussion missile launchers. I'm sure you can see the relation here: both are fast interceptors designed with gimbaled laser cannons. The difference is the A-9 had this as a standard feature, on more powerful cannons. A squadron of these flying over a Mon Calamari Cruiser could cause serious havoc, and they'd be able to evade and attack effectively at the same time. I also wouldn't discount this laser cannon's accuracy against starfighters out of hand, since we have no reason to believe that they are inaccurate. Of course, the A-Wing has better defenses, maneuverability, and concussion missile launchers. By this time, they've also likely regained their own gimbaled lasers, even if they're less powerful.
I think that light turbolaser hampers A-9 more, than helps it. It's just too heavy and energy-intensive. If I'd be ordered to re-design the Vigilance, I would throw turbolaser out and replaced it with either one extra laser and one light ion cannon (and at least some armor and light deflector), or replace the entire turbolaser with a consussion missile launcher. Then it can actually become a decent glass cannon, moving in to release it's payload, or overwhelm enemy's shield with lasers + ion canon combo. And a cut-out in the rear or additional sensors + HUD augmentation is a must to survive in that thing.
Okay, but the comments made at 4:08 did make me imagine a scenario where a like, underfunded rebel cell on a scapping or shipbreaking planet harvests a bunch of turbo lasers that the strap onto ugly fighters that have been stripped down of everything but their engines and the turbolasers. Imagine like, 10 squadrons of starfighters like that doing a suicide run on the ISD that tends the planet. Might make for a cool, if short martyrdom story
It would be quite useful in numbers, but that would also require some type of mega-carrier. If it was very easy to learn to pilot it, as is stated, you could have mega-carriers jump on with a complement of 100+ unit squadrons that launch all at once. This effectively becomes a "bombing squadron" with high likeliness of survivability (due to numbers and speed), that can lay down near turbolaser firepower in the thousands of shots per second. Low manufacturing costs, easy trainability, low cost of rearming, extremely condensed launch bay storage... That's devastating. Used in this manner, it's just like having reusable and nimble warheads in the hundreds that have sentient intelligence behind it and able to stay on the battlefield to continually pick more targets. Even capital ships couldn't survive a quick wave of these things.
When talking about maneuverability, it made me wonder, do Star Wars ships have inertial dampers? This is an extremely important technology. I don't think I've ever heard it discussed.
I'd say whichever Kuat con-man came up with this had a pretty good scam going on. Made some quick and easy credits out of some desperate Imperial holdouts. As for how to use these near hunks of junk? Well, if they were packing heavy laser cannons, they could at least threaten gunships or light escorts. So if you could trade a squadron of A9's for something like a cargo hauler, a corvette or a troop transport than that's a pretty good deal. But so many better options.
The only possible scenario I can see deploying these A-9 Vigilance is in an ambush setup, most likely in nebula environments where sensors are highly compromised, or in heavily dense asteroid fields. The idea would be to take advantage of the A-9's profile while they barrage an unsuspecting target with those long ranged turbolasers. And those targets would likely be warships, maybe not those large ISDs, but smaller ones.
I think the A-9 was originally supposed to be a pure interceptor, meant for taking down incoming ordinance launched from bombers. You'd want a very fast ship to fly directly at incoming missiles and torpedoes, a center-mounted laser to make it as easy as possible to aim at and hit them, and the ability to quickly launch them and recover them. This is actually very handy for countering Rebel strike craft, which relied on bombs and torpedoes to take out enemy capital ships. The problem is, the Empire already had a TIE Interceptor, which was more than capable of shooting down incoming warheads using its chin-mounted guns, and the TIE Fighter could do the same thing, albeit as a last resort if the Interceptors failed to shoot down the incoming wave of torpedoes. So KDY likely spiced up the ship on paper so they could get sales, saying that it was more maneuverable due to being more stripped down than the TIE Fighter, and retooled the laser so that it could fire at ground targets. In the end, they probably ended up not fooling Imperial Starfighter Command and "accidentally" let their A-9s fall into New Republic hands as a tax write-off.
Actually, upon some thinking, I see a role that these ships could excel at... well, two. First role, as a replacement for uglies as fighters for pirates. Second role, as a supplement to custom enforcement/anti-piracy sweeps of inhabited systems. As freighters/passenger liners tend to have few weapons and weak shields, a fighter with a large laser cannon (typically mounted by light warships such as Corvettes/Frigates as their primary anti-ship weapon) would be a threat to them, or at minimum severely damage engines/exterior equipment without posing a hazard to occupants within the ship, forcing them to heave to and be boarded by slower custom vessels. They would be a cheaper alternative to torpedo armed anti-ship fighters for pirate and anti-piracy roles, as they don't need to be supplied with anti-capital ship[1] munitions, especially since those munitions might eviscerate the very thing(s) the pirates/anti-piracy patrol wanted intact (goods/passengers/prisoners). In short, they shouldn't be part of general fleet engagements as they have no purpose being there as there are superior fighters for actual battles that fulfill the strike fighter/anti-ship roles perfectly. 1. In Star Wars the term "capital ship" is ambiguous to the point it has lost all meaning. In most IP's, a capital ship is the largest ships capable of going against other capital ships and conquering heavily defended systems. So, as a general rule, a capital ship is any ship which is called a battlecruiser or larger, though some IPs relegate heavy cruisers to the capital ship classifications too. Thus, when I say "capital ship" I refer to the battlecruisers like Home One type Mon Calamari class cruisers, and battleships such as the Imperial-I and -II Star Destroyers.
I think if anything the New Republic should take from this design is the 90 degree-angling cannons. For fighters/bombers carrying heavy guns that seems like it'd be useful for pseudo-bombing runs on ground targets.
I really appreciate that there are several crappy or not particularly viable military vehicles and weapons and star wars. Given the number of tanks and guns and planes that have been produced by a real world militaries that are known to have horrible problems and are hated by their crews, it makes the universe feel more realistic to know that crappy, designed by committee and built by the lowest bidder weapon systems exist no matter where in the universe you go
As I remember it the point of the starfighter was it was cheap and would bulk out the fleet, this was a period where the New Republic was still struggling to go from a primarily resistance navy with high performance but expensive ships to a galactic navy with the mass to patrol the whole galaxy and doing it on a shoestring budget as they didnt have anywhere near the Empires defence spending, they were relying more and more on captured TIE fighters and ISD's to fill out their fleets but they were no longer in production and hostilities with the Empire and opportunity to acquire more in combat were dying down.
The five TIE Experimentals? The Bizzaro and its siblings? How about a breakdown of all of them to determine which was stupidest and which was least stupid? For my part, I think the least stupid was the TIE Warhead.
The A-9 does seem like a craft perfect for training combat pilots so you can give them proper starfighters like a TIE Fighter, X-Wing or even a Die-Wing (because even that sounds like a better option than the A-9).
I would say it would work quite well against soft ground targets. As soon as you mentioned that the turbolaser can be pointed down it's purpose is quite clearly as a pseudo bomber.
This sounds like the he 162. An high tech last ditch fighter meant to be simultaneously superior to enemy fighters, easy to pilot, and cheap to produce. It even had a similar fate, seeing very little combat use, and that combat having mixed results. Then after the war being used a basis for allied fighter designs.
