Vehicle Showcase- Alpha-class Xg-1 Starwing.

The Imperial Navy's Starwing or also known as the Assault Gunboat is a bit of a departure of the traditional fighter doctrine of the Empire.  The Starwing is designed to fight the many countless threats placed in Imperial space.  These missions include convoy escort, long range raids, scouting, interdiction, anti piracy patrols and rapid response.  These venerable fighter craft are the unsung heroes of the Imperial fighter corp as these fighters are a common site defending the Empires hyperlanes.  The need for the Starwing assault gunboat occurred roughly 15 years after the end of the clone wars.    Low intensity conflicts had been an increasing problem for the Empire and the Navy could not be in all places at once.  The Navy needed a fighter that was capable of independent operations with the fire power to bring down threats and to be able to survive without the heavy support of a large capitol ship in support, unlike the current crop of TIE fighters which at the time were not capable of being equipped with hyper drives and had less than optimal weapons configurations.

Alpha class Xg-1 Starwing

The Alpha-Class Xg-1 Starwing was developed by Cygnus Spaceworks the same manufacturer of the many folding winged transports in imperial use such as the Lambda class shuttle and the Sentinel class transport.   The contract was for a long range strike fighter with excellent survivability and to be able to carry a variety of ordinance.  The development of the Starwing was counter to fleet doctrine at the time where strike craft were to be used in support of a larger capitol ship.  Doctrine however met a dose of reality along with the rapid technological advances of the post Clone Wars galaxy.  Pirate and rebel cells had sprung up with large stock piles of military grade weaponry that had been created during the Clone Wars.  With these weapons out in the market the space lanes were now a far more dangerous place.  Cygnus developed a craft that had a fast enough hyperdrive that could respond quickly enough to reach a trouble spot in time to actually catch the pirates in the act.  The Starwing was also armed heavily enough where a flight group could take down a ship as large as a corvette on their own.  Apart of the heavy armaments of the Starwing is a pair of heavy laser cannons which had a lower rate of fire than their TIE cousins but with a far more powerful punch.  The Starwings dual Ion cannons were very effective at disabling craft which is important for the policing role the Imperial navy had found itself in.

Starwings were first fielded on outposts and ships assigned to the Outer rim territories. Early battlefield successes were kept on the down low in some circles of the admiralty as it was a proof of concept that was counter to established doctrine.  However the Rebellion had started to heat up around this time and the Starwing was one of the few craft other than the ARC-170 which the navy had that could counter long range hit and run tactics that were favored by the Rebellion.

A typical mission for the Starwing would be convoy falls under attack, distress signal is sent out.  Starwings are scrambled to aid convoy.  Starwings drive off attackers by either  forcing the attackers to cut and run or be destroyed.  Mother ship is able to either jump in and aide convoy if the Starwings are outgunned or maintain patrol route and able to scramble to other distress signals.  It was standard practice for both rebels and pirates to carry out multiple operations simultaneously knowing that Imperial capitol ships would not be able to  respond to every attack.  When Imperial warships show up the rebel/ pirate forces would be able to jump away.

Starwings with their class 1 hyper drive were able to quickly jump from system to system which made them invaluable as scouts being able to jump into a system take a sensor reading then jump to the next system.  These scouting operations were successful in finding rebel/pirate bases which would be promptly destroyed by heavier fleet elements.

Although the Starwing is an excellent scout and attack craft it does have some drawbacks.  The Starwings anti fighter capabilities are somewhat lacking.  It has a large rear profile with no rear facing weaponry making it vulnerable from a fighter attacking from the rear.  The Starwing is also not the most nimble of strike craft being out maneuvered by most dedicated fighters.  These shortcomings are somewhat alleviated by strong shields, powerful cannons which can make mince meat out of lightly shielded targets and concussion missiles.

The Alpha Class Starwing though not at the bleeding end of the performance scale does however ad its contribution to the Imperial strike doctrine.  Its versatile strike packages as well as the Starwings excellent range and endurance makes it an invaluable craft for the Imperial fleet. 


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