@@ahsenkhan5386actually in the legends continuity the Defender’s factories were targeted during admiral Zaarin’s coup attempt, with little time to accelerate production before the battle of Endor. The Disney continuity has the defender being rolled out nearly a half decade chronologically before it’s legends counterpart. I assume the New continuity uses the excuse of the Defender production facilities on Lothal being lost, along with Thrawn’s absence being the reason the Defender wasn’t pursued instead of the Tarkin Doctrine and the construction of SSDs and a second larger DS.
In legends (the TIE-fighter game and its expansions), the empire designed and built a starfighter specifically to counter TIE defenders that found their way in enemy hands. It was a missile boat with insane firepower, good speed and excellent manoeuvrability.
@@russellharrell2747Yeah if Thrawn had won during the Battle of Lothal I’m sure he would’ve continued to push for the Defender to stay in production and eventually be mass produced. Whether Palpatine would’ve listened to him or not it something else all together lol.
did you make sure you followed all rules and regulations of the unwritten book of standard operating proceedures v6.1.12.r.79.,o9r09jhgm.90dkgn__po3143":"{{} cause without proper authority from the grand brand muff witmoraless of the Grand Counsole of TIE operator's Secret Orders Unions, you must relinquish possion/control/ access to all said TIE fighters of make, model, or class as listed in the standard operating proceedures v6.1.12.r.79.,o9r09jhgm.90dkgn__po3143":"{{} and listed in the office emperial property records, to the proper authorties which you are in such luck as i happen to be one and will gladly forget this oversight if you relinquish that TIE defender to me.
Imagine how powerful the Empire would've been if they hadn't wasted their resources on the Death Stars. The Tie Defender would've have been a great recon and space superiority fighter and would've leveled the playing field possibly forcing the Rebellion completely into hiding.
@@Carrot_attacker88exactly I think a isd or tector as the main firepower a venator for starfighters and a victory 2 class for flanking with some corvettes and some decent frigates or what Evers quick enough would be a disgustingly good fleet
@@Retep86 imagine how much more dominant the navy would be of the empire actually spent time building their army instead of trying to build death stars lmao
@@Retep86 might also be a bit of a stretch but I really think clone commandos and arc troopers should have stayed in circulation, they can lead other special forces troops and they really were some of the finest operators the galaxy saw. However pricey they are I feel that having them would've greatly increased the empires success rate yk instead of building 2 death stars 😅
The F-22 was originally supposed to be manufactured in much larger numbers. Around 700+. But due to budget constraints, conflicts at the time dealing with counter-insurgency, and no real risk of conflicts between major powers, the Obama administration ended up canceling the program. A sad reality of the nature and politics of weapons procurement. And I think banning export hurt its chances for increasing air frames and parts. What you're thinking of would be the NGAD program which would be designed to be highly capable but lower in number.
I think that's one of the reasons I like the TIE Avenger so much. It was on the Andvance hull, so it would be much easier to deploy on ships and bases. The other costs would have occurred with any upgraded fighter.
The Empire didn't need to phase out other bulk TIE patterns, but it certainly should have attached a handful of Defenders to most fleet formations. Save them for appropriate missions, where space superiority is insufficient. The Defender was a space dominance fighter and should have been used as such.
The issue I see with the Defender is it tried to achieve too much in one fighter. Laser cannons, missile launchers, AND ion cannons?! With a hyperdrive and shields?? Strip off the ion cannons, missile launchers, and hyperdrive and there you have a fighter-killer. If ion cannons were really needed for a mission, then they could replace one or two of the four main laser cannons. Admittedly, a TIE with four cannons, shields, and great performance starts to look like an X-Wing without a hyperdrive.
@@isaackim7675 According to the RPG rules any size 5 ship can carry up to 3 size 3 ships if retrofitted with a hangar. Size 5 ships are CR90, Raider corvette and equivalents and most starfighters are size 3. So any black ops/ spec ops unit could field a couple of Defenders for special missions.
That game would have been so much better if you got to fight the rebels as a tie fighter pilot. From what I remember of playing it, it was mostly empire vs empire... which was lame.
I preferred the TIE Advanced. For me the TIE Defender could be a bit too fast/twitchy which didn't help my aim. But then again I was generally quite happy as long as I wasn't flying one of the coffins/unshielded models. The mission where I was sent out in an unshielded TIE to clear a minefield before being attacked by my 'allies' has to be the single worst in game experience for me but it really helped the story along.
@@violetlight1548 In Legends canon, Thrawn did not make the TIE Defender. That was Grand Admiral Zarrin's creation. Thrawn designed the Missile Boat specifically to deal with the rouge TIE/Ds. In current canon (Disney), the Vong aren't yet, (I at all), a thing so he didn't make the TIE/D for dealing with them.
@@grisom5863 The "Chiss" (really the Empire of the Hand's) Clawcraft were pretty much later Legends' substitute for the Defender, and that definitely was made to deal with the Vong. I can't say I blame this change in Mouse Canon -- the Defender is a cooler design.
I still think the TIE Defender is awesome, and it would have been nice to see Thrawn bring it back to the Empire of the Hand in canon - to implement it in an area of the Galaxy where he had complete control and there was no rebel presence to screw things up. I do that in my AU. Most of the Hand's TIEs are Defenders and Interceptors, with the standard TIE being regulated to training models. If you train to not expect your fighter to have shields, you're more likely to be grateful for them. They even re-invented the hyperspace ring and adapted it for TIE use, so no TIE would ever be left behind if their capital ship had to retreat. The Hand does struggle with personnel issues though, so it wants to preserve all the pilots it has. Baron Fel has his own, custom TIE Defender with his signature red paint job. The Hand even fields a TIE Defender demonstration squadron "The Windrunners" (think like the Snowbirds/Blue Angels/etc. Fel's oldest son, Davin, is a member), that performs in airshows around the Empire of the Hand, showing off what the fighter can do.
A Venator loaded up with 100 TIE Defenders and 300 CCN Tri-Fighters would cost 101 million credits (67% of an ISD-1). Nothing short of a super star destroyer could touch it.
AND who is gonna add the additional cost of tie defender maintenance , hiring additional hyper drive engineers , maintainer , etc , their is a reason empire moved away from venator star ship combat type starships , the sheer maintenance of these tie defenders would have run empire hundred of millions of credits over their life time also
@joeykidd8916 The tri-fighters don't have hyperdrives, so you'll need a carrier regardless. Plus, the Venator is nice to have as a turbolaser bank, as well as a carrier for the fighter swarm. No fighter wing could stand against it, and for capital ships, the Venator's turbolasers plus the fighter's proton torpedoes and concussion missiles will make short work of all but the biggest super dreadnoughts.
@arnoldshmitt4969 No different than the other crazy, costly imperial spending projects ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I was thinking more like Thrawn, with this being done as a megaproject instead of the death stars or super dreadnaughts. For the price of the Executor, you could build and equip 3,217 of my "Swarm-Venators." For the price of the Death Star, you could have 9,900 of them! If you want to control the whole galaxy, park a few of these swarm-carriers in each major system and threaten any dissent with orbital bombardment or precision bombing from the heavy fighters' cannons and torpedoes. Use the TIE Defenders as heavy scouts and the Tri-Fighters as your main attack arm. It would work! 😁
@@ajm2872 i understand the Tri-fighters, but shouldn't you use something a little more cost efficient? maybe a Quasar or a Ton-falk? plus, if the TIEs have hyperdrives, then what is the point of the bloated carrier that is the Venator? tbh it would be a better idea to substitute the giant Star Destroyer for something like a Vindicator (with the SPHA-T weapon installed similarly) and then have the smaller carrier for the droids. (edited for clarity)
Having Elsbeth develop the Defender in Tales of the Empire was a mistake since it conflicts with Rebels. They should've had Elsbeth working on something similar that would fill the same role as a development program like the US military does by having companies compete like with Boeing developing the X-32 and Lockheed Martin developing the X-35 to compete for the JSF Program leading to the creation of the F-35 today that we all know and love
The argument for the Tie Defender is that 12 fighters cost around $4M and can eliminate a pirate group while 12 Tie LN cost $800k but must be launched from an ISD that cost $240M credits fully stocked. Not only that it leaves a world vulnerable to insurgents
That's looking at it from a pure tactical perspective. If there's a valuable asset in the system, you don't send an ISD. You send a freighter with a squadron of TIE/LN's and set up a base. This reassures the Imperial loyalists, establishes an Imperial presence (that can be expanded) and allows you to reinforce them whenever it becomes politically advantageous. Meanwhile, the short-ranged fighters can deal with 95 percent of threats, since most pirates and smugglers are stuck with aging, unreliable or straight-out civilian ships. And if the fighters end up destroyed? Hey, then you send more pilots fresh from the Academy, call up Sieniar with a new purchase order (good for their bottom line), and clamp down harder on the civilian population so it looks like the bureaucracy is accomplishing something wash, rinse and repeat.
@@kenle2aging fighters like the rebels Y-Wings and Z-95s. Civilian ships like the Millennium Falcon that are easily modifiable to kill Ties. Bases set up on world that are vulnerable to guerrilla warfare tactics and freighters that were often captured and used against the Empire. Lastly the citizens of an occupied world constantly seeing the Empire being slaughtered defeats The Rule through Fear and Force Projection in the Tarkin Doctorine
@@reginaldshort8486 We only think the civilian ships are "easily modifiable" because we see the Falcon, the Ghost and Luthien's ship accomplish near miracles. If they are like 3 among thousands which can't get the VERY illegal (and probably pretty damn expensive) modifications, then my point still stands. In Rogue One and Rebels we see TIES in larger numbers take out prepared and well flown Alliance fighters by wearing them down. And we see them blast conventional transports apart without much trouble. Yes, over the long-term Palpatine's indifference to starfighter resources was short-sighted and cost the Empire a lot. But he was the one in charge and throwing bodies and credits at problems when you have the Core World's population and ten's of thousands of Outer Rim worlds looted resources available was "good enough" for him; and nobody was going to tell him no. Real-world examples abound.