If there's no lore for the A-10 vigilance, here's my proposed lore: After the dreaded failure of the A-9, luat drive yards was forced back to the drawing board. The A-9's project head has mysteriously disappeared in recent years, and has not been heard from. Kuat drive yarda officially lists him as unemployed, and there have been several missing persons reports. "The A-10 was developed along the same idea as the A-9, but only if it wasn't designed by someone who never should've had a job at Kuat drive yards." -KDY engineer Specifications: The A 10 had 1 light turbolaser, (chin mounted) was larger than an A wing but not the size of an X wing, it had a top of the line hyperdrive and also had one hell of a sublight engine. It looked simply like a bigger version of the A 9. This version, in combative testing, proved to be far better at its counter parts supposed purpose of hit and run tactics, being designed by someone who expressly understood the idea of "hit it, and get the fuck away before it hits back." It does not have sheilds. It has 2 concussion missile tubes with 2 missiles each. Its speed was literally only good for a single hit and run however, as even a good designer can't fix its turn radius at that speed. This meant it did poorly in dog fights compared to the tie fighter. This lead the designers to eventually add concussion missile tubes. Like its counterpart, its gun can tilt dowards at a full 90 degree angle. The ship was unfortunately no longer cheaper than a tie fighter, however it met the goals of the initial A 9. The lead designer was simply known as Corey. Coming from a planet that insisted on simplicity and efficiency as a way of life, Corey's people only have first names. They also are as a result of this culture, excellent starship designers.
fastest like I ever pressed. Regular tie fighter was said to be as maneuverable as an a-wing, tie interceptor being very slightly more maneuverable. So A-9 was definitely lacking there. More powerful cannons than the x-wing ones are nice, but it has less of them and without them being rapid fire I don't see that making a lot of difference in dogfight, no secondary weapons, hyperdrive or shields and much higher price makes it a much worse fighter than tie fighter, even though it has better visibility for the pilot and smaller target profile.
"Sir. Some of the TIEs materials are easily available. The fuel source is literally dirt cheap." "Bah. Use cheap substitutes!" "But Sir. The life support has no components at all." ... "Use CHEAPER substitutes!"
![Quando Rondo - Grow Up [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8zFnCg3BO4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
I find it funny how this is supposed to apparently be a new better fighter to combat the A-Wing, yet the TIE Intercepter does exactly the same. Both lack shields and hyperdrives, just that the TIE Intercepter had more guns and armor on it
Interceptors can have shielding, missiles, 4 blaster cannons and 2 laser cannons, and a hyperdrives. Sometimes they would nitpick and have something like the upgraded 4 blaster lasers with the 2 lasers cannons, instead of just the 6 laser cannons, but leave out the hyperdrive and shields. These weren’t THAT rare to have.
It legit sounds like they heard about the T-wing and thought "yeah, we can make this even cheaper"
Multiple competing projects from competing design teams.
Makes sense to me. And then maybe political pressure from one high ranking official to keep the clearly inferior design from being scrapped...
Sounds like the exact only reason that these things exist is that they're easier to land than TIEs. They have landing gear, and that means they're easier to train for.
@@Earthstar_Review TIEs have those huge flat armored wings. With this you're landing on your engines. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
“Put your pilots closest to retirement in them to avoid pension payments.” He remembers Dolores from Imperial HR! 🤩
@@michaelandreipalon359 ruclips.net/user/shorts3iJasbiADes?feature=share
Rebels use Z-95 headhunters for this purpose 😉
@@willc1294 The Z-95 was a decent ship though. (For it's time)
"you dont qualify for benefits"
Oh thats evil... I like it.
3:45 Imagine being so bad you make the TIE Fighter seem preferable and more advanced.
The Empire: "It could be worse... Here, try this ship and see for yourself" 😏
At least with that write-up for the D6 System, you would still take it over any TIE/in. Hands down.
Everyone else would take it only because it was available (and nothing comparable).
In my opinion the TIE/ln Is a good fighter
@@IlMangustaKMRUTEAMit is good as dog fighter and intercepters.
I almost get the impression this thing was meant to be automated and the pilot was added at the last minute...
In my head it makes more sense to remove the cockpit, use the resulting space to add a integrated droid pilot and a torpedo/missile launcher and then have a heavy armored carrier deploy hundreds of these things at once, but what do I know.
that probably was the original design, and it makes sense why they cut that out at the last minute, remember, Droids weren't particularly trusted because of the Clone Wars
@@samuelhaverghast2442 True, still automation is pretty much the only way it makes sense to me.
I mean it looks to neat to be a last ditch we-need-anything-that-works design...
@@widgren87 Same, it barely looks like a step up from an ugly....
I thought about doing the same thing with a vulture droid, but more for sneak attacks and infiltration missions against separatist carriers and bases.
i mean it already looks like an excessively habsburged vulture droid
Tbh, considering it's debut was in Dark Empire, maybe it was meant for a droid to pilot it, kind of like the Tie Droid
No, because it's used by the New Republic.
@@EckhartsLadder Yes, but it was designed for the Empire, or did I miss something?
The A-9 wasn't the only company starfighter to see rival Imperial service against Sienar's TIE series Starfighters in the Dark Empire comics. Incom also had the I-7 Howlrunner in service.
@@EckhartsLadder And what was their other option? The cloud car?
@@EckhartsLadder It's *TIE Fighter, not "Tie Fighter" as _TIE_ is an acronym for Twin Ion Engine.
Video games have done a lot of reputation damage for TIE Fighters (and Stormtroopers, for that matter). The original trilogy clearly established that they were dangerous and could hold their own against Rebel ships. When we did a starfighter fan film, we had an X-wing get destroyed by a TIE Fighter. We had so many people comment that "X-wings have shields" and they therefore couldn't be destroyed that we made a montage of TIE Fighters destroying X-wings from the OT as a response.
It's almost sad, in a way, that Dark Empire and its sourcebook's writers made a hotshot new starfighter, wrote about its good qualities, and then was straight out contradicted by later material so that their ship becomes a useless mistake.
I was thinking the same thing...
"Hmm, says here this thing has 2 heavy turbolasers, is really fast and a great interceptor"
"Turbolasers? Seems silly to me, make them normal lasers"
"Ok"
"HAH only 2 lasers, this thing doesn't have squat for firepower! Lol, it isn't even a good dogfighter!"
"But... You decreased the firepower, and it's an interceptor"
"Haha bad design"
@@Omega_1111 turnolasers on a starfighter or small ship aren't generally feasible due to power requirements. The only reason ships like the B-wing and D-5 Mantis were able to use them is because they were designed to have dedicated generators and power banks just to power the turbolasers, and even then the B-wing could only use light ones and that's the smallest a ship can be to equip one
I like the idea that cost cutting, bureaucracy and backing bad designs(slow tanks that trip! TWO Death Stars!, etc.) contributed heavily to the fall of the empire.
Cost cutting at its finest
The AT-AT was NOT a bad design
One of the things mentioned about the fighter was that each engine and the laser cannons. Had their own power generator. Allowing power to be diverted if any of the generators were disabled. Only really useful if the engines are still working.
Also it was created by Kuat to steal some of the lucrative fighter contracts from Sienar Fleet Systems for their TIE fighters.
Hey Eck! Devils Advocate here. So certain elements of this fighter are definitely better than a regular tie. The biggest is the field of view. This ship would allow pilots to see what looks like more than 90 degrees more than a tie which in a dogfight could be extremely preferable. Also, the whole armor thing seems a bit silly to me. How many times have we seen a tie fighter survive a hit anyway? All this fighter really needs is a missile rack to give it some flexibility and it would be blatantly better than a tie fighter imo.
You can see more above and to the sides but nothing lower than directly in front of you
I like what you said. I’m kinda a fan as well. I’d say that there are factors that make it better. It’s def better than a standard tie. I’d say it’s better in surprise attacks than the interceptor but maybe not as good of a dog fighter. If I had a fleet, I’d probably employ some of these for atleast one specific role. And I’d look forward to seeing Kuat make their promised improved version.
