The thing is that inflicting the kind of infrastructure damage North Korea took over the Star Wars Galaxy would take an incredible amount of effort. you would have to hit dozens, hundreds, or thousands of planets and once one side begins launching such a campaign the other side would have to be crazy if they didn't put massive defenses around likely targets which would be made easier by the fact the hardware would be manufactured at the area being defended. And the target of such a campaign would likely also set up hidden manufacturing centers, easy to do in an area as massive as the Star Wars galaxy. While these would take time to come online I doubt they would still be offline 30 years post Endor unless the campaign against infrastructure started very late in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

...all of which could be made canon due to a couple sentences within an opening crawl.

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

Actually in Legends material the TIE LN aka the TIE Fighter loses a lot of its maneuverability in atmosphere due to the solar panels.

So you agree it does fly in an atmosphere, just not as well. Even with those solar panels. Against all odds when realworld physics is applied. Point being, the X-wing's wings didn't have to close since it was scifi fantasy and they could have left them permanently open. They wanted them to open and close because it was cool. Ralph wasn't worried about the physics of it.

Care to comment on this:

You now seem to agree with me that the X-wing can fly with wings deployed in an atmosphere (just not as well). That doesn't snync with your first statement about having to close the wings in order to be able to "land on planets where there is atmosphere". You moved the goalposts.

RC: I DO like your justifications and have used similar explanations when they've come up in past RPG campaigns. I'm just pointing out that due to the nature of the source material (scifi fantasy) we don't really need to justify it using real, current physics but just make up some reason.

RC: I DO like your justifications and have used similar explanations when they've come up in past RPG campaigns. I'm just pointing out that due to the nature of the source material (scifi fantasy) we don't really need to justify it using real, current physics but just make up some reason.

IMO, there should be a balance. For me to achieve the level of willing suspension of disbelief that is required, we can’t run too far afoul of the laws of physics as we know them in the real world. There’s a lot of stuff I’m willing to hand wave away just because it makes good SciFi/Fantasy, but there’s a limit to how far I can go.

And when trying to explain how something works, I generally start with what we currently know of the real-world laws of physics — unless there is already an in-Universe explanation that is better/closer/cooler.

Now, if I can find an explanation that works on multiples of those levels, that’s even better.

But maybe that’s just me.

You now seem to agree with me that the X-wing can fly with wings deployed in an atmosphere (just not as well). That doesn't snync with your first statement about having to close the wings in order to be able to "land on planets where there is atmosphere". You moved the goalposts.

You seem to be confusing many things.

I am the person who said you'd want to close wings to reduce drag, why you asked (since as you said there's no drag in space) my answer was because it needs to land on planets which have an atmosphere.

My comment, which you attributed to Brad and apparently greatly misunderstood as well, is that you would want to reduce drag when you are flying in atmosphere and you have to fly in atmosphere. At no point in this thread did I or Brad say that it needed to close the wings to fly in atmosphere, I have no idea why you are claiming such.

As for why wings and not poles, for improved aerodynamic handling. The x-wing is a multi role space superiority fighter, and it is likely the only original trilogy star fighter that could go toe to toe with a dedicated combat air speeder in atmosphere. When you have to fly light years to attack a ground target you'd like to be able to defeat it's defenses, just saying.

As for looking star wars tech cool over functionality. There is some merit to your statement. For the sake of functionality, the front wings of the new x-wing should go up, and the back ones should go down but they reversed this, probably to make it look cooler. There should also be ailerons on the back edge of both the upper and lower wings. We have no evidence one way or the other on this. The primary purpose of having wings on an x-wing in atmosphere is to help it make sharper turns.

My comment, which you attributed to Brad and apparently greatly misunderstood as well, is that you would want to reduce drag when you are flying in atmosphere and you have to fly in atmosphere. At no point in this thread did I or Brad say that it needed to close the wings to fly in atmosphere, I have no idea why you are claiming such.

(sorry for the misquoting)

Because of this..

On the X-Wing s-foils. I agree with everything you said (shot pattern, more wing area like a biplane), except for one glaring issue. Why collapse the wings at all? There is no drag in space with them deployed.

Because it has to land on planets where there is atmosphere.

The reply didn't say, "to reduce drag while landing on a planet with an atmosphere", but only that sentence. Without adding the drag part, please understand how someone reading that could interpret it as meaning an X-wing couldn't land on an atmospheric planet without closing its wings first.