In Rogue One and Rebels, yes we see it takes a LOT of Ties to wear down Rebel Squadrons, yet also in Rebels we see a single Tie Advanced (Vader's) and a single Tie Defender wipe out Rebels with ease. In Rogue One, by the time the Rebels are leaving Scarif after obtaining the plans, there appears to be no more Ties fighting the Rebel Fleet and it's only Vader's flagship arriving to rip apart the Rebel fleet who were caught off-guard by his arrival. The Imperials lost two ISD's and a Planetary Shield Gate worth of Tie Fighters. But sure, they wore down the Rebel Fleet. If they had Defenders, the Rebel Fleet on Scarif (a place I would reasonably see Defenders being stationed at) would have suffered even greater losses even before the arrival of the Death Star and Vader.
well that makes to much sense. the tie defender would perfect to long range missions look for pirates. the rebels took advantage that ISD could not be everywhere. So most space battles during the galactic civil war were on the fighter and corvette level. Also why the tie defender could change the galactic civil war in empire favor. the empire could afford to lose tie fighters but not supply freighters which rebells like to attack.
I feel like a lot of the technical details are, for the most part, correct. However, one thing the Disney Era never thought to consider was giving the Defender similar status to the Advanced line; a special ship specifically for individuals of import or ace squadrons awarded on grounds of unwavering loyalty. In the Extended Universe, the Advanced X1 was given to more people than just Vader; namely ace pilots and Squadron/Wing leaders.
10:46 Thrawn was too brilliant a strategist to _not_ understand Imperial supply and logistics. That knowledge would be an absolutely _vital_ skill for a Fleet Commander. "Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics." -Omar Bradley General/US Army
Having flown all TIE variants extensively, I can safely say that whilst the TD is superior on paper, in space I've always preferred the TIE Avenger myself. All the advantages of the TD, minus the ion cannons, but making for a much smaller target. I've outflown and killed a full flight of TD's with a single TA on more than one occasion...
No , no , no , the first order should always have the Tie Sf not the tie defenders , because the first order and the sequals and thier resurgent class battlecruisers and stormtroopers are like unknown lookalike copies of Originals , it'd make sense to have another lookalike😂🎉
I can remember back in the day sketching out a dual pod defender that had a the pods in a line instead of side by side like the bomber to facilitate either a bomber pod or rear gunner …. Also made a TIE version of the B wing that had a pod with a cruciform layout of panels on a rotating collar …. The vessel worked like the Tie-D but could be landed like a Bwing …. Its cockpit could handle either a pilot droid (using the chassis of a pit droid) hardwired into the vessels system or be replaced with a scaled down tie pilots couch for diminutive sentients
Ties in ROS had hyperdrives. As for the rebels fleeing with their hyperdrives. Good that the Empire has trackers that work through hyperspace. Thanks, JJ Abrahams and Ryan J. (remember that the Empire Navy does not know what "up" is and that shields "do not work in the atmosphere".
Could have been a smaller number of TIE Defenders supported by larger groups of normal TIEs, like how the US has our stealth F22 and F35s, but with large groups of F16s, F15EX-Eagle IIs, and other craft. Even looking into UAV wingmen for support. Like the Empire with their Defender, it was too expensive even for the US military to have a complete stealth air-force.
I had a Galoob Action Fleet TIE Defender back in the '90s. I also had the E-Wing. They were both impossible to find on the West Coast, so I got a friend on the East Coast to buy and ship them to me. I love the TIE Defender.
It would be cool to see the Tie defender in the live action Thrawn movie. I mean Thrawn is the heir to the Empire (after the death of Palpitine) which means he could definately include this Tie ship into the Imperial fleet.🤞
I'm pretty sure tie pilots being proud of not having shields & thinking it was a testament to their skills, was basically just a massive cope. And probably institutional too, drummed in to them from day 1 of training school.
Maybe the reason for putting super skilled pilots in flying death traps is so you can find the truly exceptional pilots for the advanced fighters. Also, anybody else troubled when they see something like a Y-Wing get destroyed with a single blast? Isn't it supposed to be heavily armored and with a really good shield? If it can be destroyed so easily what's the point of using such a slow ship besides availability.
first of all rebel y wings flew with lower specs to reduce maintenance costs , also y wing was getting outdated even by the end of clone wars , also tie defender packed a punch , eight high power lasers would shread through y wing anyway much less a rebel held junk
Exactly, you can't learn to fly in a TIE-D because it's a tank... In a TIE fighter you roll and turn constantly, most of your flying is defensive interspersed with bursts of fire... The TIE is so fragile that you learn to fly it well by necessity The TIE-D is so beefy you can fly it half asleep with blasters bouncing off your shield, and just focus on damage output. A pilot who learned to dogfight in a TIE becomes a god when placed in a TIE-D A pilot who learned to dogfight in a TIE-D becomes dogmeat when placed in a TIE :)
I've always viewed the TIE/D as a "commander" type of ship. Instead of replacing the whole fleet with Defenders, leave one or two per ISD to lead the fighters/interceptors into battle. Keeps costs down, saves dock space, and still gets the job done.
I saw the defender as the future of the Imperial tie line and even explored that future with a design of my own that swapped the tie ball with the hull of a tie bomber.
I've loved the TIE Defender since the first time I strapped into one for a combat mission back in '94.. Such a marvel of engineering, from our friends over at Sienar Fleet Systems! The only thing that can truly make it ineffective, is plot armor...
I am pretty sure that the Advanced TIE Fighter, or the TIE Avenger, was the first mass produced TIE that had shields. It is correct that replacing every TIE Fighter with a TIE Defender would have been absurdly costly and not needed at all. Remember, the overwhelming majority of TIE Fighter pilots never even saw an X-Wing, much less engaged it in combat. Most of them only ever engaged alien planetary defense forces, or smugglers, or pirates ... whose starfighters were either old, or inferior, or both, when compared to the TIE Fighter. Thrawn didn't want the TIE Defender because he wanted it to replace all the TIE Fighters. He was much smarter than that. He wanted it so he could fight and destroy the Rebel Alliance using their own tactics against them.
Star wars takes examples from our military history. Case in point the T-34 and the sherman. They were like TIE fighters in that they were on the production line already and were adequate for their intended role. When they became outclassed by the psnther they kept producing them. New designs would take time, resources, new tooling, and manufacturing space. In the US case they have to be shipped.
"that they were on the production line already" The first pre-Sherman T6 prototype was finished September 2nd 1941 and first M4 Sherman was produced in February 1942. While the early A-20 and A-32 prototypes for T-34 were designed and built in 1938/1939, followed by the first T-34 prototypes finished in January 1940 and after extensive testing and fixing anything that didn't work well enough, production started in September 1940.
The Sherman was constantly improved throughout the war and I'd wager that the E8 76mm variant was actually better than the panther. The Sherman had it's teething issues figured out by then and had a lot of soft factor advantages and reliability that the panther never had.
@@BullMooseFox "and I'd wager that the E8 76mm variant was actually better than the panther" Heck no! Sure, during the first 5-8 months of service, the E8 would have a major advantage in reliability, but after that, the Panther wasn't actually unreliable. And while E8 upgrade was good, a low 30s ton tank simply cannot compete with a mid 40s ton tank that is also more advanced, even if not greatly so any more. Armor and firepower in particular, there's just no fair comparison to be made. One of the things the 75L70 on the Panther was created to deal with was things like the KV-series of tanks, with drastically thicker armor. While the Panther's armor was based on being reliable against Soviet med vel 76mm (like T-34s F-34 76L43 gun) guns, as well as at least resistant against the high velocity 57mm or 85mm AT guns. The Sherman 76mm is better than the F-34, fairly comparable to the 57L73 ZIS-4 against tanks, but it doesn't come anywhere near the 85L55 D-5T or ZIS-S-53 that was on the T-34/85, or the original M1939 AA/TD gun. The silhouette of the Sherman also remains its biggest weakness, it's basically as easy to spot and aim at as the Panther despite over 10 ton difference in weight. Also, while the Panther didn't have the exceptional optics of the Tiger, its optics was still clearly superior to that of the Sherman, with the possible exception of some of the post-WWII upgrades. So no, while a Sherman E8 will certainly have a chance against a Panther, it's NOT a matchup any commander would want to see or experience on the wrong side. Despite all the talk, the Panther was a VERY good tank overall.
@@DIREWOLFx75 All that was impressive. Know what's more impressive? The U.S. built more Shermans during the war than the Entire German production of EVERY TANK TYPE IN THE WERMACHT. Marks I through VI and all the "Specials". We'll just take the win and quietly smile.
@@kenle2 "We'll just take the win and quietly smile." So, you're happy about how the bad sides of the Sherman meant a lot of people died for no good reason? That it prolonged the war. Compare to the T-44, which was designed based on just slightly more experience than the Sherman. It's lighter, yet has twice as good armor, has better mobility, either the decent 85mm gun same as T-34, or the later, vastly superior 100mm gun. That's the level of quality that the Sherman COULD have reached for. And it could have completely outclassed pretty much every tank the Germans ever built.
The thing is, a lot of the problems you mention had easy workarounds. The cost of the blasters could be solved by just using the standard blasters of the other Tie Fighters. Sure it wouldn't be the super-duper ones, but it would still have 6 more than the regular TIEs. No need to change that supply chain. Also, just upgrade all of the TIEs to the new engines, making that supply chain simpler also. The only system they would really need to remove for simplicity would be the missile launchers. As for the hangar issue, just hang them wingtip down like bats, or the Starfuries from Babylon5. Sure, it will still eat into the space, but not as badly as trying to hangar them like the other TIEs.