Field of view was addressed in another video where the pilots' helmets likely allowed them to see 'through' the TIE's sides, at least as a tactical display.
@@mathildadeer Actually, your head sits pretty high in the cockpit, so you'd have 15-20 degrees downward visibility. Not amazing, but on par with real-world fighters. Additionally, the Tie has a large panel that blocks most downward visibility. Also upwards visibility is far more important in a dogfight, the ability to look up and see the target you're pulling around on and follow it all the way into your sights cannot be overstated
The A9 seems to be like the TIE Tank. Some artist puts it in a comic forcing some writer to create lore for it to explain it's appearance, but it's so ludicrous it's written into the in-universe category of "bits of history we want to forget."
But at least the TIE Tank _looks like_ something the Empire would employ, something in keeping with the Empire's TIE aesthetic style. This thing doesn't look like an Empire vessel. Because it foregoes the established look of the TIE Fighter, you have to be told that it's an Empire fighter to know it belong to the Empire.
tbh it doesnt even look like something from star wars altogether
@@BlackOtter9 Ikr! When your creation doesn't even look like it belongs in the universe you made it for, maybe you should've refined the draft some more.
For elements of the ship that the New Republic would be incorporating into future designs, look no further than the Jumpstar HPF starfighter. It’s a fighter made and used by the Galactic Alliance, the successor to the New Republic, in and around 130~137 ABY-ish. Physically, it looks extremely similar to the A-9 Vigilance, clearly a later generation version of it. It comes with a hyperdrive, shields, laser cannons, and specialized “marker missiles” that latch homing beacons onto a targeted ship. It was used as a tracking ship by the GA, meant to pursue enemy ships through hyperspace. This all comes from the Legacy Era Campaign Guide.
The turbolaser was something those essential guides did a few times, they also gave the Ewing a light turbolaser.
Personally, I like the idea that where possible, both the new repulic and empire experimented with a starfighter with a turbolaser and decided it was too much of a headache to deal with en mass, even if the resulting craft was quite powerful.
Yeah, anything armed with a turbolaser would have likely performed more like an attack craft, such as the B-wing, than a proper fighter like X-wings and most Ties.
*A what?*
Yeah, I can see retrofitting something with a turbolaser as a strike variant, just don't expect it to dogfight.
@@bkane573 and assuming your cannons don't jam. That was the big problem with them in WWII, in only a few planes (P-38, Bf 109) could the pilot cycle the cannon manually to unjam them if they malfunctioned; and they malfunctioned a lot. In planes like the Spitfire Mk IIs the wings flexed too much and caused the cannon's feed system to jam in combat (similar to the problems the early P-51s had with their .50 cals).
The more powerful but bigger and more complex gun system doesn't always work in real world conditions.
I love how you are waking up and choosing to ROAST both Star Wars, the vehicles, and the fans, in like 50+% of these videos in the recent months. Keep it up 😂😂😂😂
More battle breakdowns
The gun layout on the A-9 struck me as being two things: a heavy laser cannon for hard targets, and a lighter laser cannon for dogfights. So instead of requiring torpedo bays, it just has a powerful energy weapon for strafing capital ships etc. A bit like certain WW2 fighter planes that featured a single large-caliber cannon flanked by machine guns.
Basically a dedicated CAS craft. Kinda makes sense in that role. Wouldn't want to have this in the same postal code as a proper dogfight though.
@@Colonel_Overkill Perhaps. But it also has the guns on that gimbal mounting, so combined with the targetting computer I imagine it can do a lot with just the pair of laser cannon.
Hardware will only take you so far. I would bet that a good pilot in an A-9 could do well against a poor pilot in an E-wing or other high-end starfighter.
@@SethLunchquest that may be true, many light, medium and heavy bombers have gun positions or turrets. Even in the lightest craft assuming you can dogfight perfectly may still mean nothing. If a craft with specialized gear is used for roles it isnt designed for it can achieve a victorious failure.
Take a Y wing for example. You have an amazing pilot who get into a dogfight and downs a dozen TIE singlehandedly. Sounds impressive no? If in doing this the opportunity is ignored to drop a bomb or torpedo into a hangar or ship that is still a failure counting the dozen kills. Turrets and ths like are there to get rid of uncomfortable attention but if you are flying a strike craft they are defensive only.
IIRC the TIE bomber had a pair of cannon identical to the fighter. Both can shoot down small craft but only one can threaten large craft. Its needlessly risking a valuable capability if a less specialized craft can do the job just as good.
while it seems plausible it wouldn't make a lot of sense in universe considering how heavily shielded are capital ships. Yes, you can skim the surface under it's shields and do damage then, but with an unshielded fighter it's really a dead wish
@@miqvPL I think the shit stain bombers in the lasr jedi make that perfectly clear. Personally I was thinking of a more distract and slash attack or atmospheric operations. A small number against a ship is a suicide dash, but honestly these dont seem like line of battle craft. I didn't really elaborate earlier but against smugglers, cartel warlords, insurrection planetside, situations like this is where I see these shining. A second line unit good enough to do the job. Kind of like the old addage "a bad tank is better than no tank". Especially if you enjoy air or space supremacy these would be perfect for cargo ship interdiction or low intensity operations. As unimpressive as that activity list sounds it actually has far more effect on a war than two battle lines reducing each other to component atoms. Cargo and trade interdiction ends wars far easier than bombardment, and you have all of the enemy facilities intact to use yourself as a happy bonus.
Im aware actual war tactics have little place in universe but I can see a couple squadrons of these based near a jump point shutting down shipping completely and leaving the important ships unused, therefore fit and ready to assist if something too big for the strike craft comes out to play.
At a guess, the things that later designs would incorporate would be whatever combination of 'soft' factors that made it both easy to learn to fly and with a high skill ceiling. So often you only get one of the two, if you even get either. Whether that's HUD design, avionics, MFD placement, advanced functions interfaces, whatever. It'd be something that doesn't show on a spec sheet, not the speed or the armour or the turning rate or whatever, but something that crews praised.
"What's that? It's hideous!" - Lord Farquaad
I always thought the TIE's were inspired by the Jedi ETA-2 Actis star fighters, the interceptor the most resembling the ETA-2 Actis when it was in full combat mode.
From reading the Canon books "Star Wars TIE Fighter owners workshop manual" Tie prototype page-
It says "After the Imperial Navy itemized their requirements and estimated the budget for developing and manufacturing the new starfighter, Raith Sienar began designing a prototype. As previously noted, Sienar incorporated design aspects . from Kuat Systems Engineering's Alpha-3 Nimbus-class "V-wing" starfighter and Eta-2 Actis-class light Interceptor for the prototype Imperial twin ion engine starfighter. Working from Imperial directives, Sienar designed the initial prototype exclusively for space combat, and not for atmospheric flight capability. But when Sienar presented his designs to Navy officials, he surprised them with an alternate design for a slightly more expensive starfighter. The alternate design featured stronger pylons within bulked-up spars that connected the wings to the cockpit module, an increase to overall structural integrity that would allow the fighter to travel through atmospheres and also the ability to land on its wings. Impressed by Sienar's presentation, Navy officials authorized Sienar to construct prototypes for both proposed designs. After testing the prototypes, the Navy agreed that Sienar's alternate design was more practical, and that the additional expense would be a worthy investment."
@@michaelandreipalon359 exactly. The Eta Actis is all well and good if your pilots are precognitive and capable of enduring G-force way beyond mundane organics. For a bunch of conscript recruits.....less so.
After my mom died when I was 7 my stepmom introduced me to Star Wars it bonded us together it has been the one thing that I can turn to when life sucks to take my mind off of it all. So thank you ECK!!!❤
I do like the unconventional approach of just bolting some naked engines to nacelle mounts straight from the factory. It's bold in not even hiding how little they expect the pilot to survive. No need to put plating on something you're not expecting to come back.
