Alliance Starfighter Tactics - Overview

The following is excerpted from Alliance Strategy and Tactics Lecture 137 - Combat Starfighters, one of a series of a holo-lectures created by the Alliance Ministry of Education for distribution to mid-level Alliance political and military leaders.

Phase One covers a general Overview of starfighter concepts, with Phase Two addressing Starfighter Combat Tactics.

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Starfighters

"Greetings, gentlebeings. I am Wing Commander Wedge Antilles. In this lecture, I am going to discuss the importance of starfighters in the Alliance's strategy and tactics. This will give you a better idea of how to use starfighters in your various commands. It is suggested that you re-examine holo-tapes 134 to 136 before you continue.

"This lecture will be presented in four sections: General Overview, Acquisition and Supply, Strategy and Tactics, and Starfighter Types. As in the other lectures in this series, each section will open with an overview, followed by more detailed information. Those with commands not specifically concerned with starfighters may wish to view only the over-views and skip the detailed sections. You may wish to calibrate your holo-viewer so that the counter reads zero at my mark. The General Overview begins at holo-disk sector 5,101; Acquisition and Supply begins at holo-disk sector 11,245; Strategy and Tactics at holo-disk sector 56,070...."

Combat Starfighters: A General Overview

Combat starfighters are one of the Alliance's primary tools for denying control of space to the Empire. As our main fleet must avoid combat except where absolutely necessary, starfighters are virtually the only forces in daily contact with the enemy. Roughly 35 percent of the Alliance's military budget is dedicated to the creation and maintenance of starfighters.

Space Denial

The main purpose of combat starfighters is denial of control of space to the Empire's forces, not the control of that space itself. Denial of space means to curtail the free movement of the enemy's vessels without significant protection. Control of space suggests that one's own vessels are able to move freely without protection. Except in rare cases, the Alliance is unable to control space with its starfighters.

Unlike the larger capital ships, starfighters are not self-contained; they require a staggering amount of fuel to operate and an equally staggering amount of expensive maintenance to keep in space. For them to control a system, therefore, requires expensive and extensive base facilities within that system or nearby. Unfortunately, this is a luxury which we enjoy only in systems so firmly under our control or off the beaten track that Imperial starship attack against those bases is unlikely or prohibitively expensive.

Therefore, our starfighters operate primarily from hidden bases (which limits the amount of starfighters which can be deployed safely), or from bases far from Imperial scrutiny, necessitating long, fuel-consuming voyages to the battle area. Within these tactical strictures, our starfighters concentrate upon harassment and hit-and-run raids rather than attempting to defeat the enemy 0utright.

Despite these limitations, the Starfighter is still a very effective weapon. Their very existence threatens every Imperial supply ship, warship and space station with destruction at any second, forcing dramatic changes in Imperial strategy and tactics....

Except in the Core Worlds, space travel has become a slow and dangerous business for ev¬ery Imperial ship.

Acquisition and Supply

A sizeable chunk of the Alliance's precious treasury is devoted to the acquisition and supply of starfighters. Underscoring the importance of this to the Alliance, the Minister of War himself chairs the Committee on Starfighter Acquisition and Maintenance; other permanent members include the Ministers of Supply, Industry and Finance, as well as a number of starfighter Wing Commanders and ace pilots. Starfighter supply is controlled through the Department of Naval Ordnance and Supply. (For more details on this subject, see Lecture Number 522: Organization of Alliance Command.)

Acquisition

The Alliance gained the majority of its original complement of starfighters through the wholesale defection of planetary and systems defense forces after President Palpatine took the title of Emperor and before he had solidified his hold on the Navy. During those months, literally thousands of pilots went "underground" andjoined the growing Rebellion. However, most of these ships were outdated and in poor repair, unable to stand up against the Navy's modern starfighters.

A notable addition to the Alliance space forces was gained when the entire senior design staff of Incom Corporation defected to the Alliance, taking with them the plans and prototype mod¬els for the X-wing starfighter. As most of you know, the X-wing has stood up very well indeed to the Navy's vessels.