I did lead my response with this question to you:

So you are saying an X-wing with its wings deployed couldn't fly in an atmosphere?

You quoted this statement above in #23 and didn't respond that is not what you meant when I asked that question.

With your clarification of this statement, then I agree with you. But, then it's back to my issue of why did they bother since Bricks, TIE fighters, etc can fly in atmospheres in Star Wars just fine. Ralph/George added the X in X-wings because it was cool, not because they were worried about realworld physics.

With your clarification of this statement, then I agree with you. But, then it's back to my issue of why did they bother since Bricks, TIE fighters, etc can fly in atmospheres in Star Wars just fine. Ralph/George added the X in X-wings because it was cool, not because they were worried about realworld physics.

As for why wings and not poles, for improved aerodynamic handling. The x-wing is a multi role space superiority fighter, and it is likely the only original trilogy star fighter that could go toe to toe with a dedicated combat air speeder in atmosphere. When you have to fly light years to attack a ground target you'd like to be able to defeat it's defenses, just saying.

As for looking star wars tech cool over functionality. There is some merit to your statement. For the sake of functionality, the front wings of the new x-wing should go up, and the back ones should go down but they reversed this, probably to make it look cooler. There should also be ailerons on the back edge of both the upper and lower wings. We have no evidence one way or the other on this. The primary purpose of having wings on an x-wing in atmosphere is to help it make sharper turns.

The thing is that inflicting the kind of infrastructure damage North Korea took over the Star Wars Galaxy would take an incredible amount of effort. you would have to hit dozens, hundreds, or thousands of planets and once one side begins launching such a campaign the other side would have to be crazy if they didn't put massive defenses around likely targets which would be made easier by the fact the hardware would be manufactured at the area being defended. And the target of such a campaign would likely also set up hidden manufacturing centers, easy to do in an area as massive as the Star Wars galaxy. While these would take time to come online I doubt they would still be offline 30 years post Endor unless the campaign against infrastructure started very late in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

...all of which could be made canon due to a couple sentences within an opening crawl.

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

The level of damage it would take to justify that is utterly unrealistic. Even the Vong War from the EU didn't inflict that much damage and I assure you that the Imperial and Alliance commanders would care a lot more about preserving infrastructure then the Vong did. It would basically take a galaxy wide apocalypse.

The thing is that inflicting the kind of infrastructure damage North Korea took over the Star Wars Galaxy would take an incredible amount of effort. you would have to hit dozens, hundreds, or thousands of planets and once one side begins launching such a campaign the other side would have to be crazy if they didn't put massive defenses around likely targets which would be made easier by the fact the hardware would be manufactured at the area being defended. And the target of such a campaign would likely also set up hidden manufacturing centers, easy to do in an area as massive as the Star Wars galaxy. While these would take time to come online I doubt they would still be offline 30 years post Endor unless the campaign against infrastructure started very late in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

...all of which could be made canon due to a couple sentences within an opening crawl.

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

The level of damage it would take to justify that is utterly unrealistic. Even the Vong War from the EU didn't inflict that much damage and I assure you that the Imperial and Alliance commanders would care a lot more about preserving infrastructure then the Vong did. It would basically take a galaxy wide apocalypse.

The vong are legends now (thank the maker), and my prediction is that as of episode 7 it will be established that they never invaded the galaxy or killed chewie.

I'm aware of that. The point I was trying to make is that it would take more devastation then the Legends Galaxy took in the Vong war to inflict the damage needed to reduce both sides to the point they can't develop new models of spacecraft. This is a Galactic Civil War . Both sides want to rule the galaxy not burn it to the ground. I could see such strikes being launched at few planets but not enough to utterly destroy the spacecraft development industry because doing so would hurt the attacker as much as the defender.

I was never arguing what made sense, but pointing out how it doesn't really matter when it comes to Scifi Fantasy. You say it and it IS. Star Wars is not a hard science setting and never claimed to be. We could possibly trump Oggdude's character generator thread with posts about things existing in Star Wars that aren't very sensible. However, that's missing the point of the setting. This isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey . Adherence to science takes a back seat to what looks or is cool.

I'm aware of that. The point I was trying to make is that it would take more devastation then the Legends Galaxy took in the Vong war to inflict the damage needed to reduce both sides to the point they can't develop new models of spacecraft.

