A small, wedge-shaped craft, the A-wing fighters is introduced at the Battle of Endor and quickly becomes a major element of the Alliance combat fleet. The lightweight A-wing, designed by General Jan Dodonna to outrun any ship in the Imperial Navy, has especially powerful avionics, including a power-jamming system that lets pilots blind enemy targets prior to attack. While originally designed for escort duty, the A-wing is proving more adept at hit-and-run missions, blasting enemy sites and spacecraft with twin, wing-mounted pivoting blaster cannons and concussion missiles.The downside of the A-wing's speed and agility is its relatively high vulnerability in dogfights: The position of the cockpit and its lack of shielding leaves pilots exposed to enemy fire, making the craft's speed shielding leaves pilots exposed to enemy fire, making the craft's speed even more important.
From outward appearances "a piece of junk," this Corellian stock light freighter is one of the fastest and bst equipped crafts in the galaxy, when some malfunction or other isn't giving its crew headaches. That crew is daredevil pilot Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot and engineer, Chewbacca. The Millennium Falcon may look old and battered, but constant modifications turn it into a ship capable of going up against the Empire's most fearsome weapons.The Falcon had a number of owners before it fell into the hands of rogue gambler Lando Calrissian, who then lost it in a sabacc game to Solo. The dilapidated exterior of the ship helps Solo avoid at least some Imperials and Customs entanglements. Beneath the skin of the 27-meter long, Corellian Engineering YT-1300 transport is a hyperdrive nearly twice as fast as any Imperial warship. The The well-armored Falcon has a top-of-the-line sensor array to detect distant Imperial ships before they ever notice the Falcon. There are shielded smuggling compartments throughout the interior. In combat, the Falcon sports a military-grade Imperial deflector-shield system, two quad laser cannons and two concussion missile launchers, along with a retractable light laser cannon.
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The personal flagship of Darth Vader, the Executor, is the Empire's first Super-class Star Destroyer. The Executor is over eight times the size of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Such ships could be considered overkill, since a smaller vessel could fulfill its specific duties as a headquarters ship. But it effectively symbolizes the Emperor's unlimited power and resources.The Executor is presented to Lord Vader shortly after the Battle of Yavin. It carries more than 1,000 weapons; two full wings of 144 TIE fighters and 200 other combat and support ships; 38,000 ground stormtroopers; and enough garrison bases and Imperial walkers to destroy any Rebel base. Vader directs the hunt for Luke Skywalker and the pursuit of the Rebels aboard the Executor, communicating holographically with the Emperor and striding the walkways of the command bridge above the work stations of his officers.
The TIE fighter is the most recognizable symbol of the Imperial Navy's control of space. TIE (Twin Ion Engine) fighters are aboard even the smallest cruisers and are stationed at starports and garrison bases across the galaxy. The TIE fighter is a small ship whose distinguishing feature is the pair of large hexagonal solar array wings on either side of its small, spherical cockpit pod. The ship presents a small profile and its great maneuverability makes it difficult to target in combat.TIEs are short-range fighters lacking hyperdrives to save weight and increase performance. They depend on a home base--a nearby planet or Imperial cruiser. They carry two days' worth of supplies and must refuel after the first few hours of combat, but their massive quantities make up for any design deficiencies. The fighters are used for planetary and cruiser defense and assault against Rebel, pirate and alien vessels.Each TIE has a pair of forward-mounted, fire-linked laser cannons.The powerful laser generators are in the undercarriage of the command pod and feed off the power generators and batteries. The fighter draws much of its energy from solar radiation absorbed by the array wings.
Warship construction is a lengthy, complicated business. The pre-construction phase alone - original inception, funding, design, creation of production facilities, training of personnel, and requisition of materials - can, for a large ship, take years; the actual construction of the vessel usually isn't much faster. The expenses are excessive, in both money and labor. As one might expect, the pressure on the ship designers and architects is enormous; the bureaucratic infighting and political wheeling, dealing, and budgetary battling is unbelievable. Once a project is approved and work on the vessel begun, the Empire is committing itself to that vessel for the next several decades. At that point, any changes - even trivial ones - in the vessel's design can cost literally billions of credits and thousands of extra man-hours. When Lira Wessex, daughter of the designer of the Victory-class Star Destroyer, proposed that the Empire produce the Imperial-class Star Destroyer, the angry debate between the Navy's military strategists, the Imperial Military Oversight Commission, and the Senate Budgetary Committee (since disbanded) almost destroyed the Empire. Somebelieve the Imperial too expensive, some believed it too unwieldily, others quite simply thought it was an engineering impossibility. The Navy loved it, of course; and through a combination of bribes, political pressure, and a rash of mysteriously crushed tracheas, it slowly brought the others into line.
