Re: Stormtroopers

Well, we did see a lot of head on passes in the movie. But we never see 
the whole battle or know exactly how many TIEs were launched; but I am 
pretty sure it's 30 rebels (90% casualties). LucasArts did put the 
situation into X-Wing, but it's a hack job and focuses more on the 
trench itself than trying to portray the dogfighting in any real way.

Based on the more "realistic" battles in the X-Wing series I can say 
that 15 X Wings can kill a lot of TIE fighters, and a Y-Wing that wants 
to waste torpedoes on a flight of TIEs can knock out 6-8 in a head-on 
pass from more than 3km. The Imperials want at least 2-1 odds against X-

and Y- wings, preferrably 3-1 just to make it challenging. I could see 
90-120 elite TIEs being involved, and most of those ending getting 
smoked. I'll have to look into the X-Wing Allliance mod scene and see if

anyone has tried to do the battle as one big mission.

Richard and Emily Bell wrote:

>
>John Leary wrote:
>
>>--- Robert A Crawford <crawford@kloognome.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Brian Bilderback wrote:
>>>
>>>>Richard Bell wrote:
>>>>
>> the rest of red and gold squadrons,
>>...
>>
>>>>>die  in pathetic and futile efforts at
>>>>>
>>>resistance.
>>>
>>The Red and Gold squadrons performed a holding action
>>against 100 to 700 tie fighters, only 6 ties managed
>>to
>>breakthrough the screen.
>>
>
>Star Wars: A New Hope does not give any indication that there are that
>many tie fighters.  Given that the tie-fighters enjoy full 3D freedom
of
>movement, it is really hard to keep them from going where they please
>without comparable numbers.  Fighters cannot hold space, or even deny
>space, they can only intercept.  I think that if two rebel squadrons
>could hold off that many tie-fighters, we would have been treated to
>combat scenes much like those seen in Battlestar Galactica (the cylons
>had great numbers of poorly piloted craft).
>
>If I was commanding a wing of tie-fighters that outnumbered the rebels
>3-1, and they were trying to screen something, I would detail two
thirds
>of my force to drive away the screen and use the remaining third to
blow
>away the protected units.
>
>Not being a fighter pilot, I am not an expert, but I suspect that the
>only way that Luke could be screened by his fellow pilots would be if
>the imperials did not have enough fighters to crush the screen and send
>fighters hurtling past it to Luke, which brings about the odd
conclusion
>that the imperials never outnumbered the rebels by any real margin, at
>any point in the combat.  This is corroborated by the rebel radio
>chatter which implies that they were not all engaged at all times.
>
>I have also played EA's "Janes' WWII Fighters", and one situationthat
>you can find youself in is flying a single P-51 against four FW-190's.
>The only shots I can get are head-to-head gunpasses, because chasing an
>enemy only lines one or two up on MY tail.  So I believe that we would
>have seen a lot more head to head passes if the rebels were severely
>outnumbered.
>
>