Have we seen this happen? I mean, we’ve seen somewhat modified versions of X-wings, but we can’t be sure that those are the true best-of-the-best current front-line fighters, even though that may have been their status thirty years before. It’s not hard to imagine significant life extensions for the now long-in-the-tooth fighters that used to be the best-of-the-best, as we have seen in the real world with F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, B-52s, etc…. Sure, F-22s and F-35s have recently come online and they are clearly better, in at least some ways, but they’re still not that common and they are **** bloody expensive compared to the older models.

A Galactic Civil War that lasted over thirty years would certainly grind the Galactic economy into the ground, even without requiring any more world-buster events.

IMO, even though I am generally a fan of plausible science fiction and realism, I think Sturn has had the best comment so far in this thread:

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

I was never arguing what made sense, but pointing out how it doesn't really matter when it comes to Scifi Fantasy. You say it and it IS. Star Wars is not a hard science setting and never claimed to be. We could possibly trump Oggdude's character generator thread with posts about things existing in Star Wars that aren't very sensible. However, that's missing the point of the setting. This isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey . Adherence to science takes a back seat to what looks or is cool.

And yet everything I've said based on physics is consistent with established star wars lore. From tie fighters losing a good deal of their maneuverability in atmosphere to dedicated combat air speeders successfully taking down starships, to the x-wing performing well in atmosphere. The point i was making is star wars tech/props are very often reskinned real world tech. It works like what we the audience think it should based on visual appearance. A light saber can block another light saber because a sword can block another sword. An x-wing functions better than other star fighters in atmosphere because it looks like it should, and I am confident that Lucasfilm has engineers as at least consultants to make props that look like they should work.

The thing is that inflicting the kind of infrastructure damage North Korea took over the Star Wars Galaxy would take an incredible amount of effort. you would have to hit dozens, hundreds, or thousands of planets and once one side begins launching such a campaign the other side would have to be crazy if they didn't put massive defenses around likely targets which would be made easier by the fact the hardware would be manufactured at the area being defended. And the target of such a campaign would likely also set up hidden manufacturing centers, easy to do in an area as massive as the Star Wars galaxy. While these would take time to come online I doubt they would still be offline 30 years post Endor unless the campaign against infrastructure started very late in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

...all of which could be made canon due to a couple sentences within an opening crawl.

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

The level of damage it would take to justify that is utterly unrealistic.

Considering it has happened in reality in a much shorter timeframe – see Europe during just the last year of WW II – then it's not unrealistic at all.

The thing is that inflicting the kind of infrastructure damage North Korea took over the Star Wars Galaxy would take an incredible amount of effort. you would have to hit dozens, hundreds, or thousands of planets and once one side begins launching such a campaign the other side would have to be crazy if they didn't put massive defenses around likely targets which would be made easier by the fact the hardware would be manufactured at the area being defended. And the target of such a campaign would likely also set up hidden manufacturing centers, easy to do in an area as massive as the Star Wars galaxy. While these would take time to come online I doubt they would still be offline 30 years post Endor unless the campaign against infrastructure started very late in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

...all of which could be made canon due to a couple sentences within an opening crawl.

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

The level of damage it would take to justify that is utterly unrealistic.

Considering it has happened in reality in a much shorter timeframe – see Europe during just the last year of WW II – then it's not unrealistic at all.

Nevermind Death Stars, push one good sized asteroid and it would be easy to wreck a planet.

TMI

If someone has already mentioned this I do apologize but there's too much to read through.

Anyone who has seen Enders Game will remember that the fighters were controlled by pilots safely away from the battles. That's a lot like the drones used in war now, so not a far fetched idea for Star Wars.

Pilots sit on board a capital ship with a groovy headset and some controls. They become one with their fighter, perhaps even control it better with the speed of thought.

Added bonus, they don't die when their fighter goes boom.

TMI

If someone has already mentioned this I do apologize but there's too much to read through.

Anyone who has seen Enders Game will remember that the fighters were controlled by pilots safely away from the battles. That's a lot like the drones used in war now, so not a far fetched idea for Star Wars.

Pilots sit on board a capital ship with a groovy headset and some controls. They become one with their fighter, perhaps even control it better with the speed of thought.

Added bonus, they don't die when their fighter goes boom.