The 3 things he forgot to mention about the Tie Defender: (1) It used about 75% of fuel compared to a regular Tie fighter but it also lasted 5 times as long. (2) It could both release fuel and inject fuel 2 to 3 times faster than any regular Tie fighter. (3) The guns took 4 to 8 times longer to overheat in atmosphere fighting compared to a regular Tie Fighter.
The third foil would have been a problem for hangar storage, but this thing never made it out of the prototype stage. I could see the top foil being reconfigured so it could retract backward and allow it for storage along with other TIE fighters (similar to how the US Navy stores its own aircraft on carriers). And just having two of those aboard would be a game changer. We've seen the 60,000 credit a piece TIE fighter succeed in point defense but fail spectacularly at offense. Trade in 10 regular fighters for 2 defenders per ship, that still leaves each ISD with 38 TIE Fighters plus their complement 12 TIE Interceptors. The quicker and deadlier Defender would be used to hunt and kill high value targets that can't be allowed to escape. The launchers are a nice addition but the real selling point are those EIGHT cannons, shields, and speed. In short you still have the intimidating swarm but also cripple the rebel's ability to easily escape the slower moving ISDs and ineffective regular TIEs, or at the very minimum force the rebels into accepting the fact that outrunning and ISD is no longer a high likelihood. Having them face that reality would mean there's a lot less space to safely transport VIP personnel or high value assets from place to place in the galaxy. The math works and that one small change to its foil design would've made a drastic impact in the Imperial Navy's capabilities.
@@isaackim7675how about few lambdas and a sentinel in the middle of that formation as tie reaper would ofcourse carry death troopers or other imperial spec ops forces commandos
I think it was actually cheaper than my actual favorite ship, the Aurek-Class Tactical Strikefighter. Last I heard the Aurek was 350,000 credits while the TIE Defender was only 300,000. Huh. I bet the Aurek would be cheaper with modern logistics and construction capabilities.
Consider the following: TIE Defender made by the Chiss with Geonoshian ship tech, and remotely piloted by a droid-live pilot team per ship. So a Claw Craft Defender with no human element ON board, but still at the controls, with the added benefit of a droid co-pilot, plus the Geonoshian ships had amazing maneuvering capabilities (look it up, it's interesting tech lore!)
In universe I think the Defender makes good sense. As a fan though I hate it. It's the kindergarten kid-who-can't-lose of ships - _My starfighter has five times the firepower of a TIE fighter, powerful shields, fast hyperdrive, AND carries missiles. And with all that extra weight, it's still faster than a TIE interceptor. Oh, and it has longer range too._
I just think of it as a product hampered by economies of scale. The Defender is like buying a performance car vs multiple sedans. The performance car absolutely will out perform the sedan in every way, except, the amount of people transported from A to B in a limited amount of time, for the same budget. The rebels couldn't afford supercar level fighters, and the empire couldn't fit tens or hundreds of thousands of tie fighters that way either. You do outfit your top squadrons with them or special task squadrons. It's also why you always see the villains driving the custom looking ships when everyone else is shuttles, fighters, and destroyers, etc. Standardization. In that mindset, the Defender was just someone doing what Dubai did with their police force and gave them supercars.
@@ubentobox Except that the X-Wing was canonically an advanced prototype that used a bunch of expensive composites and stuff, and was the most advanced fighter in the galaxy when it went into production. Beating that in some aspects should have come with design tradeoffs, but the Defender simply doesn't make any of those. (Notably, supercars inhale gas. The Defender somehow uses *less.*)
The X-Wing was built by Incom who had limited resources due to them not working with the Empire. It has the best overall balance of features vs cost and logistics. TIE Defender, while having better speed and range, has three huge weaknesses. The initial cost investment, the cost of parts, and the difficulty of training pilots on using all of its arsenal effectively. Later in the era, the B-Wing is an example of a starfighter that matches it in complexity.
Ehh. It's like the F16 vs the F22. The F22 is literally better in every way performance wise. Stupidly so. But the AF still operates a lot of F16s. Much more than F22s.
I remember piloting the TIE Defender playing TIE Fighter way back in the 90’s on Windows 95. It was so bad ass! I made sure I accomplished every objective from every list and earned every award and achievement there was to attain. If you accomplished enough secret tasks, it shows an alternate scene from The Empire Strikes Back of Luke being killed by Palpatine’s Force Lightning. I was loving the fact that I was getting to change the outcome of the Galactic Civil War and have the Empire emerge victorious. I was the Emperor’s super secret hand that Mara Jade was unaware of. I even got to kill Akbar and Wedge Antilles!
Even having just a Squadron attached to a battlegroup would have been a game changer, but much like the F22 it's definitely a specialist fighter. Strangely both the Imperial Remnant in Legends and First Order were able to massively improve on the TIE Fighter frame after Endor without having to make drastic alterations (laziness by designers aside) with additions deflector shields, missile launchers and occasionally hyperdrives.
First time I've heard ever of this type of fighter was in Star Wars Rogue Squadron for the N64 at the last campigan mission with Wedge and the World Devastators. The newly reformed Rogue Squadron was flying the newest V-wing type fighter. Those TIE Defenders roasted my squadron except when using guided torpedoes and rapid fire mode. They made me mad so many times!!!
The TIE Defender literally exists because a game designer decided that they needed something even more OP than the TIE Advanced/TIE Avenger for an expansion, and enough people bought into the power fantasy to give it traction even when canonical sources toned it down to something that was actually sane (the ingame TIE Defender beat or matched every fighter in the movies in their own speciality - faster than an A-Wing, more agile than a TIE Interceptor, as many guns and more overall durability than the B-Wing - apart from warhead capacity). The Avenger was, IMO, cooler, and it would have still fit into the standard racks!
In reality, it's a mix of fightes that works the best, we have f-22s and f-35s, but we also f-16, which which are cheaper than f-15s and new f-15exs which are cheaper than f-35s. ! squadron of defenders, 2 of interceptors, 2 of regular, and 1 bomber squadron. the tie defender can carrey missiles and torpedeos so it can take some of the attack role of the bombers.
In the real world, the Air Force is trying to maximize the effectiveness of the Force, and the current theory is to use the F-22's as interceptors against the top line enemy fighters - killing them before they can spot you with Stealth tech. The F-35's go in, also with Stealth, and take out the high value ground targets. Meanwhile, the F-15EX's loiter outside the enemy radar range, loaded with a much higher payload of weaponry than the Stealth fighters can carry internally and stay stealthy. They have the capability to "piggy-back" on the Stealth fighters targeting systems, so they can fire from outside the enemy's detection zone and still hit the targets they can't "see" on their own. Then when the radar is taken out, they can make more conventional attacks and save the Stealth planes from wasting their flight hours.
I think a special ship meant for a squad of tie defenders would have been lethal. Like a small ship that could rapidly deploy to areas of resistance and take them down. It would also work well for taking down pirates.
I'm personally a big fan of the Alpha class star wing (aka Assault Gunboat) and it's successive development the missile boat. Among the TIEs, perhaps the mass production TIE Advanced is a better balance for the Empire, or even augmenting the fleet with systems developed from the Defender project.
The TIE defender (or TIE advanced) would be great to have jump ahead of the capital ships with the capital ships arriving a few minutes into a battle and dropping regular TIEs to reinforce the defenders.
Best fighter hands down. They might have offset the costs if they'd gone with it instead of SSDs, but with their current planning, yeah, I can see why it wouldn't work. Though they could sell the eyeballs to lesser corporations and augment the squadron of trips with squints....
My all-time favorite Star Wars game was Star Wars: Rebellion, which was a strategy game that in my opinion was much better than the "sequel" Empire at War. The TIE Defender was indeed a very expensive replacement for the TIE Fighter, but I figured out early on playing as the Empire that if you simply replace TIE Fighters with Defenders then you're doing it wrong. You can't afford that. What does work (and I think would have made sense for the Empire to do if it were a real thing) is to lessen the focus on major capital ships which are incredibly expensive to build and maintain and instead focus on carriers and TIE Defenders. It's very similar to the trajectory navies ended up taking during WWII leading up to today's naval warfare with lots of aircraft and missiles and not so many big ships with big guns. In SW: Rebellion, you could build fleets of a single Star Destroyer, some carriers and fast frigates and then as many TIE Defenders as you could fit for the price of a more ship heavy fleet and actually do more efficient damage. That's how good a TIE Defender (or any complete fighter-attack craft) can be. I'd often get into battles where my one capital ship barely engaged by the time the Defenders had wiped out the enemy X and A wings and were working on the Rebellion's capital ships. So yeah, not cost effective for a 1 to 1 replacement. But definitely cost effective to replace a capital ship focus.
Excellent! Now, let's see the TIE Phantom. Do we know how ( as in what parts, ect ), and where they were manufactured. I'd imagine the Mid Rim or the Core Regions? Anyways, awesome video.
a lot of the issues with the tie defender couldve be resolved with some minor design changes. eliminate the third wing, which does sacrifice atmospheric maneuverability, but also lets you use the existing infrastructure. theres actually tie bomber and tie interceptor variants that used those concussion missiles, so the empire was already producing them, but remove the proton torps. that alone should cut a lot of costs out because youre also removing some of the weapons. if the cannons are powerful enought to take out a y wing through its shields in one go then its fine to lose two of them. speaking of shields: your pilots are already some of the best in the galaxy without them so just use weaker shields like the rebels did with the a wings. sure, its not as strong as an x wings shields, but it gives your pilots just that much more of an edge that might be enough. your infrastructure is already designed around the carrier philosophy so instead of giving them a type 1 or 2 hyperdrive (where i assume most of the sunk cost is) give them a back up hyper drive for use in emergencies to limp to the nearest habitable planet to await recovery and rescue.. that alone would improve pilot retention and survivability in the galactic civil war. what youre left with is essentially a faster, more powerful, shielded, hyperdriven, and more agile tie interceptor.
