I notice 2 breaks:

swx20

2wx25-28

28 - 25 = 3

Halflife 3 confirmed.

And here is where we differ (and that's perfectly fine). The years of the rebellion are not that long, and while the Empire's defeat at the Battle of Yavin was a shock to the system, the development of the Phantom and the Defender seem like a very bizarre response to the Rebel threat, outside of the video games' desire to create kewl ships.

(I'm sure that sounds disparaging. I'm letting you see into my reasoning, including my biases, so please take for granted that if these things tickle you, then by all means enjoy them.)

The Empire's problem in this counter-insurgency war is not victory on the battlefield - it's finding the rebels. Once they've found the rebels, then it's just a matter of drowning them in TIEs, which they have in plentiful supply. The Phantom and the Defender are just not solutions to the type of challenges that the Empire faces. Of course, massive bureaucracies have irrational responses to particular challenges, but they do tend to behave in bureaucratic ways, and the Phantom and the Defender also are not the sort of thing that a bureaucracy like the Imperial Navy would develop. The politics are just wrong for it.

Now, I'm sure that we can become inventive and contemplate exceptions and notions of how it could have been, but those tend to just abuse my suspension of disbelief.

Again YMMV.

In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy not buying the Phantom and the Defender, and if you're happy buying the Phantom and Defender, then all is well.

Agreed. But then, the Defender/Avenger/Hunter aren't intended for general issue to the Navy precisely because of their cost - they are, however, well suited for small elite units (like the storm commandoes), whose special ops approach is very useful when fighting an insurgency - especially their hyperspace capability. As noted, they will never replace the TIE/ln in standard service because the Empire has to maintain one or more squadrons in each system garrison for each squadron of rebels at large in a given sector to provide meaningful security.

Hyperspace capable fighters are something new that the republic/empire has limited experience with - the main fighters in the Clone Wars weren't capable of it, aside from the heavy, multi-crew ships like the ARC and Y-wing, or things docked to sleds. One-man hyperspace capable fighters are far more useful to the rebels precisely because they don't have combat-capable carriers.

The 'expendable pilots is more evil' thing probably comes from the fact that (as noted) the empire didn't last that long; most of the senior admiralty will be captains and commanders that won their spurs during the clone wars - where their clone pilots were actively seen and treated as an expendable resource.

It's also part of why you don't see built-in astromechs and other front-line combat and support droids - conciously or not, the Imperial Admiralty really won't like the idea of them, and will probably react to the phrase 'Battle Droid' in much the same way that contemporary US Navy officers above a certain rank will react to the word 'Commie'.

If you rot13 decode the product codes you get a hint at what's coming.

If you double rot13 decode them, it gets even more interesting!

When the clone wars ended the Republic/Empire had dozens and dozens of different types of ships and the entire galaxy to maintain and keep the peace and order. That's where the TIE series comes in. They go from being able to carry a small amount of fighters to being able to double if not triple the number. I think it was the Dreadnaught that gets citied often as an example, it goes from barely holding four fighters to an entire squadron of TIE's. The Venator cruisers jump from 400 clone wars era fighters to over 1200 TIE's, so much many ships they had to lessen the number of Stormtroopers to make room for more TIE Pilots and maintenance crews. Repairs and maintenance became simple jobs compared to the upkeep of the clone wars ships and the standardization of parts across the entire TIE series. Think of what the Air Force and Navy has done with their jets and helo's in recent years to standardize and share as many parts as possible between them. Cuts down costs, ease of maintenance, easier to train air and ground crews.

The TIE series was all about projection of power and the most cost effective means to do so. TIE's aren't so bad, look at A New Hope. 8 TIE Fighters took out 19 X-Wing and Y-Wing fighters, the Turbo laser towers got one and the other seven by Vader and his wingmen in the trench. TIE's aren't quite cannon fodder, they ain't like Stormtroopers lol. The TIE Avenger, according the old TIE Fighter game, was intended to enter production for widespread use through out the fleet. However the traitor Zaarin put a quick end to that by destroying the production facilities for the Avenger and Defender. The TIE Defender barely made it past the prototype stage, Zaarin probably made more TIE Defenders than the Empire did, atleast until the Remnant started building them 20 or so years after Endor. The Empire was attempting to replace the old TIE/Ln, by Endor two of the five TIE squadrons in every wing per Star Destroyer in the fleet had been replaced with TIE Interceptors and supposedly some of the ISD's at Endor had fully replaced them. I know entirely too much about useless information about this crap lol.

Mangus makes a great point about droids and the Empire, the Imperial Navy still has a lot of Clone Wars vets in their ranks. They aren't going to put much faith or trust in droids.

8 TIE Fighters

A squadron is 12.

The TIE series was all about projection of power and the most cost effective means to do so. TIE's aren't so bad, look at A New Hope. 8 TIE Fighters took out 19 X-Wing and Y-Wing fighters, the Turbo laser towers got one and the other seven by Vader and his wingmen in the trench.

To be fair I wouldn't really say that that was a Dogfight were the Rebels not 100% focused on the exhaust port I think Vader and his wingmen would have been less successful in their kill ratio