Remote control fighters are probably a bad idea in Star Wars. If the enemy jams the control signal the fighters become useless junk. If they slice into the control signal they can turn the fighters against their owners. Both very bad things from the owner's perspective

The thing is that inflicting the kind of infrastructure damage North Korea took over the Star Wars Galaxy would take an incredible amount of effort. you would have to hit dozens, hundreds, or thousands of planets and once one side begins launching such a campaign the other side would have to be crazy if they didn't put massive defenses around likely targets which would be made easier by the fact the hardware would be manufactured at the area being defended. And the target of such a campaign would likely also set up hidden manufacturing centers, easy to do in an area as massive as the Star Wars galaxy. While these would take time to come online I doubt they would still be offline 30 years post Endor unless the campaign against infrastructure started very late in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

...all of which could be made canon due to a couple sentences within an opening crawl.

AFTER THREE DECADES OF CIVIL WAR, CIVILIZATION HAS SUFFERED. YET, DWINDLING FORCES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CONFLICT CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR VICTORY USING WHAT LITTLE RESOURCES THEY HAVE LEFT........

It's scifi fantasy. That's all it takes.

The level of damage it would take to justify that is utterly unrealistic.

Considering it has happened in reality in a much shorter timeframe – see Europe during just the last year of WW II – then it's not unrealistic at all.

Development and production of new military aircraft and warship designs in Europe did not stop during World War II. I don't know why you claim it did.

Was it slowed? Absolutely, especially in Germany but it never stopped during the war. They were working on new designs, and producing recent designs to the end.

I'm aware of that. The point I was trying to make is that it would take more devastation then the Legends Galaxy took in the Vong war to inflict the damage needed to reduce both sides to the point they can't develop new models of spacecraft.

Have we seen this happen? I mean, we’ve seen somewhat modified versions of X-wings, but we can’t be sure that those are the true best-of-the-best current front-line fighters, even though that may have been their status thirty years before. It’s not hard to imagine significant life extensions for the now long-in-the-tooth fighters that used to be the best-of-the-best, as we have seen in the real world with F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, B-52s, etc…. Sure, F-22s and F-35s have recently come online and they are clearly better, in at least some ways, but they’re still not that common and they are **** bloody expensive compared to the older models.

How this all started was that I noticed we didn't see any new ship designs in the trailer and commented that I would be very disappointed if all of the ships in Episode VII were Original Trilogy era designs or updates and modifications of those designs. This led to some people trying to justify why there might not be any new ship classes in the sequels.

Remote control fighters are probably a bad idea in Star Wars. If the enemy jams the control signal the fighters become useless junk. If they slice into the control signal they can turn the fighters against their owners. Both very bad things from the owner's perspective

We’ve certainly seen what happens when the Droid Control Ship gets taken out, and it would be a short leap to taking it over, instead of just taking it out.

We actually did the equivalent in our local campaign, just on a much smaller scale. We’re going after one of the Shell Hutts, and he’s so paranoid that he’s been building a whole army of A-series Assassin droids for security, but he had them lobotomized so that they could be controlled centrally. One of the first things we did was to break into the computer controlling them and then take over his droid army.

Oops.

How this all started was that I noticed we didn't see any new ship designs in the trailer

Not entirely new designs, but only somewhat updated, if changed at all.

and commented that I would be very disappointed if all of the ships in Episode VII were Original Trilogy era designs or updates and modifications of those designs. This led to some people trying to justify why there might not be any new ship classes in the sequels.

We’ve seen the first teaser. We don’t know yet what is in store for the other trailers, or for the movie itself. IMO, it’s a too early to judge what’s going to happen, and even early to worry about what might happen.

But maybe that’s just me.

It’s not hard to imagine significant life extensions for the now long-in-the-tooth fighters that used to be the best-of-the-best, as we have seen in the real world with F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, B-52s, etc…. Sure, F-22s and F-35s have recently come online and they are clearly better, in at least some ways, but they’re still not that common and they are **** bloody expensive compared to the older models.

The F-35 gave up too much to get stealth, and really it's only stealthy from one angle (when it's flying straight at you), and the Chinese supposedly now have a new phased array radar that negates the stealth "I win" button. And a f-18 would dominate a f-35 in a dogfight. If it was up to me I would scrap the whole f-35 project now and cut our losses before they get any bigger, the only variant of the f- 35 worth keeping is the marine variant because it has vtol capability and that's the one with the most development problems.