True there was still many ways that this fighter coulda been pushed further whether it b in Legends or D. Canon. Had the Empire been better managed they could’ve got the end result of the Chiss Clawcraft
I am an old gamer so we view the Dee from different description Eras (the TIE fighter/Xwing series) yep a very expensive piece of hardware. Operation wise too expensive for mass deployment but awesome for deepstrike, special operations and deep cover defense. The elite if the elite... even the v38 or the Avenger (TIE game series) would be cheaper to deploy in larger numbers. Our differences in stats will be the blame of Disney vs Lucasgames... the Dee I know and happily "flew" could drop 8 to 12 Xwings singly and maybe 4 to 6 Awings depending who was flying (average pilot not a superace)
As well as the Defender, a pragmatic Empire should have equipped the Tie Interceptor with shields and made it a far more survivable fighter. The Interceptor is for base and capital ship defence and screening, and ironically the Defenders get used for hunter/killer teams. Ideally a lower cost non hyperdrive equipped Tie Defender variant that could still fit in standard Tie racks should have become the standard snubfighter. Building up the Interceptor platform with components from the Defender, borrowing from that program. But without the compact hyperdrive it would be a lot cheaper, and the weight and space savings could be used for more ordinance. That way the detuned Defender-lite can do double duty as light bombers.
The TIE Defender has probably been my favorite Star Wars fighter for entire time it has existed. It's a little sad that reeks of being an uptuned gimmick ship from a video game, never intended for player use, which it is, but I love it. There are a couple of other TIE variations that I'm fond of, like the Hunter my elite NPC squad flies for RPG use, but I only picked that because, even in verse, the Defender is just so silly, and it's nice to always know that, if I were running for unusually high-level players, I'd still have one option above it to grab. The only ships I like as much as the Defender are the Legacy Predator, and Twintail, and the TIE Silencer, which is one of the very few things I like from the sequel trilogy, and most of these seem to have Ben made specifically to be improved off of the Defender, using time since it would have been built. I entirely agree that they are prohibitively overcosted, and that the Empire would never want to replace ALL of their Fighters, or upgrade every ship to stow them, but an advancing Empire should have been rolling out incrementally better Star Destroyers, and giving at least some of them, or maybe the Star Dreadnoughts, Defender compliments, for important sorties. Manpower was rarely the Empire's shortcoming; they had people, the military was a wonderful way to indoctrinate many of the best, and brightest, of the next generation; keep them surveiled, and dead men don't betray to the Rebels, so I can see using throngs of lesser ships, each mostly tethered to their command craft, but there should have been varied elements, and I still feel like the Defender could have played a role there.
Never thought about it, but you're right. The Empire definitely had a Mafia type substructure. Big fan of Thrawn and the TIE Defender. Should have forgot about all those stupid terror weapons and just made a LOT of TIE Defenders and other things, like better blasters.
I'm still a fan of the A-wing!.. would be cool to see a video of A-wing vs TIE/D... My credits are on the A wing.. pesky and fast , but I will admit if the pilot was suffering from a flu ... tied could get lucky! 😊
Also makes me wonder, why didn't the Empire use A-wings??? Why did they settle with inferior tech?... perhaps this would be a compelling video as well 😊
I know that the cost per fighter was a lot, but that is also because it was being produced in small quantities. If they mass produced the defender the same way they did the regular TIE Fighter, it would likely be much cheaper.
Empire definitely didn’t have to mass produce these to the scale of the standard tie nor tie interceptor. Could be used for special operations missions taking advantsge of its armament and hyper drive capability.
the one problem is that the costs you suggest many are only the initial cost once you have everything set up for defenders a lot of those costs go away but you have a point the biggest issue is training but that goes hand in hand with the cheap fighter and swarm tactic -less training for the support staff. overall i think if they hadn't wasted money which is the real problem on star destroyers and other big vanity projects like the death star they could have build a better more flexible fleet.
I was a little disappointed you didn't also cover the very real likelihood of the Tie Defender enabling defections from the imperial fighter corps, we can see it in an episode of rebels where wedge and another pilot defect that this was a real issue. I believe there was some mention in lore, though I can't remember where, that highly capable starfighter pilots also have a high tendency for independence streaks making them less loyal to the empire. One can imagine that if following the idea that the best pilots get these high performance starfighters, a decent number of them will use the on board hyperdrive to defect more easily, then the rebel alliance has it and a good pilot with a plan that pretty much boils down to "hyperspace jump to us alone, let our technicians smash any imperial tracking device or equipment lock"
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. A wings, b wings, and u wing were relatively expensive compared to the y wings, x wings and republic era crafts that the rebellion first used. But they didn’t refuse to use them because it was too expensive or would take a lot of infrastructure or setup. They simply just used as much as they could. The defender could’ve been adopted in smaller numbers to fulfill a specific role. Hit and run type tactics, or even being stored on a smaller carrier that has extreme sensors and engines designed to police the galaxy better than a star destroyer.
Many of the Tie Fighters problems could have been solved with an upgrade package. Slap on shields and those more powerful laser cannons at the cost of a bit of speed and you have a massively improved fighter that only costs a bit more. There’s no reason for a mass produced Defender to exist with all those features, it’s like Thrawn was trying to mass produce a technology test bed, not a legitimate vehicle prototype.
The Tie Defender is awesome in the Tie Fighter games. Concord or the SR71 (also in terms of cost and running). But...but...it really pushes the limit of what a single pilot can do: radar, F/R shields, 2x energy weapons, missiles and (later) a tractor beam - and it is going really, really fast. I often considered why in universe - nod to the practical reasons in a DOS game on floppy disks - why it didn't have a 'weapons officer' similar to the ROI (Goose from TopGun) as the F16 'Tomcats' or Apache Helios have. Cost again?
To his point at the end of the video, imagine a small group of 25-50 at Endor. The rebels may not have been able to speed past them or outmaneuver them into the Death Star II. There are two or three places in the movie where the normal ties can't handle as well as the a and x wings and crash inside the Death Star. 25-50 defenders would have been able to take them out and also helped balance, in conjunction with the rest to the fleet, the rebellion's straighter advantage. There were more normal TIEs than rebel ships, but a handful could have shifted that balance.I think using them in a set-piece trap like Endor would have been nearly perfect for the skill set of the defender.
I do like the idea of using the Tie Defender in limited quantities as a way of chasing the Rebels. Yes, the Empire could have continued using the standard Tie model as quantity is a quality of its own. However, as mentioned, the Tie Defender can stand its own ground and give the Rebellion a run for their money.
I don't think huge production numbers of the Defender were necessary. But, having a squadron of your best pilots per Star Destroyer in Defenders could be a great way to keep costs minimal, but extending the capabilities and better protecting HVTs. For something as large as the Death Stars, having a wing of Defenders could have prevented both of the Rebel victories.
Quality vs Quantity, whichever gets the job done. Though for quantity, I'd invest in legions of Battle Droids. And for quality, I'd invest in the TIE Defender.
The Tie Defender is the best tie fighter hands down. Wish we saw more use of them during the Galactic Civil War era. Love this ship!
It couldn't because it was too expensive
@@ahsenkhan5386actually in the legends continuity the Defender’s factories were targeted during admiral Zaarin’s coup attempt, with little time to accelerate production before the battle of Endor. The Disney continuity has the defender being rolled out nearly a half decade chronologically before it’s legends counterpart. I assume the New continuity uses the excuse of the Defender production facilities on Lothal being lost, along with Thrawn’s absence being the reason the Defender wasn’t pursued instead of the Tarkin Doctrine and the construction of SSDs and a second larger DS.
When force awakens came out I was seriously expecting to see tie defenders. Lol disappointed
In legends (the TIE-fighter game and its expansions), the empire designed and built a starfighter specifically to counter TIE defenders that found their way in enemy hands. It was a missile boat with insane firepower, good speed and excellent manoeuvrability.
@@russellharrell2747Yeah if Thrawn had won during the Battle of Lothal I’m sure he would’ve continued to push for the Defender to stay in production and eventually be mass produced. Whether Palpatine would’ve listened to him or not it something else all together lol.
I have a 3D printed model of the TIE Defender, earned mine as a member of The Secret Order in TIE Fighter.
The Emperor’s Reach salutes you.
That was an awesome game. Where did you find the file, wouldn't mind one myself.
@@blackc1479 I think I found it on Thingieverse, but it was a couple of years ago.
did you make sure you followed all rules and regulations of the unwritten book of standard operating proceedures v6.1.12.r.79.,o9r09jhgm.90dkgn__po3143":"{{} cause without proper authority from the grand brand muff witmoraless of the Grand Counsole of TIE operator's Secret Orders Unions, you must relinquish possion/control/ access to all said TIE fighters of make, model, or class as listed in the standard operating proceedures v6.1.12.r.79.,o9r09jhgm.90dkgn__po3143":"{{} and listed in the office emperial property records, to the proper authorties which you are in such luck as i happen to be one and will gladly forget this oversight if you relinquish that TIE defender to me.
Great work, Alpha 1! Secret mission objectives complete! The Emperor will be pleased!
Imagine how powerful the Empire would've been if they hadn't wasted their resources on the Death Stars.
The Tie Defender would've have been a great recon and space superiority fighter and would've leveled the playing field possibly forcing the Rebellion completely into hiding.
And if they kept venators, using them to support the ISDs
@@Carrot_attacker88exactly I think a isd or tector as the main firepower a venator for starfighters and a victory 2 class for flanking with some corvettes and some decent frigates or what Evers quick enough would be a disgustingly good fleet
@@Retep86 imagine how much more dominant the navy would be of the empire actually spent time building their army instead of trying to build death stars lmao
@@Carrot_attacker88 yeah that and training officers differently rather than prioritising profit.
