Starfleet Jedi

By act of ROB, space-capable F15's and F16's replace X-wings and Y-wings in battle of Yavin. How does this go?

Modifications made by ROB include turning air inlets into proton torpedo launchers, and mounting laser cannons at tips of fighters' wings as well as putting in unspecified power-production system that enables them to have firepower on-par with original Rebel fighters.

EDIT: Modifications also include good long-term acceleration and navigational shields as well as thrust vectoring - manouverability stays unchanged.

They quickly find they are unable to move with any reasonable quality in space, nor do they have the acceleration capability to reach the death star in time. Many of them likely obliterate themselves attempting such activities.

Presuming ROB handwaves all that away they still don't have the shields that the x-wings and y-wings had... little bits of space dust will rip through them like they were tissue paper.

So, you've basically made flimsier Rebel fighters without the targeting system that might've allowed a non-Force user to hit the mark. Oh, and they are much larger targets than the X-Wings, so even a non-Force user TIE pilot might be able to hit them.

Why?

2046 wrote:So, you've basically made flimsier Rebel fighters without the targeting system that might've allowed a non-Force user to hit the mark. Oh, and they are much larger targets than the X-Wings, so even a non-Force user TIE pilot might be able to hit them.

Why?

One word: MISSILES.

An AMRAM missile can take out an enemy from 30 miles away. Meanwhile TIE-fighters are only good at sight-distance. Not much contest there.

F-16's also have ECM's, Chaff, flares and all sorts of other nifty decoys that X-wing's don't in order to jam sensors.

Finally, nuclear-tipped missiles could easily take out all the TIE-fighter hangar-bays before the Empire could even launch them.

And as an added bonus, you get Scientologists Tom Cruise and John Travolta to pilot the planes like in Top Gun and Broken Arrow, and they've got Thetan-powers to counter the Force against Darths Vader and Sidious.

Losers say what?

That.

Unless TCW changed something, at no point has Star Wars displayed BVR engagement capacity.

Now, jamming might take radar-goided missiles out of equation, but heat-seeking ones remain.

2046 wrote:So, you've basically made flimsier Rebel fighters without the targeting system that might've allowed a non-Force user to hit the mark. Oh, and they are much larger targets than the X-Wings, so even a non-Force user TIE pilot might be able to hit them.

Why?

Last time i checked the TIE fighters had little trouble killing the Rebel ships.
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Why should we assume Star Wars fighters have better targeting and ECM systems then modern fighters? Weapon designers in Star Wars purposely build design flaws into their weapons in Star Wars.
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Given Rebel fighters did not have BVR weapons, and died generally to one good hit I'm not sure there will be a major change beyond Vader being shocked that he won't be able to shake the missiles by spinning.