Understanding the Role of Each Imperial Starfighter

[Applause] father friends welcome back to another episode of generation tech my name is Alan in our last episode we started a series that looked at the different roles of each starship within Star Wars we covered the Rebel Alliance last time so today we're gonna be looking at their opponents the Galactic Empire the result of an authoritarian military personal leadership style the Imperial Navy an army was a massive organization that required massive amounts of manpower and resources even if that meant uprooting and destroying local industry this meant that in less populated and developed areas of the galaxy the Imperial military was oftentimes one of the only employers in town and this is all a part of Emperor Palpatine plan to replace local economy with the imperial military industrial complex when you employ a large percentage of your citizen population to police the other half you lower your chance of a revolution this allows you to divide and conquer and more importantly keep people working so busy that they don't even notice what's going on now of course by increasing the size of the Imperial military they encountered many problems mostly related to logistics and costs this is why the Empire usually used low-cost starfighters which had standardized and modular parts when you have millions of typewriters even saving one credit or one pound of Durasteel will ultimately lead to huge savings for the empire now this cost saving mindset might be countered to what you would expect from a military first government but if you look closely at our own planet this is really just how most military first nations function there's also the colossal task that the Empire has the face in patrolling and keeping order in the entire galaxy even with their massive fleet of starships and Bal stations they just don't have enough men and ships to watch over everything and if you were to compare the Empire to the Grand Army of the Republic from which the Imperial military came from you would notice a huge shift from quality and survivability it's a quantity and quantity the tie in space superiority Starfighter is as iconic of an image as the Stormtrooper and Star Destroyer it reflects the Empire's military philosophy and in some ways that ideology I would argue this minimalistic Starfighter was built for two purposes speed and offensive ability the cockpit is one giant spear and serves as a structural point for the two massive solar panels which collect solar radiation supplement onboard fuel tanks the TIE fighter is also equipped with twin ion engines which gives the tie that tell-tale scream which somehow can be heard even in vacuum for offensive firepower the TIE fighter relies on two laser cannons and lacks any larger munitions like concussion missiles or proton torpedoes which actually makes sense considering what the role of this fighter is the TIE fighters were usually based on space stations or starships and mainly served as point defense interceptors this meant going up against rebel star fighters and bombers and at most pirates and frigates and Corvettes which meant laser cannons were usually more than enough given the civilian nature of most of the thrust at the Empire face the TIE fighter usually could handle whatever the galaxy could throw in their way it wasn't until after the destruction of Alderaan that the lines that restore the Republic actually became unified enough to even put together a decent sized fleet so at least in the decades of stability prior to the start of the Galactic Civil War the tie in space superiority Starfighter was more than capable of doing its job eventually though the Rebel Alliance started acquiring larger capital ships and also introducing more versatile snub fighters the tie-in space of ariari Starfighter starts showing signs of weakness for one the fighter lacked the hyperdrive which meant that when a Star Destroyer or carrier entered assistant it took the Empire several minutes to launch their entire complement of Fighters rebel star fighters were almost always equipped with their own hyperdrives and we're usually already deployed and making their first attack runs before the TIE fighters could even launch also whenever the rebel star fighters were overwhelmed by the TIE fighters numbers they could only jump into hyperspace the TIE fighters although incredibly nimble and featuring a very strong spirit cockpit lacked deflector shields which was kind of insane considering how dangerous space travel was especially you consider how much debris is flying around in space a micro asteroid which would harmlessly bounce off an excellent shield potentially pierced the massive front window of a TIE fighter which wasn't as big of a deal as you would think because Tie Fighters also lacked full life-support systems which is why their pilots were always in full spacesuits when piling so they would be ready for explosive decompression of their cockpit but that all adds up to one thing if it's high fighter space station or a carrier is the stored they are stranded in space and if no-one picks them up the most likely died of exposure yet still being a TIE fighter pilot was one of the highest honors and one of the most desired careers within the Imperial Academy in Navy the other position would be being a captain of an imperial class start a story now the Imperial Academy in many ways was structured like the Sith academies of old there were rules and structure lectures and classes just like any other school but there's an underlying kill-or-be-killed mentality amongst the students robberies were just as common as friendships and betrayal and sabotage were also commonplace see only in the top-ranking students would be assigned to more prestigious postings and as we said before the Empire was basically the largest employer in the galaxy so there wasn't a lack of talent and sometimes getting to the top meant even killing or seriously harming another cadet and as long as you weren't caught instructors were willing to look the other way even if you obviously did kill someone so what you are left with was some of the most vicious and competitive individuals in the galaxy vying for only a handful of piloting spots despite how massive the Imperial military was far less than 1% of Cadets ever became TIE fighter pilots for instance an imperial class Star Destroyer has a crew of 28,000 enlisted sailors and 9,000 officers along with usually a legion of stormtroopers out of all those men and women only 150 or so Thai fighter pilot positions were available on board and this is exactly what the Empire wanted they wanted the best of the best piloting these TIE fighters which was kind of ironic because despite all of the resources and time they spent training these pilots the TIE fighters were still basically disposable star fighters and they're pretty easy to die in which is why the Imperial TIE fighter pilot pipeline creates crazy adrenaline junkies that are flying essentially a plywood sphere with lasers on it the Galactic Empire spider pilots are basically Imperial Japanese pilots and the tie in space superiority fighter is the Mitsubishi zero now there's a reason why I spent so much time blathering about the Imperial Academy and the TIE fighter pilot pipeline because this applies that all of the other pilots on this list piloting these various craft they were all