@@Retep86 might also be a bit of a stretch but I really think clone commandos and arc troopers should have stayed in circulation, they can lead other special forces troops and they really were some of the finest operators the galaxy saw. However pricey they are I feel that having them would've greatly increased the empires success rate yk instead of building 2 death stars 😅
They should have built a limited number of
Squadrons for special forces. Like the f22 used sparingly
Same
The F-22 was originally supposed to be manufactured in much larger numbers. Around 700+. But due to budget constraints, conflicts at the time dealing with counter-insurgency, and no real risk of conflicts between major powers, the Obama administration ended up canceling the program. A sad reality of the nature and politics of weapons procurement.
And I think banning export hurt its chances for increasing air frames and parts.
What you're thinking of would be the NGAD program which would be designed to be highly capable but lower in number.
@@grisom5863 exactly my point
I think that's one of the reasons I like the TIE Avenger so much. It was on the Andvance hull, so it would be much easier to deploy on ships and bases. The other costs would have occurred with any upgraded fighter.
The Empire didn't need to phase out other bulk TIE patterns, but it certainly should have attached a handful of Defenders to most fleet formations. Save them for appropriate missions, where space superiority is insufficient. The Defender was a space dominance fighter and should have been used as such.
they did need to replace the TIE/LN with the TIE/IN and probably should have added atleast a wing level shields to all their TIEs
They were replacing Fighter with Interceptor when Eldor happened.
TIE Interceptor is capable of killing any Rebel Starfighter
Treat it like the F22
The issue I see with the Defender is it tried to achieve too much in one fighter.
Laser cannons, missile launchers, AND ion cannons?! With a hyperdrive and shields??
Strip off the ion cannons, missile launchers, and hyperdrive and there you have a fighter-killer.
If ion cannons were really needed for a mission, then they could replace one or two of the four main laser cannons.
Admittedly, a TIE with four cannons, shields, and great performance starts to look like an X-Wing without a hyperdrive.
@@Talon19
U are talking about shielded TIE Interceptor then.
U know a fighter good when the Chiss take the ships specs and evolve it further to their own fighter with the Clawcraft
I’m already picturing a TIE Reaper being flanked by two TIE Defenders into a Light Carrier
@@isaackim7675 According to the RPG rules any size 5 ship can carry up to 3 size 3 ships if retrofitted with a hangar. Size 5 ships are CR90, Raider corvette and equivalents and most starfighters are size 3. So any black ops/ spec ops unit could field a couple of Defenders for special missions.
Cool idea
In the TIE Fighter game, I loved flying the TIE Defender. It was the best!
That game would have been so much better if you got to fight the rebels as a tie fighter pilot. From what I remember of playing it, it was mostly empire vs empire... which was lame.
@@14armaYeah, but you do get to blow up the Independence at one point, which makes up for a bit.
I preferred the TIE Advanced. For me the TIE Defender could be a bit too fast/twitchy which didn't help my aim. But then again I was generally quite happy as long as I wasn't flying one of the coffins/unshielded models. The mission where I was sent out in an unshielded TIE to clear a minefield before being attacked by my 'allies' has to be the single worst in game experience for me but it really helped the story along.
@@14arma errr I remember fighting more Rebels that Empire tbh, those damned annoying A-Wing's!
Thrawn's TIE Defender was developed not only to take on the Rebels, but more importantly the Grysks.
Or the Vong. Grysts are the dollar store version.
@@violetlight1548
In Legends canon, Thrawn did not make the TIE Defender. That was Grand Admiral Zarrin's creation. Thrawn designed the Missile Boat specifically to deal with the rouge TIE/Ds.
In current canon (Disney), the Vong aren't yet, (I at all), a thing so he didn't make the TIE/D for dealing with them.
@@grisom5863 The "Chiss" (really the Empire of the Hand's) Clawcraft were pretty much later Legends' substitute for the Defender, and that definitely was made to deal with the Vong. I can't say I blame this change in Mouse Canon -- the Defender is a cooler design.
dave will do thrawn a disservice by not having thrawn fight grysk on screen......
I still think the TIE Defender is awesome, and it would have been nice to see Thrawn bring it back to the Empire of the Hand in canon - to implement it in an area of the Galaxy where he had complete control and there was no rebel presence to screw things up.
I do that in my AU. Most of the Hand's TIEs are Defenders and Interceptors, with the standard TIE being regulated to training models. If you train to not expect your fighter to have shields, you're more likely to be grateful for them. They even re-invented the hyperspace ring and adapted it for TIE use, so no TIE would ever be left behind if their capital ship had to retreat. The Hand does struggle with personnel issues though, so it wants to preserve all the pilots it has. Baron Fel has his own, custom TIE Defender with his signature red paint job. The Hand even fields a TIE Defender demonstration squadron "The Windrunners" (think like the Snowbirds/Blue Angels/etc. Fel's oldest son, Davin, is a member), that performs in airshows around the Empire of the Hand, showing off what the fighter can do.
TIE Defender might have been ridiculously expensive but was it worth it? Totally.
Definitely worth more than the god damn death stars.
A Venator loaded up with 100 TIE Defenders and 300 CCN Tri-Fighters would cost 101 million credits (67% of an ISD-1). Nothing short of a super star destroyer could touch it.
AND who is gonna add the additional cost of tie defender maintenance , hiring additional hyper drive engineers , maintainer , etc , their is a reason empire moved away from venator star ship combat type starships , the sheer maintenance of these tie defenders would have run empire hundred of millions of credits over their life time also
why would you need the Venator tho? The TIE/Ds have hyperdrives, do they not?
@joeykidd8916 The tri-fighters don't have hyperdrives, so you'll need a carrier regardless. Plus, the Venator is nice to have as a turbolaser bank, as well as a carrier for the fighter swarm. No fighter wing could stand against it, and for capital ships, the Venator's turbolasers plus the fighter's proton torpedoes and concussion missiles will make short work of all but the biggest super dreadnoughts.
@arnoldshmitt4969 No different than the other crazy, costly imperial spending projects ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I was thinking more like Thrawn, with this being done as a megaproject instead of the death stars or super dreadnaughts. For the price of the Executor, you could build and equip 3,217 of my "Swarm-Venators." For the price of the Death Star, you could have 9,900 of them! If you want to control the whole galaxy, park a few of these swarm-carriers in each major system and threaten any dissent with orbital bombardment or precision bombing from the heavy fighters' cannons and torpedoes. Use the TIE Defenders as heavy scouts and the Tri-Fighters as your main attack arm. It would work! 😁
@@ajm2872 i understand the Tri-fighters, but shouldn't you use something a little more cost efficient? maybe a Quasar or a Ton-falk? plus, if the TIEs have hyperdrives, then what is the point of the bloated carrier that is the Venator? tbh it would be a better idea to substitute the giant Star Destroyer for something like a Vindicator (with the SPHA-T weapon installed similarly) and then have the smaller carrier for the droids.
(edited for clarity)
How many other lies have I been told by the council?
That's not spam they're serving in the lunch hall it's ewok..
@@debelmeis2311Don't let the Ewok chefs fool you. They know how to prepare it best
have you heard the tragedy of darth plagueis the wise?
Murder bear
Having Elsbeth develop the Defender in Tales of the Empire was a mistake since it conflicts with Rebels. They should've had Elsbeth working on something similar that would fill the same role as a development program like the US military does by having companies compete like with Boeing developing the X-32 and Lockheed Martin developing the X-35 to compete for the JSF Program leading to the creation of the F-35 today that we all know and love
The argument for the Tie Defender is that 12 fighters cost around $4M and can eliminate a pirate group while 12 Tie LN cost $800k but must be launched from an ISD that cost $240M credits fully stocked. Not only that it leaves a world vulnerable to insurgents
That's looking at it from a pure tactical perspective.
If there's a valuable asset in the system, you don't send an ISD.
You send a freighter with a squadron of TIE/LN's and set up a base. This reassures the Imperial loyalists, establishes an Imperial presence (that can be expanded) and allows you to reinforce them whenever it becomes politically advantageous.
Meanwhile, the short-ranged fighters can deal with 95 percent of threats, since most pirates and smugglers are stuck with aging, unreliable or straight-out civilian ships.
And if the fighters end up destroyed?
Hey, then you send more pilots fresh from the Academy, call up Sieniar with a new purchase order (good for their bottom line), and clamp down harder on the civilian population so it looks like the bureaucracy is accomplishing something wash, rinse and repeat.
@@kenle2aging fighters like the rebels Y-Wings and Z-95s. Civilian ships like the Millennium Falcon that are easily modifiable to kill Ties. Bases set up on world that are vulnerable to guerrilla warfare tactics and freighters that were often captured and used against the Empire. Lastly the citizens of an occupied world constantly seeing the Empire being slaughtered defeats The Rule through Fear and Force Projection in the Tarkin Doctorine
@@reginaldshort8486 We only think the civilian ships are "easily modifiable" because we see the Falcon, the Ghost and Luthien's ship accomplish near miracles. If they are like 3 among thousands which can't get the VERY illegal (and probably pretty damn expensive) modifications, then my point still stands.
In Rogue One and Rebels we see TIES in larger numbers take out prepared and well flown Alliance fighters by wearing them down. And we see them blast conventional transports apart without much trouble.
Yes, over the long-term Palpatine's indifference to starfighter resources was short-sighted and cost the Empire a lot. But he was the one in charge and throwing bodies and credits at problems when you have the Core World's population and ten's of thousands of Outer Rim worlds looted resources available was "good enough" for him; and nobody was going to tell him no.
Real-world examples abound.
In Rogue One and Rebels, yes we see it takes a LOT of Ties to wear down Rebel Squadrons, yet also in Rebels we see a single Tie Advanced (Vader's) and a single Tie Defender wipe out Rebels with ease.