One of the Rebel Alliance's most advanced fighters, the X-wing plays a major role in the assault on the first Death Star. The one-man T-65 X-wing starfighter, which measures 12.5 meters from nose to engine block, was the final design of its kind by the Incom Corporation before Incom was nationalized by the Empire.The X-wing takes its name from its pair of double-layered wings that are deployed into an X-formation for combat. During atmospheric and non-combat space flight, the wings are closed for stability. Each wing tip carries an oversized long-range laser cannon. A pair of proton torpedo launchers are mounted midway up the main space-frame, each holding a magazine of three torpedoes. An R2 astromech droid housed in a snug droid socket behind the pilot handles many in-flight operations, such as damage control, astrogation and flight performance adjustment.The X-wing is known for its durability, with a reinforced alloy hull and high-powered shield generators. It can normally take minor hits without a serious loss of performance, and has full ejection and life-support systems. X-wings have hyperdrive systems that add flexibility to their list of attributes.
Despite its age, this ship has been one of the mainstays of the Rebel Alliance and sees notable duty at the Battle of Yavin. The twin-engine Y-wing, at 16 meters long, is a multi-purpose ship designed as a compromise between an attack fighter and heavier bombers. The well-armed and durable Y-wing fighter-bombers can give and take a great deal of punishment, but they do not have the speed and maneuverability necessary to compete evenly with modern Imperial attack fighters.The Rebel Alliance has flown more Y-wings than any other fighter and has used a number of different configurations for a variety of mission profiles. It is not uncommon for a Y-wing to be stripped down for assault runs against Imperial convoys and then be refitted by Rebel technicians for a heavy bombing run against an Imperial base. Y-wings also find use on diplomatic escort missions and for long-range patrols. The Y-wing has three main components. The forward cockpit nose cone houses the pilots and weapons systems. A reinforced space-frame central spar stretches back from the nose cone; the Y-wing's ionization reactor and hyperdrive/astrogation hardware are crammed into this narrow frame. A cross wing housing the main power cells attaches at the back of the spar, with the two powerful turbine sublight ion drives on either end. The cockpit module is protected by sturdy armor plating. Hull plating originally covered the entire Y-wing body, but as the ship requires maintenance after virtually every flight, mechanics weary of constantly removing and replacing panels have finally left the body plating off entirely. The pilot controls a pair of forward laser cannons and the twin proton torpedo launchers. A turret-mounted ion cannon is directly behind the pilot, although the ion cannon is notoriously delicate and failure-prone. An astromech droid fits into the droid socket behind the cockpit and monitors all fight, navigation and power systems.
Designed and constructed in secret, the Death Star is the brainchild of the sinister Grand Moff Tarkin, governor of the Imperial Outland Regions. In orbital construction yards circling a remote planet code-named Despayre, this battle station was pieced together by technicians, slaves, and titanic robot factory machines. The completed Death Star is powered by a hypermatter reactor and is capable of destroying an entire planet with its prime weapon, a horrific superlaser. This abomination is the galaxy's ultimate weapon, and the greatest symbol of the Emperor's absolute power.The battle station is now fully operational, and the Emperor has ordered the Imperial Senate dissolved. Tarkin's doctrine of Rule by Fear will replace the bureaucracy as the Death Star drifts menacingly through the galaxy, frightening into submission those worlds with rebellious leanings. Meanwhile, the rebellious young Senator-Princess Leia Organa has been brought on board as Darth Vader's prisoner. A complete technical readout of the Death Star has fallen into Rebel hands. Instead of providing any hope, the schematics have only documented the almost infinite destructive power of the station. Rebel agents look with dismay at the listings: thousands of turbolaser battery emplacements speckle the rugged surface of the battle station, designed to defend it against capital ship assaults. Countless hangar bays house TIE fighters, shuttles, and other combat and transport craft.The station seems invincible. The Rebellion is doomed. Unless a crucial weakness can be found.....
In the battle of Yavin Darth Vader takes a ship into combat against the Rebels himself. This prototype ship, the TIE Advanced X1, features an original rear-deck spaceframe and reinforced durasteel-alloy hull built around standard TIE/In cockpit and wing brace elements. While similar to the standard TIE/In in many components, the advnaced X1 sports a more powerful drive system. Speed performance is only slightly better than the TIE/In, however, due to the added mass of the vessel, which includes hyperdrive and shields. A good deal of the ship's extra power is bled off to the shield generators. While less maneuverable than standard TIE fighters, it can take a beating. The TIE Advanced X1 has twin heavy-blaster cannons in a fixed, front-mounted position, like the TIE/In. In addition to its shields, it had a modest hyperdrive but no life support system. Against the Rebel X-wing and Y-wing fighters in the Death Star trench, Darth Vader's personal ship proves to be a devastating opponent, and Vader cuts down one pilot after another with the X1's high technology. While the X1 prototype has not been accepted by the Imperial Fleet for mass production, many of its best design features are being incorporated into the TIE interceptor.
The Corellian Corvette is an older spacecraft design still in service throughout the galaxy. At 154 meters long, these multi-purpose capital ships can be used as troop carriers, light escort vessels, cargo transports, or passenger liners. The mid-sized vessels each have a fast sublight drive and a quick hyperjump calculator for swift exits into hyperspace. Blending anonymously into galactic space traffic, this type of ship has often been used for smuggling by outlaws such as Corellian pirates, leading authorities to nickname the Corvette a "Blockade Runner." Princess Leia Organa's consular ship Tantive IV is a Corellian Corvette.