pretty much fanatics as the war progressed and the limitations of the tie-in space superiority fighter started showing the Empire started looking into some different variants at the time including the TIE Interceptor like the standard TIE fighter the TIE Interceptor lacked shields hyperdrive and heavy weapons it was also mainly used for point defense interception he said it was a lot better at it it's sublight speed although not quite as fast as a stripped down a wing was close and more importantly along with the two cockpit mounted laser cannons that the standard I had the Interceptor had four additional laser cannons on the wingtips this meant that the Interceptor could pour out a massive amount of firepower and quickly overwhelmed most rebels snub fighters shields within seconds now one of the main tactics that Thai fighter pilots use when going up against rebel ships was by using their numbers to separate and isolate individual rebel fighters and then boxing them out into kill zones the Thai interceptor had three times the amount of firepower as a standard Thai and could pursue rebel snow fighters all by themselves Imperial and Republic military historians agree that had the Interceptor been introduced before the Battle of Yavin it's unlikely that the rebel strike force would have been successful with their mission by the Battle of Endor about 20% of the Imperial Starfighter Corps was made of these interceptors but it still wasn't enough to turn the tide in a galaxy where orbital bombardment and naval blockades in space are a thing ground forces seem less important but at least during the first few decades of imperial rule the Empire was focused more on policing and maintaining stability in its own territory which meant no orbital bombardment with this layer of space combat removed from the equation airpower quickly became an important thing once again the Imperial Army began designing the Thai experimental air superiority fighter otherwise known as the Thai striker in my opinion it's one of the most striking and beautiful variants of the TIE fighter now in most worlds the basic Thai fighter was still used for in atmosphere work but they completely depended on inertial dampeners and thrust the stay in the air as they had the aerodynamic qualities of a flying brick the striker took the solar panels of the standard TIE fighter and oriented them in a way so that they looked more lunch traditional wings that could provide lift the cockpit was also extended backwards to provide more room for passengers or goods the time striker also doubled as a ground attack platform they could drop proton bombs and had four regular lasers along with two heavy laser cannons with its very aerodynamic design the Thai striker could make easy work of any rebel snow fighter even the x-wing when they were fighting in atmosphere the Thai surface assault bomber was an attempt to stretch the TIE fighter platform further than it was supposed to like the rest of the TIE fighters on this list it was designed by seeing our fleet systems instead of having one central pod the Thai bomber had two one pod for an offset cockpit and the other was an ordnance Bay which could hold a variety of weapons including proton torpedoes concussion missiles orbital mines and proton bombs if the Thai bomber could reach its target it could cause a considerable amount of damage but that's a big if because the Thai bomber had all of the TIE fighters weaknesses which meant a lot shields and heavy armor also had very similar powerplant as the TIE fighter which meant that the type armor was slower and less nimble thanks to all the explosives it had to haul around on top of that had a larger profile which made it easier to destroy the Thai bomber was basically a quick fix and bolt design instead of trying to build something from the ground up that was purpose-built for bombing the Imperials cut corners once again this is why the tie bomber was kind of terrible but in the Empire's defense they did have a massive fleet of capital ships which had massive banks of turbolasers which kind of make bombing redundant [Music] another prototype designed the empire created was the tie advanced x1 prototype this was one of the first attempts to create a well rounded ship for the Imperial Navy that I advanced x1 had shielding a class 4 hyperdrive it also had missile launchers along with dual laser cannons its solar panels featured a more efficient and smaller design and created a smaller profile for enemy fighters yet the advanced x1 had a similar flight profile to the other TIE fighters and had the same speed as a TIE Interceptor but ultimately it proved to be far too expensive to mass-produce and only a handful were ever constructed one of them was piloted by Anakin Skywalker during the Battle of Yavin the alternative to the tie advanced x1 program was Grand Admiral Thrawn sty defender program that just quickly realized that the base TIE fighter models was a huge liability for the Empire you believe that the empire needed to create a well-rounded ship that could chase rebels into hyperspace which was one of the main reasons why the empire was failing to defeat the rebels because they kept on escaping the tide offender program sought to create the ultimate multi-purpose fighter disregarding cost and production time resulted was a three wing TIE fighter armed with six heavy laser cannons a tractor beam and concussion missiles and proton torpedoes combined with a classical hyperdrive and heavy shielding the tide defender could easily take on multiple rebel star fighters and come out victorious the six heavy lasers meant the tide defenders offensive output was ridiculous and made shields basically useless ships like the Interceptor and defender were heavily armed for this reason which is also why we see the Rebel Alliance in the later years of the war stripped the shields of their a wings and the armour from the wild wings in exchange for more maneuverability and speed but like the tide bands x1 program the tide defender program was very expensive and it also had to compete with Project Stardust aka the Deaf's R for funding ever some reason the Emperor liked the idea of a second F star more than capable all-purpose fighter so there you have it guys those are some of the fighters that the Imperial Navy use as you can see we have a very different design philosophy this was basically a peacekeeping army that relied on a massive amount of very cheap fighters very different from the specialized snow fighters used by the rebellion well guys I hope you enjoyed today's episode don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification button for so you can stay in tune for the rest of the series as usual thanks for joining us today if you're watching this you our generation tech

Channel: Generation Tech

Views: 236,827

Rating: 4.9472723 out of 5

Keywords: star wars, tie fighter, TIE in space superiority, TIE/IN space superiority fighter, Tie Interceptor, Tie Advanced X1, Tie Defender, Tie defender Advanced, Tie bomber, TIE, tie/sa Bomber, empire vs rebellion, Galactic Empire, TIE stryker, Tie Striker, imperial Navy, Starfighter Corp, IMperial Army, Imperial Academy, Tie Fighter Pilot, Galactic Empire Fighter Pilot, Rebel alliance navy, Xwing, X wing, Y wing, A wing, Death Star, Imperial Class Star Destroyer

Id: qyOH_Ui6niw

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 02 2019