In Rogue One, by the time the Rebels are leaving Scarif after obtaining the plans, there appears to be no more Ties fighting the Rebel Fleet and it's only Vader's flagship arriving to rip apart the Rebel fleet who were caught off-guard by his arrival.
The Imperials lost two ISD's and a Planetary Shield Gate worth of Tie Fighters. But sure, they wore down the Rebel Fleet.
If they had Defenders, the Rebel Fleet on Scarif (a place I would reasonably see Defenders being stationed at) would have suffered even greater losses even before the arrival of the Death Star and Vader.
well that makes to much sense. the tie defender would perfect to long range missions look for pirates. the rebels took advantage that ISD could not be everywhere. So most space battles during the galactic civil war were on the fighter and corvette level. Also why the tie defender could change the galactic civil war in empire favor. the empire could afford to lose tie fighters but not supply freighters which rebells like to attack.
I feel like a lot of the technical details are, for the most part, correct. However, one thing the Disney Era never thought to consider was giving the Defender similar status to the Advanced line; a special ship specifically for individuals of import or ace squadrons awarded on grounds of unwavering loyalty. In the Extended Universe, the Advanced X1 was given to more people than just Vader; namely ace pilots and Squadron/Wing leaders.
There is a lot the Disney era never thought to consider
10:46 Thrawn was too brilliant a strategist to _not_ understand Imperial supply and logistics. That knowledge would be an absolutely _vital_ skill for a Fleet Commander.
"Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics."
-Omar Bradley
General/US Army
Having flown all TIE variants extensively, I can safely say that whilst the TD is superior on paper, in space I've always preferred the TIE Avenger myself.
All the advantages of the TD, minus the ion cannons, but making for a much smaller target. I've outflown and killed a full flight of TD's with a single TA on more than one occasion...
Stop remastering war craft and star craft and give us a genuine TieFighter game remaster am I right?
The TIE/D Defender or even the Interceptor should have been the basis of the First Order Navy, not the H Unown lookalike TIE.
No , no , no , the first order should always have the Tie Sf not the tie defenders , because the first order and the sequals and thier resurgent class battlecruisers and stormtroopers are like unknown lookalike copies of Originals , it'd make sense to have another lookalike😂🎉
I can remember back in the day sketching out a dual pod defender that had a the pods in a line instead of side by side like the bomber to facilitate either a bomber pod or rear gunner …. Also made a TIE version of the B wing that had a pod with a cruciform layout of panels on a rotating collar …. The vessel worked like the Tie-D but could be landed like a Bwing …. Its cockpit could handle either a pilot droid (using the chassis of a pit droid) hardwired into the vessels system or be replaced with a scaled down tie pilots couch for diminutive sentients
Agreed
For those who didn't get the reference, I was mentioning the Pokémon called Unown
That would have been amazing!! I bet we will see it in the Thrawn trilogy or whatever they're doing now. Jedi Academy?
Ties in ROS had hyperdrives. As for the rebels fleeing with their hyperdrives. Good that the Empire has trackers that work through hyperspace. Thanks, JJ Abrahams and Ryan J. (remember that the Empire Navy does not know what "up" is and that shields "do not work in the atmosphere".
Could have been a smaller number of TIE Defenders supported by larger groups of normal TIEs, like how the US has our stealth F22 and F35s, but with large groups of F16s, F15EX-Eagle IIs, and other craft. Even looking into UAV wingmen for support.
Like the Empire with their Defender, it was too expensive even for the US military to have a complete stealth air-force.
I love the TIE Defender
I had a Galoob Action Fleet TIE Defender back in the '90s. I also had the E-Wing. They were both impossible to find on the West Coast, so I got a friend on the East Coast to buy and ship them to me.
I love the TIE Defender.
I still have my Defender! 😎👍
It would be cool to see the Tie defender in the live action Thrawn movie. I mean Thrawn is the heir to the Empire (after the death of Palpitine) which means he could definately include this Tie ship into the Imperial fleet.🤞
I'm pretty sure tie pilots being proud of not having shields & thinking it was a testament to their skills, was basically just a massive cope. And probably institutional too, drummed in to them from day 1 of training school.
Maybe the reason for putting super skilled pilots in flying death traps is so you can find the truly exceptional pilots for the advanced fighters.
Also, anybody else troubled when they see something like a Y-Wing get destroyed with a single blast? Isn't it supposed to be heavily armored and with a really good shield? If it can be destroyed so easily what's the point of using such a slow ship besides availability.
first of all rebel y wings flew with lower specs to reduce maintenance costs , also y wing was getting outdated even by the end of clone wars , also tie defender packed a punch , eight high power lasers would shread through y wing anyway much less a rebel held junk
@@arnoldshmitt4969 good point, the defenders weapons are better than a typical tie fighter
Exactly, you can't learn to fly in a TIE-D because it's a tank...
In a TIE fighter you roll and turn constantly, most of your flying is defensive interspersed with bursts of fire...
The TIE is so fragile that you learn to fly it well by necessity
The TIE-D is so beefy you can fly it half asleep with blasters bouncing off your shield, and just focus on damage output.
A pilot who learned to dogfight in a TIE becomes a god when placed in a TIE-D
A pilot who learned to dogfight in a TIE-D becomes dogmeat when placed in a TIE :)
I've always viewed the TIE/D as a "commander" type of ship. Instead of replacing the whole fleet with Defenders, leave one or two per ISD to lead the fighters/interceptors into battle. Keeps costs down, saves dock space, and still gets the job done.
I saw the defender as the future of the Imperial tie line and even explored that future with a design of my own that swapped the tie ball with the hull of a tie bomber.
Digging the new backdrops! Oh, and the rest of the content, too!
I've loved the TIE Defender since the first time I strapped into one for a combat mission back in '94.. Such a marvel of engineering, from our friends over at Sienar Fleet Systems! The only thing that can truly make it ineffective, is plot armor...
Please make a video on 200 First Order Stormtroopers vs 200 Clone Troopers
I am pretty sure that the Advanced TIE Fighter, or the TIE Avenger, was the first mass produced TIE that had shields.
It is correct that replacing every TIE Fighter with a TIE Defender would have been absurdly costly and not needed at all.
Remember, the overwhelming majority of TIE Fighter pilots never even saw an X-Wing, much less engaged it in combat. Most of them only ever engaged alien planetary defense forces, or smugglers, or pirates ... whose starfighters were either old, or inferior, or both, when compared to the TIE Fighter.
Thrawn didn't want the TIE Defender because he wanted it to replace all the TIE Fighters. He was much smarter than that.
He wanted it so he could fight and destroy the Rebel Alliance using their own tactics against them.
Maarek Stele’s favorite fighter was the TIE Advanced production model…the actual first production TIE starfighter with heavy shielding.
did anyone else notice that the topwing blocks the ejection seat? so the Defender is not exactly future proofed.
Star wars takes examples from our military history. Case in point the T-34 and the sherman. They were like TIE fighters in that they were on the production line already and were adequate for their intended role. When they became outclassed by the psnther they kept producing them. New designs would take time, resources, new tooling, and manufacturing space. In the US case they have to be shipped.
"that they were on the production line already"
The first pre-Sherman T6 prototype was finished September 2nd 1941 and first M4 Sherman was produced in February 1942.
While the early A-20 and A-32 prototypes for T-34 were designed and built in 1938/1939, followed by the first T-34 prototypes finished in January 1940 and after extensive testing and fixing anything that didn't work well enough, production started in September 1940.
The Sherman was constantly improved throughout the war and I'd wager that the E8 76mm variant was actually better than the panther. The Sherman had it's teething issues figured out by then and had a lot of soft factor advantages and reliability that the panther never had.
@@BullMooseFox "and I'd wager that the E8 76mm variant was actually better than the panther"
Heck no! Sure, during the first 5-8 months of service, the E8 would have a major advantage in reliability, but after that, the Panther wasn't actually unreliable.
And while E8 upgrade was good, a low 30s ton tank simply cannot compete with a mid 40s ton tank that is also more advanced, even if not greatly so any more.
Armor and firepower in particular, there's just no fair comparison to be made.
One of the things the 75L70 on the Panther was created to deal with was things like the KV-series of tanks, with drastically thicker armor.
While the Panther's armor was based on being reliable against Soviet med vel 76mm (like T-34s F-34 76L43 gun) guns, as well as at least resistant against the high velocity 57mm or 85mm AT guns.
The Sherman 76mm is better than the F-34, fairly comparable to the 57L73 ZIS-4 against tanks, but it doesn't come anywhere near the 85L55 D-5T or ZIS-S-53 that was on the T-34/85, or the original M1939 AA/TD gun.
The silhouette of the Sherman also remains its biggest weakness, it's basically as easy to spot and aim at as the Panther despite over 10 ton difference in weight.
Also, while the Panther didn't have the exceptional optics of the Tiger, its optics was still clearly superior to that of the Sherman, with the possible exception of some of the post-WWII upgrades.
So no, while a Sherman E8 will certainly have a chance against a Panther, it's NOT a matchup any commander would want to see or experience on the wrong side.
Despite all the talk, the Panther was a VERY good tank overall.
@@DIREWOLFx75
All that was impressive.
Know what's more impressive?
The U.S. built more Shermans during the war than the Entire German production of EVERY TANK TYPE IN THE WERMACHT.
Marks I through VI and all the "Specials".
We'll just take the win and quietly smile.
@@kenle2 "We'll just take the win and quietly smile."
So, you're happy about how the bad sides of the Sherman meant a lot of people died for no good reason?
That it prolonged the war.
Compare to the T-44, which was designed based on just slightly more experience than the Sherman.
It's lighter, yet has twice as good armor, has better mobility, either the decent 85mm gun same as T-34, or the later, vastly superior 100mm gun.
That's the level of quality that the Sherman COULD have reached for.
And it could have completely outclassed pretty much every tank the Germans ever built.