As Palpatine secured his position and crafted the Navy into his complete tool, it became more and more difficult to entice home defense forces into defecting and virtually impossible to acquire starfighters through arms merchants at any cost — Imperial reprisals were greatly feared even before the Death Star. Therefore, the Alliance had to learn to build its own starfighters.

As you will understand, precise information regarding the location and nature of the Alliance ship design and manufacturing capabilities is highly classified and no exact details will be given here. The Alliance has a number of starfighting manufacturing plants in operation across the galaxy. These are extremely secret, their locations known only to a few pilots and Mon Mothma's top senior advisors. Even those working in the plants often do not know exactly where it is located. They are brought in "blind" and, even if later captured, are unable to give their interrogators precise information.

Because of the difficulty of shipping starfighter-grade materiel across deep space in secret, most Alliance manufacturing facilities are based upon worlds or in solar systems which provide everything needed to build the ships: raw material, foundries, heavy industry, and so forth. The computer and electronics manufacturing facilities are often on-site as well. However, these components are smaller, and there-fore easier to transport without undue attention.

A small cadre of Alliance pilots is responsible for testing new starfighters and, if acceptable, transporting them to their assigned bases. These pilots are extremely dedicated beings, sworn to die before capture — and provided with secret means to ensure that they can end their lives if they fall into Imperial hands.

The Alliance is always searching for places to build new starfighter manufacturing facilities. If you have knowledge of a likely site, contact your Sector Supply Secretary immediately. It should be noted, however, that the Empire is extremely determined to find and destroy our capacity to build spacefaringv essels; planets they discover harboring such are routinely space-bombed into rubble.

Numerical Superiority Versus Qualitative Superiority

There is an age-old argument as to the relative importance of numbers and quality: in battle, is it better to have many adequate ships or a few good ones? Though the debate may provide hours of amusement for armchair strategists, for the Alliance, the question is rather moot.

We simply cannot hope to match the Empire in numbers. They have an entire galaxy's resources to draw upon, and we have but a few hidden manufacturing plants. Since we cannot beat their numbers, we concentrate our efforts upon making sure that our ships are better than theirs, and that our pilots are better, as well.

It has been my experience that superior quality vessels and pilots can offset extremely high numbers — provided the numerical imbalance is not too great. For example, when first introduced by Admiral Ackbar, the Rebel B-wing starfighter was far superior to anything the Imperials had at the time. But in the Rebel raid on Fara's Belt, the small squadron of B-wings was wiped out by massive numbers of inferior TIE fighters. However, in the long run, superior intelligence, superior communication and superior command may be more important than numbers or quality.

Supply

Starfighters are extremely expensive to fuel and keep in operating condition. A starfighter requires expensive fuel cells for power. The most efficient fighters drain their power after a few short weeks of standard flying — and the same amount of energy is exerted in just under an /Tour of combat flight. Starfighter fuel cells consist of refined radioactive metals mixes; these cells must be roughly twice as pure as standard starship-grade cells. Few civilian manufacturing facilities are capable of producing them. If you have knowledge of facilities which could be converted to manufacture starfighter fuel cells, please contact your Sector Supply Secretary immediately.

Maintenance

To keep in peak fighting condition, a starfighter requires about an hour's heavy maintenance for each 10 minutes of combat flight time. Combat places incredible stress upon the vessel's engines, chassis, shields, and life-support systems; even a near-miss by an enemy's weapons can severely damage a starfighter's electronics gear.

Most Alliance ships do not get nearly as much maintenance as they require. If a squadron has been in active combat for more than a week, odds are that they will suffer almost as many casualties from ship malfunction as from the enemy's fire.

However, it must be noted that this applies equally to both sides in the conflict. Imperial starfighters usually operate from superbly-equipped bases, often aboard Star Destroyers, but their ships are generally inferior in design and construction to ours, and their mechanics of a low grade of competence indeed. Down-time for TIE craft between battles is roughly four times as long as it is for Alliance ships, and TIEs have a reputation for severe loss of effectiveness if flown into battle without being properly maintained.

Strategy and Tactics

This section discusses strategy of unattached Alliance starfighters. Details on the use of starfighters in the Alliance Fleet are highly classified and available only to military personnel in the fleet.