First time I've ever heard of the A-9 referred to as a TIE series Starfighter.
Isn't TIE a brand owned by Sienar Systems?
@@shilohlee4332 I believe it is, hence my confusion at the title of the video since the A-9 is a Kuat design (actually it seems Kuat has several A-line starfighters including the Clone Wars era A-6 and a later A-10).
In Legends and Canon "Sienar incorporated design aspects from Kuat Systems Engineering......"
I’ve liked the look of the A-9 vigilance. I do wonder if it could be salvaged to be more than a heavy cannon on a space-worthy pod racer.
Seems good for cheap "law enforcement" applications on shady outer rim worlds run by hutt cartels, honestly. If I was a crime lord looking for anti-rioter/protestor/peasant air-superiority on the cheap, I'd buy this. Otherwise, it looks shite.
When they were talking about elements they will use in their own fighters I think they meant the scrap metal they'll melt down to make into a better fighter
Sounds like a good interceptor in the actual IRL interceptor role: shooting down bombers. In Star Wars there's usually no climb speed (space) but this thing seems great for a mission that consists only of catching up to bombers asap and then killing them.
There is a small niche of fighter aircraft in real world air forces that is just a pure speed interceptor. The Russian MIG-25 was designed for pure speed to be able to chase down American SR-71 spy planes. These planes don't need to dogfight, drop bombs, or really do much besides being really really fast. This thing is kinda similar. Maybe it could be used as a quick response planet based defense force. Something that can get up out of the atmosphere quickly, or maybe run down hit and fade attacks before they can jump away.
I feel like if we go off of that one source book that says they have heavy turbolasers they made sense as an *actual* interceptor
Very fast very hard hitting fighter made to kill or incapacitate slower larger targets.
Enemy capitol ship just exited hyperspace? Launch a dozen squadrons of these things to pummel it with the fire power of an entire fleet of star destroyers before it can close to engagement range.
Enemy transports trying to run? They won't get very far with this thing chasing them
Enemy ship trying to escape? Blow its engines out with precise hard hitting firepower
The design elements due to be incorporated were probably the power shunting from the various generators: the ability to quickly and easily divert power is a strong positive, as would eventually be seen in Star Wars Squadrons.
I could see a high speed anti Capitol Class fighter with turbo lasers specifically for targeting rebel ships to counter their hit and run tactics.
But aren't Turbolasers basically equivalent to Artillery Pieces? From what I remember of the opening shot of III.
A craft of that style does exist, the T.I.E. experimental 1 “bizarro”. 2 cockpits attached to one wing, with one cockpit turned into a housing for a turbolaser.
Granted but it was slow but more high powered. I was thinking something STUPID FAST that could knock out engines on a fleeing Nebulon B or something. Think like a poor mans version of a gravity well generator, lol. If they aren't expecting it, then it starts costing the rebelion just 1 mid tier Capital ship for 1 squad of V9s then the Empire gets its moneys worth and prisoners. It also makes the rebelion wary of attacking what they think are "unprotected" imperial convoys that could be a trap...
@@sonicninja3434 : Any turbolaser that could effectively be powered by a fighter craft would probably only be effective against proper capital ships in prolonged combat, better to leave that to proper bombers. Targeting Gallofreys, those light freighters (e.g. the Falcon), and things in between would be a more interesting use case, but you'd still want at least one faster-firing laser cannon to clear out opposing fighters first.
Im thinking more along the lines of having a powerful fast strike capability at cheap cost that has one main goal. Specialized for sure, but the empire wouldn't mind wasting 9 lives for 3000 people to interrogate and equipment to go over with forensics.....
I recently started learning about different IRL military hardware. The superlight weight fighter sounds more like the f16 compared to its predecessors of the f14 and f15, as well as its backwards step of being design focused around dog fights, something that peer state airframe were moving away from.
The F-16 could have been worse, the F-5 Tiger & relatives didn't have radar or missile capability because the exec overseeing it had similar views to the later "Fighter Mafia".
So, the A9 was spearheaded by the Star Wars counterparts of the Reformers, but without people coming along later and fixing the design by adding necessary equipment (they didn't even want radar on the F-16)?
It's actually a lot like real life interceptors, very high top speed and powerful weaponary but terrible manouvreability. Its description says it's a territorial defence interceptor, with the y-wing's defence turrets on the top, being able to fire directly downwards means you can fly upside down under them and start blasting with very little risk. Then speed away before they can hit you.
Come back round after and repeat on the way back to the ship if they're not dead yet.
But against a fighter, it's gonna die real quick, you might be able to outrun laser bolts because they'll dissipate but missiles have the range and speed to hit the A9.
It also probably won't work against anything with proper all round turrets and a good enough sensor array. But tie bombers and y-wings don't have those.
To go over all the things they would need to do to fix this:
Fuselage:
- Bring the cockpit forward so the pilot can actually see where they are going.
- Reduce the size and length of the thruster pylons. The closer to the centre of mass they can bring it the better.
- Make the shape more streamlined with a narrower front facing profile to make it harder to hit.
Engines:
- Add in a third engine right behind the craft's centre of mass.
- Upgrade engine gimballing (or whatever equivalent Star Wars uses) to increase maneuverability.
- Increase engine power and throughput (like the ability to divert all power to engines)
Weapons:
- Upgrade primary laser turrets to heavy lasers.
- Add an underslung torpedo launcher with 2-4 rounds of ammo.
Equipment:
- Upgrade its reactor to something much bigger.
- Add shield system.
- Add hyperdrive.
If all of these things were done, I could see this ship taking on a useful role as a surprise hit and run raider or pre-invasion scout ship. It won't be cheap if they did, but at least you would be getting something serviceable for your credits.
If you just take it as escribed in Dark Empire, its an excellent fighter. Or rather, an excellent interceptor.
Really fast, reasonably maneuverable - and with turbolasers. Yes, you pooh-poohed the idea, but it makes PERFECT sense if you consider it a ship that NEVER dogfights. It sweeps in at extreme speed, starts firing well out of the range of whoever it is attacking, probably makes at least one one-hit kill on the enemy formation (because fighters can't take turbolaser hits), then sweeps through the enemy formation and accelerates away, not even trying to engage. Get well out of range, swing around, and do it again. Basically, the "Splash" tactic used by US fighters against A6M Zeroes in WWII.
If you try and use it as a space superiority fighter, you'll get your head handed to you. Use it as intended and it's a terror.
That’s basically the definition of an interceptor right? This seems like it’d be great for swooping in to take out y-wings and such then leaving before anyone can dogfight them
The tactic you're referring to is called Boom and Zoom.
@@jaredthehawk3870 I've heard a number of terms used, including that one. I think it varied between units and nationalities.
"shoot & scoot" "hit & run" tactics
Even better if used by the NR against TIE Bombers and their ilk, which are unshielded.
For surprise attacks, I could see this ship being workable in an Imperial Escort Carrier, which itself is a fast and nimble pocket carrier designed for ambushes and spec ops. But at the same time, you could stock an IEC with almost any TIE Fighter [Especially the elite TIE Hunters they would often run with] and it would work just as well if not better, so the only way I could justify using Vigilances in an IEC is if there wasn't anything better availible.
The best use I can imagine for this thing is planetary defense on a budget. If you're never leaving a system, the lack of hyperdrive becomes meaningless. And while the heavy lasers make for poor dogfighting, the biggest threat to a planetary invasion is the capital ships, which this could make good hit-and-run strikes against.
Of course, this could be done much better by dedicated bombers with fighter escort, but at least it's something.