The thing is, a lot of the problems you mention had easy workarounds. The cost of the blasters could be solved by just using the standard blasters of the other Tie Fighters. Sure it wouldn't be the super-duper ones, but it would still have 6 more than the regular TIEs. No need to change that supply chain. Also, just upgrade all of the TIEs to the new engines, making that supply chain simpler also. The only system they would really need to remove for simplicity would be the missile launchers. As for the hangar issue, just hang them wingtip down like bats, or the Starfuries from Babylon5. Sure, it will still eat into the space, but not as badly as trying to hangar them like the other TIEs.
love the gear/tech/ship analyses.
THEY LIED?? TO ME?!?!
Allen, exposing the lies of the weapons platforms everywhere
Any rack that can store TIE/sa or TIE/ad should have no problem storing the TIE/d.
The 3 things he forgot to mention about the Tie Defender:
(1) It used about 75% of fuel compared to a regular Tie fighter but it also lasted 5 times as long.
(2) It could both release fuel and inject fuel 2 to 3 times faster than any regular Tie fighter.
(3) The guns took 4 to 8 times longer to overheat in atmosphere fighting compared to a regular Tie Fighter.
Thank you Alan for putting that sock over the mic! I mean it, because it warmed up the sound and madeit sound more real
The third foil would have been a problem for hangar storage, but this thing never made it out of the prototype stage. I could see the top foil being reconfigured so it could retract backward and allow it for storage along with other TIE fighters (similar to how the US Navy stores its own aircraft on carriers). And just having two of those aboard would be a game changer.
We've seen the 60,000 credit a piece TIE fighter succeed in point defense but fail spectacularly at offense. Trade in 10 regular fighters for 2 defenders per ship, that still leaves each ISD with 38 TIE Fighters plus their complement 12 TIE Interceptors. The quicker and deadlier Defender would be used to hunt and kill high value targets that can't be allowed to escape. The launchers are a nice addition but the real selling point are those EIGHT cannons, shields, and speed.
In short you still have the intimidating swarm but also cripple the rebel's ability to easily escape the slower moving ISDs and ineffective regular TIEs, or at the very minimum force the rebels into accepting the fact that outrunning and ISD is no longer a high likelihood. Having them face that reality would mean there's a lot less space to safely transport VIP personnel or high value assets from place to place in the galaxy.
The math works and that one small change to its foil design would've made a drastic impact in the Imperial Navy's capabilities.
While the Defender is by far more powerful, the Interceptor will always be my favorite.
A squadron of Defenders and Interceptors protecting a TIE Reaper entering atmosphere would be epic
@@isaackim7675how about few lambdas and a sentinel in the middle of that formation as tie reaper would ofcourse carry death troopers or other imperial spec ops forces commandos
I think it was actually cheaper than my actual favorite ship, the Aurek-Class Tactical Strikefighter. Last I heard the Aurek was 350,000 credits while the TIE Defender was only 300,000.
Huh. I bet the Aurek would be cheaper with modern logistics and construction capabilities.
Appreciate the scene you swinging in. Boss of the household and little ones need your BBQ skills, get it done lad.
Consider the following: TIE Defender made by the Chiss with Geonoshian ship tech, and remotely piloted by a droid-live pilot team per ship. So a Claw Craft Defender with no human element ON board, but still at the controls, with the added benefit of a droid co-pilot, plus the Geonoshian ships had amazing maneuvering capabilities (look it up, it's interesting tech lore!)
still one of my favorite variants of the tie line. and fighter type ships in star wars as a whole.
In universe I think the Defender makes good sense. As a fan though I hate it. It's the kindergarten kid-who-can't-lose of ships - _My starfighter has five times the firepower of a TIE fighter, powerful shields, fast hyperdrive, AND carries missiles. And with all that extra weight, it's still faster than a TIE interceptor. Oh, and it has longer range too._
I just think of it as a product hampered by economies of scale. The Defender is like buying a performance car vs multiple sedans. The performance car absolutely will out perform the sedan in every way, except, the amount of people transported from A to B in a limited amount of time, for the same budget.
The rebels couldn't afford supercar level fighters, and the empire couldn't fit tens or hundreds of thousands of tie fighters that way either. You do outfit your top squadrons with them or special task squadrons. It's also why you always see the villains driving the custom looking ships when everyone else is shuttles, fighters, and destroyers, etc. Standardization.
In that mindset, the Defender was just someone doing what Dubai did with their police force and gave them supercars.
@@ubentobox Except that the X-Wing was canonically an advanced prototype that used a bunch of expensive composites and stuff, and was the most advanced fighter in the galaxy when it went into production. Beating that in some aspects should have come with design tradeoffs, but the Defender simply doesn't make any of those. (Notably, supercars inhale gas. The Defender somehow uses *less.*)
The X-Wing was built by Incom who had limited resources due to them not working with the Empire. It has the best overall balance of features vs cost and logistics. TIE Defender, while having better speed and range, has three huge weaknesses. The initial cost investment, the cost of parts, and the difficulty of training pilots on using all of its arsenal effectively.
Later in the era, the B-Wing is an example of a starfighter that matches it in complexity.
Apparently you've never flown the Missile Boat...😉
Ehh. It's like the F16 vs the F22. The F22 is literally better in every way performance wise. Stupidly so. But the AF still operates a lot of F16s. Much more than F22s.
the defender and the elite version is my favorite tie fighter and i hope we are going to see it in live action would be so cool
Great Job Adam!
I remember piloting the TIE Defender playing TIE Fighter way back in the 90’s on Windows 95. It was so bad ass! I made sure I accomplished every objective from every list and earned every award and achievement there was to attain. If you accomplished enough secret tasks, it shows an alternate scene from The Empire Strikes Back of Luke being killed by Palpatine’s Force Lightning. I was loving the fact that I was getting to change the outcome of the Galactic Civil War and have the Empire emerge victorious. I was the Emperor’s super secret hand that Mara Jade was unaware of. I even got to kill Akbar and Wedge Antilles!
Even having just a Squadron attached to a battlegroup would have been a game changer, but much like the F22 it's definitely a specialist fighter. Strangely both the Imperial Remnant in Legends and First Order were able to massively improve on the TIE Fighter frame after Endor without having to make drastic alterations (laziness by designers aside) with additions deflector shields, missile launchers and occasionally hyperdrives.
Hands down my favorite Tie.
First time I've heard ever of this type of fighter was in Star Wars Rogue Squadron for the N64 at the last campigan mission with Wedge and the World Devastators. The newly reformed Rogue Squadron was flying the newest V-wing type fighter. Those TIE Defenders roasted my squadron except when using guided torpedoes and rapid fire mode. They made me mad so many times!!!
The TIE Defender literally exists because a game designer decided that they needed something even more OP than the TIE Advanced/TIE Avenger for an expansion, and enough people bought into the power fantasy to give it traction even when canonical sources toned it down to something that was actually sane (the ingame TIE Defender beat or matched every fighter in the movies in their own speciality - faster than an A-Wing, more agile than a TIE Interceptor, as many guns and more overall durability than the B-Wing - apart from warhead capacity).
The Avenger was, IMO, cooler, and it would have still fit into the standard racks!
I loved playing these in X-wing. Especially the rebel tv show themed ones
In reality, it's a mix of fightes that works the best, we have f-22s and f-35s, but we also f-16, which which are cheaper than f-15s and new f-15exs which are cheaper than f-35s. ! squadron of defenders, 2 of interceptors, 2 of regular, and 1 bomber squadron. the tie defender can carrey missiles and torpedeos so it can take some of the attack role of the bombers.
In the real world, the Air Force is trying to maximize the effectiveness of the Force, and the current theory is to use the F-22's as interceptors against the top line enemy fighters - killing them before they can spot you with Stealth tech.
The F-35's go in, also with Stealth, and take out the high value ground targets.
Meanwhile, the F-15EX's loiter outside the enemy radar range, loaded with a much higher payload of weaponry than the Stealth fighters can carry internally and stay stealthy.
They have the capability to "piggy-back" on the Stealth fighters targeting systems, so they can fire from outside the enemy's detection zone and still hit the targets they can't "see" on their own.
Then when the radar is taken out, they can make more conventional attacks and save the Stealth planes from wasting their flight hours.
@@kenle2 Absolutely.
I think a special ship meant for a squad of tie defenders would have been lethal. Like a small ship that could rapidly deploy to areas of resistance and take them down. It would also work well for taking down pirates.
Thanks Alan👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
They should have used the Defender as the wing commander's fighter. Making it a mark of honor and something to strive for.
I'm personally a big fan of the Alpha class star wing (aka Assault Gunboat) and it's successive development the missile boat. Among the TIEs, perhaps the mass production TIE Advanced is a better balance for the Empire, or even augmenting the fleet with systems developed from the Defender project.
The defender has been tied as my favorite fighter since I first saw it when I was 8.
The TIE defender (or TIE advanced) would be great to have jump ahead of the capital ships with the capital ships arriving a few minutes into a battle and dropping regular TIEs to reinforce the defenders.
I immediately loved the design and desperately want to see live-action
Best fighter hands down. They might have offset the costs if they'd gone with it instead of SSDs, but with their current planning, yeah, I can see why it wouldn't work. Though they could sell the eyeballs to lesser corporations and augment the squadron of trips with squints....
my favourite TIE fighter is from Legends. the TIE Hunter.
My all-time favorite Star Wars game was Star Wars: Rebellion, which was a strategy game that in my opinion was much better than the "sequel" Empire at War. The TIE Defender was indeed a very expensive replacement for the TIE Fighter, but I figured out early on playing as the Empire that if you simply replace TIE Fighters with Defenders then you're doing it wrong. You can't afford that. What does work (and I think would have made sense for the Empire to do if it were a real thing) is to lessen the focus on major capital ships which are incredibly expensive to build and maintain and instead focus on carriers and TIE Defenders.