To carry out their primary goal of space denial, starfighters must be able to strike anywhere within the Empire, at any time. They are stationed on small, hidden bases, usually near Imperial supply routes. As the Alliance Fleet is in hiding, these craft are often the only viable Rebel military presence within a sector.

Starfighters fly a variety of missions which can be broadly broken down into three categories: attack, defense and reconnaissance.

Attack Missions

Ideally, a starfighter attack mission profile pits starfighters against lightly-defended tar-gets, preferably slow and unarmed transport vessels or bases, or smaller military ships with-out adequate TIE protection. To succeed at its primary strategic objective of space denial, the Alliance must constantly harass Imperial forces that are not adequately defended, causing precious military resources to be stripped from the fighting fronts to deal with our starfighters. As long as we can attack at places and times of our choosing, we maintain the initiative and force the enemy to conform to our movements.

Attacks against defended targets are usually to be discouraged. Though our vessels and pilots are undoubtedly better than the enemy's, his manufacturing and training resources far outweigh our's. He can more easily afford to lose ten starfighters than we can afford to lose one.

There are cases, however, when such attacks are justifiable. The Alliance is in desperate need of supplies and in equal need of denying the supplies to the Imperial fleets; starfighters often spearhead attacks against guarded transport convoys.

Politically, it is sometimes necessary to launch attacks in enemy-held systems to "show the flag;" that is, to tell the oppressed peoples on the planets that they have friends, and to remind our enemies that they are not secure — anywhere.

Finally, attacks may be launched to divert enemy attention and strength from other areas of more importance. The diversionary fore may be required to remain on the attack for longer than is safe, allowing the enemy to gather enough strength in that area to severely damage the attackers. While this is occurring, other Alliance Forces attack the areas the Imperials have denuded to hit the diversion.

It must be stressed, however, that all such attacks can be ordered only at the Sector Command level or higher. Base commanders do not have the authority to attack strongly-defend targets without prior approval from Sector HQ. These attacks should always be part of a coordinated, sector-wide action; otherwise, valuable ships and pilots may be lost for no cause.

Defense

The Alliance cannot successfully defend against Imperial attack. Period. The Empire can always muster enough force to wipe out any defenses; even the Alliance Fleet could not sucessfully defend a fixed position against the might of the Imperial Navy. Once a base is discovered, it is lost. Alliance starfighter defense tactics are, therefore, designed to slow an Imperial attack to allow whatever is the objective of the attack to escape.

Though it is extremely painful to do so, Alliance pilots must be ready to abandon the defense when Imperial strength becomes overwhelming. Futile fights to the death to save an already-lost base are not encouraged.

Reconnaissance

These are intelligence-gathering missions. For the most part, passive monitoring of the enemy is handled by other agencies; starfighters are used to actively attack the enemy to find the disposition of his forces.

In its most simple form, a recon mission consists of an attack against an unknown target by fast, maneuverable craft. The attack is prosecuted until the enemy sends forth enough ships to discourage the attack, at which time the Alliance vessels withdraw.

These tactics allow the Alliance to determine where the enemy's strength is. Experienced pilots can quickly judge how many flights of TIE fighters they face, the makeup and disposition of any heavier ships, what kind of ground-based support is available and so forth.

This information can be crucial to a successful campaign; if the attackers have up-to-date data, they can plot their actions with much greater accuracy and chance of success.

Hyperspace in Starfighter Combat

Because all Alliance fighters are hyperdrive capable (unlike their Imperial counterparts), strikes can be rapidly executed on Imperial targets far away from the base. This is the starfighter's preferred tactic — striking quickly from out of hyperspace, taking full advantage of the element of surprise, then disappearing back into the hyperlanes before substantial resistance can be organized. To maximize surprise and limit the enemy's reaction time, Alliance pilots attempt to come out of hyperspace extremely close to the target — if possible, within its outer defense perimeter. There are risks involved, but if correctly executed, this maneuver leaves the target extremely vulnerable.

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The above lecture has been transcribed from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, by Paul Murphy & Peter Schweighofer (Ed.), copyright April 1994, from West End Games