I think these are perfect for planetary defense, militias, and private security/mercenaries. These are entities that don't have larger budgets compared to larger organizations so they need to be mindful of acquiring and maintenance cost. Plus most of them really only deal with pirates and criminals or the occasional planetary civil/interplanetary conflicts. They might not need fighters that are more capable than the task at hand.
I just like the way it looks. I was such a fan of the Dark Empire artwork that I think I just liked the look. I had no knowledge of the quality of the craft.
The change in quality after the sourcebook sounds like the same thing that happened to the E Wing. Dark Empire was still pretty early EU and the new fighters were meant to replace the classics. They were unpopular because the designs leave something to be desired and people just like the iconic ships. So, later, Borge the Vigilance and the E-Wing were retconned as having significant design issues necessitating the return of the classic fighters.
#askeck How were the Seperatists able to get past Coruscant’s planetary shields when they attacked in Episode III?
Lore ship Versus video request:
Resurgent vs. Starhawk
Tie Striker vs. New Republic V-Wing
World Devastator vs. Vong Worldship
Tie Silencer vs. X-83 Twintail
Tie Silencer vs. Tie Defender (legends version)
Keldabe vs. ISD II
MC90 vs. Nebula class star destroyer
Nebula class vs. Pellaeon class
Majestic class vs. Bothan Assault Cruiser
EAWX: FOTR’s Mandator II portrayal vs. Subjugator
Praetor vs. Subjugator
EAWX: TR’s Mediator portrayal vs. Resurgent
Starhawk vs. Bulwark MK III
The “Nexus Route” discussed in the Citadel arc of clone wars. Some how the lane leads to separatist homeworlds and coruscant. Palps eventually got his hands on it, I can imagine he gave it Dooku who gave it to Grevious.
@@lifevest1 not talking about how the Separatists got to coruscant, I’m asking how their ground assault force got past the planetary shields protecting the planet
@@lightspeedvictory ummm, the force? 🤷♂️
@@lightspeedvictory Prepared Sabotage of the Shield?
The planet had no 360° shield, because no Planet in canon had any?
(I could be remembering wrong. Need to be verified but what i remember reading since the movie came out. Can't remember the exact source materials) Once that the CIS came in close on top of the planet and then the planetary shield was activated that's why the didn't leave and stayed as long as it did in the film because the shield was in place. So my taking of it is was that the Shield was around the planet and some of the space they came in Above the planet then the shield activated they were in the shielded area so they were able to go to the surface of the planet. The main thing I remember reading was the Planetary shield blocked at the exit of the CIS that's why thay didn't just leave with the Chancellor.
My thought on the Vigilance as a series, A-9, then the (plot armor we fixed everything!) A-10 was always "we can't SAY it's a government contract NOT for pirates... BUT..." it is meant for sudden surprise attacks but needs a carrier... like a disguised freighter. Great in a straight line or surprise cone... like it was launched by a disguised freighter or something? I think it was meant to be a special operations fighter, why they'd dump money into its development. And the closest public sector to SPECOPS? Pirates. In starwars, seldom a difference, ask omega squad in Triple Zero
This ship reminds me as a quick yet vulnerable a10 warthog. It's use case should be air to ground and that's basically it.
Aside from the letter A, what part of this reminds you of an A-10?
@@see317 I'm not looking about the looks of anything. I'm talking about how the A10 is used and how this starfighter could be used in universe.
@@thebananaclub I get that, I wasn't referring to appearance either (though the cylinder engines and a central gun might be common design notes). But the use case for the two are completely different. The A-10 is designed as a slow moving, low altitude ground support and anti-armor plane capable of taking a beating and coming around to dish out 10x the Brrrt before returning to base or lingering over the engagement zone to deploy further Brrrt as requested.
The A-9 Vigilance is a high speed interceptor that dies to a stiff breeze or a near miss with a hand gun. While it would be possible to use it in a similar manner to the A10 with the moveable gun, it wouldn't be able to do so effectively. If it slows down to maintain fire on a hard target, it becomes an easy mark itself because it can't take a hit. If it maintains speed to be hard to hit, it's only going to have a second or two on target, and most of that at long range, with the ideal engagement range flashing by in an instant before the thing has to loop around again for a second pass. Which, with it's speed is likely going to be at higher altitudes than are advisable if the target has any AA capability. It would also likely require a big loop potentially taking them out of the engagement.
I think if we wanted to make an in-universe equivalent of the A10, I'd start with a TIE Bomber hull, empty the secondary hull of it's grab bag of warheads and replace that with as big a turbo laser as possible (or a converging beam lance like the B-wing prototype from Rebels), then stuff either a big generator or a massive bank of capacitors to power the weapon. This gives it a hardier hull to take some hits, lower speed allowing it to linger over a battlefield and stay closer to the ground troops it's supporting and keeping the targeting system from the Bomber allows it to deploy the main weapon on precision strikes against ground targets or capital ship hull emplacements. It's not perfect, but I think it's be better for the purpose than the A9.
@@see317 it's still a legitimate air to ground attack craft. Like he said in the video, it has tons of straight line speed. This gives it a chance to hit targets and bug out. Plus it has a gun that could shoot perpendicular to the starship so they won't have to dive bomb to stay on target. Per my original comment, it is a quick and weak A10 that should only have air to ground duties or maybe another example would be a Japanese zero (fast, weak, and agile) but the zero was actually competitive with aircraft of it's time. That's why the A10 is the best example for something in our time.
I have always thought an advancement on the A-wing would be a centrally located trio of lasers and external missiles packs on the wings that could be jettisoned once empty. So in such a case the A-9's cannon mount would be useful info.
Of course the sequel trilogy DID come out with a new A-wing. It had a longer nose. Peak design!
It was also skinnier, made me think that it was a light-fighter variant.
Didn't realize that and just looked it up. Kinda bad tbh, less downward visibility and the guns are further out meaning worse convergence. I guess it could be worth it depending on what the improvements are though
Tbh the only conclusion is that the Empire (and its ship designs) is written in a way so it will lose constantly, in every possible engagement.
Ironically, the A-9 still has better visibility for the pilot than a TIE because its cockpit layout *isn't* a window on a single side blinkered by huge panels.
The TIE Fighter was misused it was never intended to be a spacefighter
It was intended to be the point defense system for an Imperial Star Destroyer
What I find funny is that the game Jedi Starfighter features the Saboath Fighter, which is basically just an A9 with more guns and better shields.
space ships, space battles, and more specifcially, dogfights in space, are what got me most into star wars next to lightsabers. I love learning about the ships in star wars honestly. the recent videos have been very interesting lately for sure.
It seems that the A-9 would more useful as a police vessel rather than a frontline fighter. About the only military use for something like this is as an advanced trainer.
Could make for a good planetary defense/private protection fighter.
This is just another case of something being introduced in a Star Wars book/comic and being nerfed in every other showing. The main one everyone knows being the Hapans.
It’s called an “interceptor”
Which suggests it’s meant to have a role like IRL interceptors, scrambling to meet enemy bombers before they drop on their targets. Since bombers (IRL, pre-stealth Cold War and earlier) don’t have to maneuver, their wing geometry and multiple engines can carry them faster and higher than fighters. So “interceptors” originate from a specifically bomber-killing role IRL.
Through the Cold War this varied to interceptors being look-down radar specialists, able to cruise at high altitudes and lock on to enemy planes from a commanding viewpoint.
All this material makes it seem like the various authors and artists coming later might not have had an awareness of the IRL reference
It strikes me as an ultra cheap, easy to fly fighter, that Kuat tried to upsell by claiming it was for performance reasons not production costs.