It's very similar to the trajectory navies ended up taking during WWII leading up to today's naval warfare with lots of aircraft and missiles and not so many big ships with big guns. In SW: Rebellion, you could build fleets of a single Star Destroyer, some carriers and fast frigates and then as many TIE Defenders as you could fit for the price of a more ship heavy fleet and actually do more efficient damage. That's how good a TIE Defender (or any complete fighter-attack craft) can be. I'd often get into battles where my one capital ship barely engaged by the time the Defenders had wiped out the enemy X and A wings and were working on the Rebellion's capital ships.
So yeah, not cost effective for a 1 to 1 replacement. But definitely cost effective to replace a capital ship focus.
THrawn did not create the Tie defender it was Admiral Zaarin
Good; another here who knows what really went down...
Excellent! Now, let's see the TIE Phantom. Do we know how ( as in what parts, ect ), and where they were manufactured. I'd imagine the Mid Rim or the Core Regions? Anyways, awesome video.
The sock on the mic cracked me up.
Could have been a serious game changer on the battlefield, especially if reserved for Special Forces and specialized Imperial units/fleets
I think if they deployed it one per capitol ship that would help with the costs a bit, but more importantly drastically changed the outcome of the war
Have you done a video on the TIE advanced? If not that would be cool to see.
Glorious
a lot of the issues with the tie defender couldve be resolved with some minor design changes. eliminate the third wing, which does sacrifice atmospheric maneuverability, but also lets you use the existing infrastructure. theres actually tie bomber and tie interceptor variants that used those concussion missiles, so the empire was already producing them, but remove the proton torps. that alone should cut a lot of costs out because youre also removing some of the weapons. if the cannons are powerful enought to take out a y wing through its shields in one go then its fine to lose two of them. speaking of shields: your pilots are already some of the best in the galaxy without them so just use weaker shields like the rebels did with the a wings. sure, its not as strong as an x wings shields, but it gives your pilots just that much more of an edge that might be enough. your infrastructure is already designed around the carrier philosophy so instead of giving them a type 1 or 2 hyperdrive (where i assume most of the sunk cost is) give them a back up hyper drive for use in emergencies to limp to the nearest habitable planet to await recovery and rescue.. that alone would improve pilot retention and survivability in the galactic civil war.
what youre left with is essentially a faster, more powerful, shielded, hyperdriven, and more agile tie interceptor.
True there was still many ways that this fighter coulda been pushed further whether it b in Legends or D. Canon. Had the Empire been better managed they could’ve got the end result of the Chiss Clawcraft
I am an old gamer so we view the Dee from different description Eras (the TIE fighter/Xwing series) yep a very expensive piece of hardware. Operation wise too expensive for mass deployment but awesome for deepstrike, special operations and deep cover defense. The elite if the elite... even the v38 or the Avenger (TIE game series) would be cheaper to deploy in larger numbers. Our differences in stats will be the blame of Disney vs Lucasgames... the Dee I know and happily "flew" could drop 8 to 12 Xwings singly and maybe 4 to 6 Awings depending who was flying (average pilot not a superace)
As well as the Defender, a pragmatic Empire should have equipped the Tie Interceptor with shields and made it a far more survivable fighter.
The Interceptor is for base and capital ship defence and screening, and ironically the Defenders get used for hunter/killer teams.
Ideally a lower cost non hyperdrive equipped Tie Defender variant that could still fit in standard Tie racks should have become the standard snubfighter.
Building up the Interceptor platform with components from the Defender, borrowing from that program.
But without the compact hyperdrive it would be a lot cheaper, and the weight and space savings could be used for more ordinance.
That way the detuned Defender-lite can do double duty as light bombers.
The TIE Defender has probably been my favorite Star Wars fighter for entire time it has existed. It's a little sad that reeks of being an uptuned gimmick ship from a video game, never intended for player use, which it is, but I love it. There are a couple of other TIE variations that I'm fond of, like the Hunter my elite NPC squad flies for RPG use, but I only picked that because, even in verse, the Defender is just so silly, and it's nice to always know that, if I were running for unusually high-level players, I'd still have one option above it to grab. The only ships I like as much as the Defender are the Legacy Predator, and Twintail, and the TIE Silencer, which is one of the very few things I like from the sequel trilogy, and most of these seem to have Ben made specifically to be improved off of the Defender, using time since it would have been built.
I entirely agree that they are prohibitively overcosted, and that the Empire would never want to replace ALL of their Fighters, or upgrade every ship to stow them, but an advancing Empire should have been rolling out incrementally better Star Destroyers, and giving at least some of them, or maybe the Star Dreadnoughts, Defender compliments, for important sorties. Manpower was rarely the Empire's shortcoming; they had people, the military was a wonderful way to indoctrinate many of the best, and brightest, of the next generation; keep them surveiled, and dead men don't betray to the Rebels, so I can see using throngs of lesser ships, each mostly tethered to their command craft, but there should have been varied elements, and I still feel like the Defender could have played a role there.
Amazing
Never thought about it, but you're right. The Empire definitely had a Mafia type substructure.
Big fan of Thrawn and the TIE Defender. Should have forgot about all those stupid terror weapons and just made a LOT of TIE Defenders and other things, like better blasters.
I'm still a fan of the A-wing!.. would be cool to see a video of A-wing vs TIE/D... My credits are on the A wing.. pesky and fast , but I will admit if the pilot was suffering from a flu ... tied could get lucky! 😊
Also makes me wonder, why didn't the Empire use A-wings??? Why did they settle with inferior tech?... perhaps this would be a compelling video as well 😊
Probably the best fighter in StarWars and tied for me as my favorite.
I believe the tie phantom is the best and most overlooked tie fighter.
I know that the cost per fighter was a lot, but that is also because it was being produced in small quantities. If they mass produced the defender the same way they did the regular TIE Fighter, it would likely be much cheaper.
Empire definitely didn’t have to mass produce these to the scale of the standard tie nor tie interceptor. Could be used for special operations missions taking advantsge of its armament and hyper drive capability.
the one problem is that the costs you suggest many are only the initial cost once you have everything set up for defenders a lot of those costs go away but you have a point the biggest issue is training but that goes hand in hand with the cheap fighter and swarm tactic -less training for the support staff. overall i think if they hadn't wasted money which is the real problem on star destroyers and other big vanity projects like the death star they could have build a better more flexible fleet.
I was a little disappointed you didn't also cover the very real likelihood of the Tie Defender enabling defections from the imperial fighter corps, we can see it in an episode of rebels where wedge and another pilot defect that this was a real issue. I believe there was some mention in lore, though I can't remember where, that highly capable starfighter pilots also have a high tendency for independence streaks making them less loyal to the empire. One can imagine that if following the idea that the best pilots get these high performance starfighters, a decent number of them will use the on board hyperdrive to defect more easily, then the rebel alliance has it and a good pilot with a plan that pretty much boils down to "hyperspace jump to us alone, let our technicians smash any imperial tracking device or equipment lock"
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. A wings, b wings, and u wing were relatively expensive compared to the y wings, x wings and republic era crafts that the rebellion first used. But they didn’t refuse to use them because it was too expensive or would take a lot of infrastructure or setup. They simply just used as much as they could. The defender could’ve been adopted in smaller numbers to fulfill a specific role. Hit and run type tactics, or even being stored on a smaller carrier that has extreme sensors and engines designed to police the galaxy better than a star destroyer.
love for a lego version of this. i have both the fighter and interceptor.
Many of the Tie Fighters problems could have been solved with an upgrade package. Slap on shields and those more powerful laser cannons at the cost of a bit of speed and you have a massively improved fighter that only costs a bit more. There’s no reason for a mass produced Defender to exist with all those features, it’s like Thrawn was trying to mass produce a technology test bed, not a legitimate vehicle prototype.
The Tie Defender is awesome in the Tie Fighter games. Concord or the SR71 (also in terms of cost and running). But...but...it really pushes the limit of what a single pilot can do: radar, F/R shields, 2x energy weapons, missiles and (later) a tractor beam - and it is going really, really fast. I often considered why in universe - nod to the practical reasons in a DOS game on floppy disks - why it didn't have a 'weapons officer' similar to the ROI (Goose from TopGun) as the F16 'Tomcats' or Apache Helios have. Cost again?
To his point at the end of the video, imagine a small group of 25-50 at Endor. The rebels may not have been able to speed past them or outmaneuver them into the Death Star II. There are two or three places in the movie where the normal ties can't handle as well as the a and x wings and crash inside the Death Star. 25-50 defenders would have been able to take them out and also helped balance, in conjunction with the rest to the fleet, the rebellion's straighter advantage. There were more normal TIEs than rebel ships, but a handful could have shifted that balance.I think using them in a set-piece trap like Endor would have been nearly perfect for the skill set of the defender.
I do like the idea of using the Tie Defender in limited quantities as a way of chasing the Rebels. Yes, the Empire could have continued using the standard Tie model as quantity is a quality of its own. However, as mentioned, the Tie Defender can stand its own ground and give the Rebellion a run for their money.
I don't think huge production numbers of the Defender were necessary. But, having a squadron of your best pilots per Star Destroyer in Defenders could be a great way to keep costs minimal, but extending the capabilities and better protecting HVTs. For something as large as the Death Stars, having a wing of Defenders could have prevented both of the Rebel victories.
Yes, send those Defenders over there.
Hi Allen
Next video idea: they lied to you about Alan
He’s actually a dolphin in a human suit.
shhhh
You mean his allegiance was never to the Republic? TO DEMOCRACY?
@@appo9357 Soon he'll start closing the videos with "So long and thanks for all the fish."
😂😂😂 yo
Quality vs Quantity, whichever gets the job done. Though for quantity, I'd invest in legions of Battle Droids. And for quality, I'd invest in the TIE Defender.