The F-35 gave up too much to get stealth, and really it's only stealthy from one angle (when it's flying straight at you), and the Chinese supposedly now have a new phased array radar that negates the stealth "I win" button. And a f-18 would dominate a f-35 in a dogfight. If it was up to me I would scrap the whole f-35 project now and cut our losses before they get any bigger, the only variant of the f- 35 worth keeping is the marine variant because it has vtol capability and that's the one with the most development problems.

The F-35 is what you get when a new aircraft has to be all things to all people, the hope of the whole free world is pinned on it, and so it can’t possibly be allowed to even have a hint of appearance of failure. Then the manufacturer decides to parcel out all the various piece work to at least one or two major employers in every single state and district in the country, so that they have each and every one of the Senators and Representatives in their back pocket.

If the camel is a horse designed by committee, then what would you get if you had to design a single horse that could be the fastest racehorse in the world, and also the strongest drafthorse in the world, and also the smartest hill pony in the world, and also the most magical unicorn in the world, and then they made sure that each and every politician in the world was absolutely totally committed to the success of this project and that the politicians in question would be cutting their own throat if the project was allowed to fail.

Any ideas?

It’s not hard to imagine significant life extensions for the now long-in-the-tooth fighters that used to be the best-of-the-best, as we have seen in the real world with F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, B-52s, etc…. Sure, F-22s and F-35s have recently come online and they are clearly better, in at least some ways, but they’re still not that common and they are **** bloody expensive compared to the older models.

The F-35 gave up too much to get stealth, and really it's only stealthy from one angle (when it's flying straight at you), and the Chinese supposedly now have a new phased array radar that negates the stealth "I win" button. And a f-18 would dominate a f-35 in a dogfight. If it was up to me I would scrap the whole f-35 project now and cut our losses before they get any bigger, the only variant of the f- 35 worth keeping is the marine variant because it has vtol capability and that's the one with the most development problems.

The USMC variant is the worse of the lot and it's why the model sucks to begin with. The F-35B is STOVL as well, it isn't VTOL. The marines have never operationally used the Harriers in the justification they use for the F35B.

Building tactical aircraft with an emphasis on dogfighting is focusing on winning the fight that indicates your air campaign is failing and you're likely losing any conflict.

We never used the teen series aircraft anywhere near their full capability, that's the farce that is the F-22 and F-35. They provide a solution to problems we don't get ourselves into operationally. That's my point with this evolution of tech point in Star Wars, these new series aircraft are about making money, not any real need in conflict. I just put forth the opinion that perhaps the Rebels and Empire are smart enough not to engage in the stupid mistakes we do and they simply upgrade solid systems getting the actual job done.

RogueCorona's got a valid point.

There's also the matter that the Clone Wars was a thing, which was largely made possible by a bunch of corporate entities having the resources to fund an army of droids. And while it may have been about 50 years for the folks in the Star Wars setting, consider the still-lingering feelings and sentiments about what occurred during the World Wars, particularly the second one, in our own history, and both wars were concluded over 50 years ago. Droids as major frontline units quite possibly leaves a bad taste in many folks' mouths; the Empire likely avoided using combat droids due to the stigma of the Clone Wars and wanting to be viewed as "the heroes" over the treachery of the Confederacy (who relied exclusively on droids to wage war).

Both sides had some fairly 'dubious' and morality when it came to the production of troops.

The droids where a quick, nasty answer to produce massive army's full of literally killing machines with no remorse, ambition or qualms about exterminating living beings. That is the droids biggest strength in that it doesn't care, it doesn't have to be trained or ingrained with that ability to kill- just programmed.

On the other hand, I don't really think the production of human clones created, trained for the sole purpose of waging war is a very ethical thing either! Especially considering they have been given enough leeway to allow for individuality, feelings and then implanted with a control device so they can arbitrarily execute long term friends and allies on a simple signal.

That's some pretty heavy stuff.

I think the clones might have escaped some of the stigma the droids have, but I'm not entirely sure they'd not be entirely free of it as there was a lot of wars against organic, sepratist enemies in the outer rim in the sieges that might harbour a grudge. Plus the Empire kept some elements of design into the Stormtrooper's armour, which is a widely recognised symbol to many of the Empire's will on a very personal level.