In the (Legends) lore, the TIE is actually very hard to make, even though it is simple in theory, because it requires a high degree of manufacturing precision.
Only the Empire has the resources to make something like it and treat it as disposable.
And even they can only afford it due to the huge numbers they buy.
And it apparently is very difficult to fly at a high level, and train on.
So a more restricted Empire, possible without access to Sienars plants, might find an easy to fly, cheap fighter of more conventional construction advantageous, even if it was a downgrade from the TIE.
Boom & Zoom fighter tactics are a real life thing which would be the A-9's bread and butter which mean maneuverability isn't such a big deal. Obviously not against capital ships but against slower fighters and bombers. It's an interceptor, so it's role is to intercept enemy fighters and bombers as quickly as possible. It's not an offense geared fighter but a defensive one. When you detect Y-Wings or B-Wings the A-9 intercepts them as far away from your base as possible to support patrolling fighters which will be the first to engage.
TBH, I would argue the Empire doesn't have a true fighter craft and tries to force interceptors into the role.
Hey Ecks. Video idea question: do you think that if, somehow, a Star Trek exploration ship would make it into the Star Wars Galaxy, it would have success in charting the unknown regions since it isn’t reliant on Hyperspace lanes?
Partial quote from Joseph Reinemann a Sci-Fi writer and Star Trek fan. Excerpt from response to question: What would happen if a ship were to ram a planet at warp or transwarp speed?
"... The way that warp drive works, the ship never actually exceeds the speed of light. It merely simulates it by warping space around itself and forcing a small pocket of normal space containing the ship into what's known as subspace. By doing so it can still observe its surroundings, which most warp drives wouldn't be able to do, and reintegrate with normal space by cutting power to the warp nacelles and essentially letting subspace “push” the ship's little normal space bubble back into place.
The thing is, the warp field is subject to a lot of different forms of interference. Mostly other warp fields. When these get disrupted, more often than not the bubble will implode, vaporizing everything inside, or distort and form a localized (and more often than not lethal) wormhole that catapults the ship off on a random direction at high speeds (though generally not very far.)
Planets, stars, and other celestial bodies naturally warp space with their gravitational fields. ..."
Based on Reinemann's write up. I would say that the constantly shifting gravitational fields and spatial disruptions of the unknown regions could cause warp travel to range from unreliable to lethal. Though I would still be interested in hearing ecks opinion.
This comment has been edited, because I made a mistake.
@@mechwar31 Which novel did he write?
Star Trek Warp travel is also much, much slower than hyperspace travel. Yes, there are special circumstances where Star Trek ships travel at much faster speeds, but standard warp is nothing compared to hyperspace. The U.S.S. Voyager, one of the fastest ships of its time, would have taken 70 years to get back from the far side of the galaxy. But we see Star Wars ships go back and forth across the whole galaxy in hours to days in hyperspace. Factor in that an exploration voyage would need to cover a lot more area than just a point-to-point journey, and you would have a single Star Trek ship taking many human lifetimes to map the unknown regions.
@@ajclements4627 did a quick look around, and yep I made a mistake there. I've known Joseph Reinemann as an author from a few other science fiction books, and I have seen some articles he has written dissecting, critiquing or reviewing Star Trek scenes or other works, but he has not written any Star Trek novels. I got that twisted in my head somehow. Sorry about that.
@@jackpfefferkorn3734 I don't think Mountain_Mann is looking at warp travel as a expedient alternative to hyperspace. The problem with mapping or even traveling through the unknown regions is that the hyperlanes are constantly shifting, so without a force sensitive navigator, it's impossible to go any great distance in the unknown regions in hyperspace.
If I am understanding his thought process correctly, Warp travel might be a viable alternative to hyperspace because warp is not reliant upon hyperlanes.
Fleet battle between
Grand admiral Thrawn vs. Ender Wiggin
Each one has an equal sized fleet with equally capable subordinates, and since Ender is from a different universe each has equal understanding of the technology they’re using. They are in command of Star Wars vessels. Pick a famous fleet of your choosing I’d suggest death squadron
Hey Eck, in numerous videos you mention ships made by Kuat (koowat? kue-ott?) shipyards. Do you already have a video on these shipyards? If not, could you consider making one? (I'm new to the expanded lore.)
Koo-aht
Seconded, I already know lots about them but it's a super cool set piece that deserves some attention.
Turbo lasers are a strange "descriptor" The falcon for example had 2 turrets each with 4 quad linked turbo lasers.
Now while we "always hear" them say its just laser cannons, when talking about how to tell the difference between lasers and turbo lasers apart... in star wars... "turbo lasers have recoil, if you see the barrels retract after firing, or recoiling, then its a turbo lasers." it was the on screen "descriptor" to tell the difference. It was source material writers that changed things later.
Essentially the falcons guns were based on a 40mm bofors design.
The engines sounds pretty good, maybe try to do experimental tie fighters with them and see what happend
The stats show that this is supposed to be an interceptor which charges from a higher attitute at its enemies and then regains that height instead of engaging in dogfights. In WW2 german pilots completely avoided dogfights and used this tactic.
Except in space that's useless
@@codyholley It does work in space and even if not. Dogfights in Star Wars behave like flying in air.
@@TheKingofbrooklin it is useless if it can't out maneuver it's opponent
@@codyholley Like I said it doesnt have to engage in maneuvers. It has to charge from above and then regain a higher attitude with its superior speed.
So, basically, later authors decided that the Empire can't have a good ship because it's like a TIE and EU writers decided that TIEs have to suck?
Pretty much. The EU had lots of this stuff, just like it assumed that stormtroopers were incompetent because they had a less than 100% hit ratio.
If it had looked cool, it probably would have been better treated, just like the cooler-looking ties
Thr authors never want to do anything but want the *Bullshitium* fighter that is the X Wing
Sounds like it would be a good rapid-response planetary defense fighter. It doesn't need a lot of firepower, just keep any attackers busy until the rest of the defenders arrive.
If the objective is to hold the line, survival is more important than firepower. You need enough firepower to punish the enemy for ignoring you and to keep them a bit cautious. In order to hold the enemy back the defesne fighters have to remain mission-effective. Armor and Shields can help more than raw speed. Especially if you're likely to lose fighters in a furball or a pass.
@@shilohlee4332
But just like in the real world, you also have to look at what you can afford and maintain. So for smaller planetary forces or other private entities you want something you can afford to purchase, train and maintain. So to them, you might not need something too expensive if you can simply throw a lot of these at the problem.
My guess for the features incorporated into future New Republic starfighters was always some features of the engine design itself and the literal flexibility of the laser cannon mount. Being able to fire off-axis or even in a fully unexpected direction could have some distinct tactical benefits. Rapid, hull-hugging attacks could hypothetically be easier to execute safely if the pilot could fly straight across the hull without needing to angle to get weapons into arc--just fly over as close as possible and possibly even under the minimum angle the defensive turrets could depress to.
"I am so specialized I cannot be defeated!" *is so specialized and simplified it turns useless*
Sad for the A-10 Thunderb- Vigilance
The engines and the ability to shoot straight down seem the most interesting features.
Kinda reminds me of the Me-163 Komet. The Komet was rocket-powered and could climb to 34,000 in 3 minutes 45 seconds to intercept bomber formations and pepper them with 20 and 30mm shells. However there were some problems.
1: To save weight, the landing gear would be dropped after takeoff. The only landing gear was an extendable skid. It would be safe to say that landings would be extremely hard on both the pilot and the airframe itself.
2: The propellants for the rocket engine were extremely toxic and corrosive, there was an instance where a pilot was dissolved when a fuel line ruptured during a crash.
3: The fueling procedure was dangerous. The rocket engine used two propellants called "T-Stoff" and "C-Stoff". On their own they were non-flammable but when mixed together they violently exploded. If both were accidentally mixed together outside the combustion chamber then the unfortunate ground crewman would simply wind up as a fine red mist.
4: Powered flight only lasted 7 1/2 minutes. After that the flyer was simply a glider and was easy picking for any fighters.
I will hold that the A9 wasn't as bad as the T-wing. Incidentally another A-wing competitor.
DESB really didn't seem to understand WHAT a turbolaser is. They had infantry turbolasers, TIE Crawlers had turbolasers "with the firepower of an E-Web" (so... a naval gun as good as a 50 cal machine gun?!), and the "turbolasers" of the A-9.
Someone hasn't heard of the Q-wing! 😄
Not a TIE or an Imperial Vessel, but yeah it does look dumb af
Ya know, a cool strategey for the fighter would be to jump a few carriers on either side of an enemy fleet. The figters would launch, speed through the enemy fleet while firing before landing in the carriers on the opposite side. Finally the carriers would hyperdrive away. Because ther fighter is so cheep, you could probably bring hundreds. And because of their speed the whole manuver might only take a few minutes. Is that a good idea? Eck?
Sounds like a cool move to pull off once in a story. I am reminded of the first halo book (I think) where they pulled off a kill on two covenant capital ships by detonating a nuke behind them, doing a 180 and firing the rail gun times with the detonation or some such. If they were human piloted I don't think you could pull off that maneuver more than once if the attrition was serious.
I would use it as a planetary response fighter, have it respond to threats as a quick reaction response. Otherwise as you say limited.
It's really the perfect fighter for a government like the Empire: it's cheap, so they don't have to raise taxes on the Core Worlds while KDY can still take kickbacks; they don't have to invest a lot in training pilots and it's so fragile they'll be plenty of jobs for Mid-Rim manufacturing worlds.
This fighter has all the hallmarks of a product imagined, pushed, designed, and released by a marketing department.
Do you think a turbolaser fighter could be a niche role, if we do take its weaponry as written in the sourcebook? Perhaps a high speed standoff craft for poking corvettes and pickets?
That makes sense. If it was designed as a specialist craft, for persuit or flanking. With speed and heavy guns to take out opposition escorts.
I'd imagine you'd want to strap a turbolaser to a small gunship like an E-Wing, it'd need to be able to take a hit.
2:34 If a TIE is made of Cardboard then this is made of tissue paper.
In lore, this sounds like a corporate poison pill. Assign all the people you want to can to this project, anybody who disagreed with the TIE line. Effectively a career sterilizer to have this in your portfolio.
You know what...? I think this thing would be a blast to fly! It's pretty small, probably has great acceleration, and that laser canon is enticing. I wouldn't downplay the potential of that laser cannon; sustained fire from laser cannons can exceed the total damage potential of proton torpedoes. I don't believe a laser cannon set up like that would ONLY be able to fire straight down. I think it's more likely that it was gimbaled and could fire in a large forward cone, and ALSO a larger firing range downward. This would mean it doesn't need to approach its target head-on to fire, giving it more evasion in an initial pass. This gimbaled laser canon could also partially make up for its inferior maneuverability. However, controlling a gimbaled gun simultaneously with piloting a ship would be quite challenging. That's why I want to fly it!
On that very matter, I discovered something interesting a few months ago: the earliest sources covering the A-Wing did NOT grant it any kind of missile launcher, but DID grant it gimbaled laser cannons. "A Guide to the Star Wars Universe," the WEG's "The Star Wars Sourcebook," and "The Farlander Papers" which came packaged with Star Wars: X-Wing all list it this way. I think it's only starting with the actual Star Wars: X-Wing *game* that the gimbaled laser cannons are removed and concussion missile launchers are added. I think Totally Games probably strongly considered implementing the A-Wing as originally described, but was unable to do so for technical reasons, or because there were no commercial joysticks at the time that would allow such a thing. Maybe they thought controlling it with the keyboard would suffice, but it never panned out. Anyway, from that moment on, the A-Wing lore changed.
Later sources claimed that Incom made a New Republic version of the A-Wing that supported gimbaled laser cannons, in contrast to earlier models. My headcanonization is as follows: "Star Wars: X-Wing," "The Farlander Papers," and "The Star Wars Sourcebook" indicate that the A-Wing was designed by Jan Dodonna and Walex Blissex, and manufactured in small numbers by Rebel engineers. Other sources claim early A-Wings were made by hand out of whatever materials were available, and this seems to jive with the previous fact. I believe all these original A-Wings were built with gimbaled laser cannons and no missile launchers, as the early - primarily BBY - sources claim. Then the Rebellion got the capacity to manufacture A-Wings en masse, but couldn't do so at the previous specifications. Perhaps the amount of downtime repairing the laser gimbals was too much, or perhaps some parts did not exist in large quantities. However, these new A-Wings were able to add concussion missile launchers instead. When Incom took over production during the New Republic era, they made A-Wings that had the best of both worlds, and included more reliable gimbal-mounted laser cannons as well as the standard concussion missile launchers.
I'm sure you can see the relation here: both are fast interceptors designed with gimbaled laser cannons. The difference is the A-9 had this as a standard feature, on more powerful cannons. A squadron of these flying over a Mon Calamari Cruiser could cause serious havoc, and they'd be able to evade and attack effectively at the same time. I also wouldn't discount this laser cannon's accuracy against starfighters out of hand, since we have no reason to believe that they are inaccurate. Of course, the A-Wing has better defenses, maneuverability, and concussion missile launchers. By this time, they've also likely regained their own gimbaled lasers, even if they're less powerful.
I think that light turbolaser hampers A-9 more, than helps it. It's just too heavy and energy-intensive. If I'd be ordered to re-design the Vigilance, I would throw turbolaser out and replaced it with either one extra laser and one light ion cannon (and at least some armor and light deflector), or replace the entire turbolaser with a consussion missile launcher. Then it can actually become a decent glass cannon, moving in to release it's payload, or overwhelm enemy's shield with lasers + ion canon combo. And a cut-out in the rear or additional sensors + HUD augmentation is a must to survive in that thing.
Okay, but the comments made at 4:08 did make me imagine a scenario where a like, underfunded rebel cell on a scapping or shipbreaking planet harvests a bunch of turbo lasers that the strap onto ugly fighters that have been stripped down of everything but their engines and the turbolasers. Imagine like, 10 squadrons of starfighters like that doing a suicide run on the ISD that tends the planet. Might make for a cool, if short martyrdom story
It would be quite useful in numbers, but that would also require some type of mega-carrier.
If it was very easy to learn to pilot it, as is stated, you could have mega-carriers jump on with a complement of 100+ unit squadrons that launch all at once.
This effectively becomes a "bombing squadron" with high likeliness of survivability (due to numbers and speed), that can lay down near turbolaser firepower in the thousands of shots per second.
Low manufacturing costs, easy trainability, low cost of rearming, extremely condensed launch bay storage... That's devastating.
Used in this manner, it's just like having reusable and nimble warheads in the hundreds that have sentient intelligence behind it and able to stay on the battlefield to continually pick more targets.
Even capital ships couldn't survive a quick wave of these things.
When talking about maneuverability, it made me wonder, do Star Wars ships have inertial dampers? This is an extremely important technology. I don't think I've ever heard it discussed.
Fleet battle
Rebel fleet at Endor vs. Cole’s fleet at Cole’s last stand. With each being commanded by their respective admirals.
Makes me wonder if the SW universe has a fighter similar to the A-10 warthog, where a small fighter is built around a giant gun.... 🤔
The K-Wing I believe.