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Building tactical aircraft with an emphasis on dogfighting is focusing on winning the fight that indicates your air campaign is failing and you're likely losing any conflict.

We never used the teen series aircraft anywhere near their full capability, that's the farce that is the F-22 and F-35. They provide a solution to problems we don't get ourselves into operationally.

The second part of the history lesson is that sometimes we have to dog fight to patrol/control a contested area.

The reason we don't have to dog fight now is because they know we'd win.

Edit and given hindsight of phased array radars neutering stealth technology as we know it, we should have taken the test pilots recommendation and chosen the yf-23 of the yf-22 and gone with the ge engine. The only extra benefit that the f-22 with Pratt & Whitney engines give us is a reduced heat signature (the thrust vectoring paddles spread the exhaust into a thin plume that cools fast). The f-22 is not the world's best dog fighter the britts claim that honor (at least they did a few years ago)

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Building tactical aircraft with an emphasis on dogfighting is focusing on winning the fight that indicates your air campaign is failing and you're likely losing any conflict.

We never used the teen series aircraft anywhere near their full capability, that's the farce that is the F-22 and F-35. They provide a solution to problems we don't get ourselves into operationally.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We took the guns off our fighters in favor of missiles during Vietnam and their pilots in old turboprop planes out dog fought us and shot us down with guns.

The second part of the history lesson is that sometimes we have to dog fight to patrol/control a contested area.

The reason we don't have to dog fight now is because they know we'd win.

No, the lesson from Vietnam was if you use lousy strategy, poor tactics, and crap rules of engagement you end up in dogfights.

We got in dogfights because our strategy was to not bomb all MIG bases, leaving the enemy the ability to get aircraft into the air.

We relied on bad munitions to do the fighting, BVR weapons were available, they just did poorly, had nothing to do with the aircraft firing them.

Even if we had good BVR weapons, the crap ROE would have prevented their widespread use.

None of those issues required a new aircraft, they just required some smarter people making decisions, and a new weapon.

We had to develop the whole Wild Weasel mission capability precisely because of lousy strategy, not a real technological need.

The primary driver of F-22s and F-35s is a bunch of bought off Congressmen and Flag officers in the Pentagon in cahoots to line up their cush spots on the boards of various defense contractors, and to set up their private lobbying firms to work 'the hill' after they're out of office.

1: The A-Wing is a maintenance nightmare largely because the limited budget allotted to the project meant that the only way to get the craft to its performance goals was to push every component to or beyond its normal limit and to make the frame so small and lightly armored that even a glancing blow could severely damage the craft.

Meanwhile the B-Wing had maintenance issues due to its cockpit rotation systems. Sometimes the cockpit would get stuck in one position simply because the stress of maneuvering the craft would be enough to cripple the rotation system, and the rotation system was notoriously vulnerable to battle damage as well. Also the B-Wing was known as a very difficult craft for pilots to master.

I fail to see why anyone would be shocked if the Alliance, or whatever its successor group calls itself decided to develop new fighter models to avoid the flaws in the A-Wing and B-Wing at some point in the 30 years after Return of the Jedi.

2: The Imperial Fighter corps has preferred quantity over quality from its inception but after thirty years of war I doubt Imperial fighter pilots are as expendable as they were in the OT. Since upgrading older designs to increase their survivability has been shown as coming at high cost in other areas of performance the logical thing to do would be to use such upgrades as stopgaps until new designs can be developed.

3: MC80s are designed with displays optimized for Mon Calamari vision and some of the control systems are set up so that they are very difficult for humans and presumably most humanoid species to use. So unless the Alliance successor group wants their main line battleship pool limited by the number of Mon Calamari they can recruit to crew them they will need to create new heavy warship designs which can be easily used by other species.

4: There are rumors that the Empire are secondary baddies of th sequels. If so whatever faction are the main baddies will need a military, and presumably fighter and capital ships models of their own.

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Building tactical aircraft with an emphasis on dogfighting is focusing on winning the fight that indicates your air campaign is failing and you're likely losing any conflict.

We never used the teen series aircraft anywhere near their full capability, that's the farce that is the F-22 and F-35. They provide a solution to problems we don't get ourselves into operationally.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We took the guns off our fighters in favor of missiles during Vietnam and their pilots in old turboprop planes out dog fought us and shot us down with guns.

The second part of the history lesson is that sometimes we have to dog fight to patrol/control a contested area.

The reason we don't have to dog fight now is because they know we'd win.

No, the lesson from Vietnam was if you use lousy strategy, poor tactics, and crap rules of engagement you end up in dogfights.

We got in dogfights because our strategy was to not bomb all MIG bases, leaving the enemy the ability to get aircraft into the air.

We relied on bad munitions to do the fighting, BVR weapons were available, they just did poorly, had nothing to do with the aircraft firing them.

Even if we had good BVR weapons, the crap ROE would have prevented their widespread use.

None of those issues required a new aircraft, they just required some smarter people making decisions, and a new weapon.

We had to develop the whole Wild Weasel mission capability precisely because of lousy strategy, not a real technological need.

The primary driver of F-22s and F-35s is a bunch of bought off Congressmen and Flag officers in the Pentagon in cahoots to line up their cush spots on the boards of various defense contractors, and to set up their private lobbying firms to work 'the hill' after they're out of office.

IMO its better for a fighter to be armed for a short range dogfight and never get into one then to get into a gun range fight and not be equipped to fight that kind of battle.

1: The A-Wing is a maintenance nightmare largely because the limited budget allotted to the project meant that the only way to get the craft to its performance goals was to push every component to or beyond its normal limit and to make the frame so small and lightly armored that even a glancing blow could severely damage the craft.

Meanwhile the B-Wing had maintenance issues due to its cockpit rotation systems. Sometimes the cockpit would get stuck in one position simply because the stress of maneuvering the craft would be enough to cripple the rotation system, and the rotation system was notoriously vulnerable to battle damage as well. Also the B-Wing was known as a very difficult craft for pilots to master.

I fail to see why anyone would be shocked if the Alliance, or whatever its successor group calls itself decided to develop new fighter models to avoid the flaws in the A-Wing and B-Wing at some point in the 30 years after Return of the Jedi.

2: The Imperial Fighter corps has preferred quantity over quality from its inception but after thirty years of war I doubt Imperial fighter pilots are as expendable as they were in the OT. Since upgrading older designs to increase their survivability has been shown as coming at high cost in other areas of performance the logical thing to do would be to use such upgrades as stopgaps until new designs can be developed.

3: MC80s are designed with displays optimized for Mon Calamari vision and some of the control systems are set up so that they are very difficult for humans and presumably most humanoid species to use. So unless the Alliance successor group wants their main line battleship pool limited by the number of Mon Calamari they can recruit to crew them they will need to create new heavy warship designs which can be easily used by other species.

4: There are rumors that the Empire are secondary baddies of th sequels. If so whatever faction are the main baddies will need a military, and presumably fighter and capital ships models of their own.

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Building tactical aircraft with an emphasis on dogfighting is focusing on winning the fight that indicates your air campaign is failing and you're likely losing any conflict.

We never used the teen series aircraft anywhere near their full capability, that's the farce that is the F-22 and F-35. They provide a solution to problems we don't get ourselves into operationally.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We took the guns off our fighters in favor of missiles during Vietnam and their pilots in old turboprop planes out dog fought us and shot us down with guns.

The second part of the history lesson is that sometimes we have to dog fight to patrol/control a contested area.

The reason we don't have to dog fight now is because they know we'd win.

No, the lesson from Vietnam was if you use lousy strategy, poor tactics, and crap rules of engagement you end up in dogfights.

We got in dogfights because our strategy was to not bomb all MIG bases, leaving the enemy the ability to get aircraft into the air.

We relied on bad munitions to do the fighting, BVR weapons were available, they just did poorly, had nothing to do with the aircraft firing them.

Even if we had good BVR weapons, the crap ROE would have prevented their widespread use.

None of those issues required a new aircraft, they just required some smarter people making decisions, and a new weapon.

We had to develop the whole Wild Weasel mission capability precisely because of lousy strategy, not a real technological need.

The primary driver of F-22s and F-35s is a bunch of bought off Congressmen and Flag officers in the Pentagon in cahoots to line up their cush spots on the boards of various defense contractors, and to set up their private lobbying firms to work 'the hill' after they're out of office.

IMO its better for a fighter to be armed for a short range dogfight and never get into one then to get into a gun range fight and not be equipped to fight that kind of battle.

If you're in dog fights your SEADs mission has failed, which likely means your air campaign is failing, which means you're likely losing the war. The results of the dog fight are irrelevant.