I'd say whichever Kuat con-man came up with this had a pretty good scam going on. Made some quick and easy credits out of some desperate Imperial holdouts.
As for how to use these near hunks of junk? Well, if they were packing heavy laser cannons, they could at least threaten gunships or light escorts. So if you could trade a squadron of A9's for something like a cargo hauler, a corvette or a troop transport than that's a pretty good deal. But so many better options.
If I'm thinking strategically, this is a defensive ship for capital ships and outposts, you wouldn't care about anyone knowing it's there.
The only possible scenario I can see deploying these A-9 Vigilance is in an ambush setup, most likely in nebula environments where sensors are highly compromised, or in heavily dense asteroid fields. The idea would be to take advantage of the A-9's profile while they barrage an unsuspecting target with those long ranged turbolasers. And those targets would likely be warships, maybe not those large ISDs, but smaller ones.
I think the A-9 was originally supposed to be a pure interceptor, meant for taking down incoming ordinance launched from bombers. You'd want a very fast ship to fly directly at incoming missiles and torpedoes, a center-mounted laser to make it as easy as possible to aim at and hit them, and the ability to quickly launch them and recover them. This is actually very handy for countering Rebel strike craft, which relied on bombs and torpedoes to take out enemy capital ships. The problem is, the Empire already had a TIE Interceptor, which was more than capable of shooting down incoming warheads using its chin-mounted guns, and the TIE Fighter could do the same thing, albeit as a last resort if the Interceptors failed to shoot down the incoming wave of torpedoes. So KDY likely spiced up the ship on paper so they could get sales, saying that it was more maneuverable due to being more stripped down than the TIE Fighter, and retooled the laser so that it could fire at ground targets. In the end, they probably ended up not fooling Imperial Starfighter Command and "accidentally" let their A-9s fall into New Republic hands as a tax write-off.
It looks like the Wish version of a Star Trek shuttle pod with a big honking space gun bolted on.
Actually, upon some thinking, I see a role that these ships could excel at... well, two.
First role, as a replacement for uglies as fighters for pirates.
Second role, as a supplement to custom enforcement/anti-piracy sweeps of inhabited systems.
As freighters/passenger liners tend to have few weapons and weak shields, a fighter with a large laser cannon (typically mounted by light warships such as Corvettes/Frigates as their primary anti-ship weapon) would be a threat to them, or at minimum severely damage engines/exterior equipment without posing a hazard to occupants within the ship, forcing them to heave to and be boarded by slower custom vessels.
They would be a cheaper alternative to torpedo armed anti-ship fighters for pirate and anti-piracy roles, as they don't need to be supplied with anti-capital ship[1] munitions, especially since those munitions might eviscerate the very thing(s) the pirates/anti-piracy patrol wanted intact (goods/passengers/prisoners).
In short, they shouldn't be part of general fleet engagements as they have no purpose being there as there are superior fighters for actual battles that fulfill the strike fighter/anti-ship roles perfectly.
1. In Star Wars the term "capital ship" is ambiguous to the point it has lost all meaning. In most IP's, a capital ship is the largest ships capable of going against other capital ships and conquering heavily defended systems. So, as a general rule, a capital ship is any ship which is called a battlecruiser or larger, though some IPs relegate heavy cruisers to the capital ship classifications too. Thus, when I say "capital ship" I refer to the battlecruisers like Home One type Mon Calamari class cruisers, and battleships such as the Imperial-I and -II Star Destroyers.
I think if anything the New Republic should take from this design is the 90 degree-angling cannons. For fighters/bombers carrying heavy guns that seems like it'd be useful for pseudo-bombing runs on ground targets.
The Empire never did fully learn to mass produce the TIE Avenger and Defender what could outclass everything the New Republic ever made.
I really appreciate that there are several crappy or not particularly viable military vehicles and weapons and star wars. Given the number of tanks and guns and planes that have been produced by a real world militaries that are known to have horrible problems and are hated by their crews, it makes the universe feel more realistic to know that crappy, designed by committee and built by the lowest bidder weapon systems exist no matter where in the universe you go
As I remember it the point of the starfighter was it was cheap and would bulk out the fleet, this was a period where the New Republic was still struggling to go from a primarily resistance navy with high performance but expensive ships to a galactic navy with the mass to patrol the whole galaxy and doing it on a shoestring budget as they didnt have anywhere near the Empires defence spending, they were relying more and more on captured TIE fighters and ISD's to fill out their fleets but they were no longer in production and hostilities with the Empire and opportunity to acquire more in combat were dying down.
The five TIE Experimentals? The Bizzaro and its siblings? How about a breakdown of all of them to determine which was stupidest and which was least stupid? For my part, I think the least stupid was the TIE Warhead.
The A-9 does seem like a craft perfect for training combat pilots so you can give them proper starfighters like a TIE Fighter, X-Wing or even a Die-Wing (because even that sounds like a better option than the A-9).
I would say it would work quite well against soft ground targets. As soon as you mentioned that the turbolaser can be pointed down it's purpose is quite clearly as a pseudo bomber.
This sounds like the he 162. An high tech last ditch fighter meant to be simultaneously superior to enemy fighters, easy to pilot, and cheap to produce.
It even had a similar fate, seeing very little combat use, and that combat having mixed results. Then after the war being used a basis for allied fighter designs.
If there's no lore for the A-10 vigilance, here's my proposed lore:
After the dreaded failure of the A-9, luat drive yards was forced back to the drawing board. The A-9's project head has mysteriously disappeared in recent years, and has not been heard from. Kuat drive yarda officially lists him as unemployed, and there have been several missing persons reports.
"The A-10 was developed along the same idea as the A-9, but only if it wasn't designed by someone who never should've had a job at Kuat drive yards." -KDY engineer
Specifications: The A 10 had 1 light turbolaser, (chin mounted) was larger than an A wing but not the size of an X wing, it had a top of the line hyperdrive and also had one hell of a sublight engine.
It looked simply like a bigger version of the A 9.
This version, in combative testing, proved to be far better at its counter parts supposed purpose of hit and run tactics, being designed by someone who expressly understood the idea of "hit it, and get the fuck away before it hits back."
It does not have sheilds. It has 2 concussion missile tubes with 2 missiles each.
Its speed was literally only good for a single hit and run however, as even a good designer can't fix its turn radius at that speed. This meant it did poorly in dog fights compared to the tie fighter. This lead the designers to eventually add concussion missile tubes.
Like its counterpart, its gun can tilt dowards at a full 90 degree angle.
The ship was unfortunately no longer cheaper than a tie fighter, however it met the goals of the initial A 9.
The lead designer was simply known as Corey.
Coming from a planet that insisted on simplicity and efficiency as a way of life, Corey's people only have first names.
They also are as a result of this culture, excellent starship designers.
fastest like I ever pressed. Regular tie fighter was said to be as maneuverable as an a-wing, tie interceptor being very slightly more maneuverable.
So A-9 was definitely lacking there. More powerful cannons than the x-wing ones are nice, but it has less of them and without them being rapid fire I don't see that making a lot of difference in dogfight, no secondary weapons, hyperdrive or shields and much higher price makes it a much worse fighter than tie fighter, even though it has better visibility for the pilot and smaller target profile.
Smart imperial engineer: "Okay, guys, I have an idea about how to dunk on the Rebels."
Emps: "Uh huh?"
SIE: "Vulture Droids. Lots of 'em!"
Whoever designed this starfighter was clearly high on Death Sticks
"Sir. Some of the TIEs materials are easily available. The fuel source is literally dirt cheap."
"Bah. Use cheap substitutes!"
"But Sir. The life support has no components at all."
...
"Use CHEAPER substitutes!"
I would love a deep dive on the different types of cannons and what vessels had them.