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So I've been playing a lot of War Thunder lately, so I was wondering about different flier classes in SWBF 1, 2, or reboot or whatever...

There's really no such thing as a heavy bomber the way Battlefront I/II show it. The "bombers" they show are really more like "fighter-bombers", or even just "heavy fighters" because they are really armed with dumbfire rockets like HVAR's and other rockets that they had in WWII, not even bombs. If they were really bombers, their ordnance wouldn't launch forward, it would just drop, which would be useless in space, but level bomber's weren't really effective against ships in WWII either which is why they used dive and torpedo bombers, and if they were heavy bombers, they'd be bigger, carry more bombs or bigger bombs at once. Imagine, killing a frigate in one pass by dropping 30 stock sized bombs at once, or having big enough bombs that it only takes 3 to kill a frigate.

Does the term bomber even work in SW? I mean, the only time I can even think of a bomb drop type attack is episode 5's TIE bombers actually bombing an asteroid, and the TCW episode on Malastare with the almost-nuke, everything else, the Y-Wings in TCW: LAPR, just seem like air-to-ground missiles that any fighter could equip, and when at Ryloth in TCW they deployed bombers to kill the frigates, they did so by strafing.

So like, what in Star Wars determines the difference between what they call a fighter and a bomber. AFAIK, the X-Wing and Y-Wing can both choose between loading proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, yet one is called fighter and the other is bomber, the difference being capacity?

And then that brings up another question, what's the difference between a proton torpedo and a concussion missile? They both lock on to targets, are launched from fighters, bombers, frigates, capital ships, space stations, they are both self propelled and guided, explode on impact and depending on the reference, are both capable of penetrating shields, and tracking and turning to kill fighters.

And then there's the Superiority type craft, which they for some reason called "Scout" fighters, and are made up of Interceptors, and then there's the Interceptors that they wrongly equipped as fighter bombers SWBF is awesome.

Bomber is a term used insomuch as the craft so named has the primary role of delivering munitions against hard targets. If you're making a real-life comparison:

X-Wing: F-15
Y-Wing: A-10
A-Wing: F-22

Any of our small, single/dual-manned aircraft (just like in Star Wars) fit an F/A profile. The Y-Wing is an attack craft but can be called a bomber in the sense that bombing is often its primary mission. A more direct parallel between our bombers ("B-" designation) would be something like an Escort Transport, which is a larger craft that's too slow to engage with even the slowest fighters and is often used primarily against stationary targets.

Regardless, bomber is a role more than anything. There are lots of video game examples that show bombers operating with the ballistic bomb drop that you're referencing, but you don't have to be literally dropping something to perform a bombing role. There are plenty of ordnances that are too slow to use against fighters and can in fact only be used as bombs.

kinetosimpetus wrote:If they were really bombers, their ordnance wouldn't launch forward, it would just drop

If I remember correctly, the Y-Wings and Tie Bombers from Battlefront 1 had bombs that dropped straight down (Which really kind of annoyed me )

what else would you call that?:D

TIE bombers, which i did mention i believe?

I made the topic when I was frustrated by trying to reconcile the fighter types in my mod with the flyer types of the same names in aviation history. In Star Wars, they just call fighter-bombers, torpedo bombers, and attackers as bombers. The TIE bomber and Y-wing are more like P-47 Thunderbolt or Bristol Beaufighter.




"And then that brings up another question, what's the difference between a proton torpedo and a concussion missile? They both lock on to targets, are launched from fighters, bombers, frigates, capital ships, space stations, they are both self propelled and guided, explode on impact and depending on the reference, are both capable of penetrating shields, and tracking and turning to kill fighters."

I do still have this question. In my mod I have the torpedoes set up more like, well, torpedoes. But what's the 'official' difference, if there is any?

Maybe the K-wing could be considered a bomber? It looks roughly analogous to the B-17 to me. I also think the difference between a concussion and proton missile is how they're made; concussion missiles are roughly like the ones we have in real life, but probably more destructive, and proton torpedoes have baradium or something in it, which is more less Star War's version of uranium, I think.

kinetosimpetus wrote:And then that brings up another question, what's the difference between a proton torpedo and a concussion missile? They both lock on to targets, are launched from fighters, bombers, frigates, capital ships, space stations, they are both self propelled and guided, explode on impact and depending on the reference, are both capable of penetrating shields, and tracking and turning to kill fighters.

I do still have this question. In my mod I have the torpedoes set up more like, well, torpedoes. But what's the 'official' difference, if there is any?

Multiple different sources present torpedoes as slower-tracking than concussion missiles (and often, they differ in average payload strength and velocity as well), which indicates that torpedoes are better choices against more heavily armored targets (which are often less maneuverable). There's no real-world analogue, since we have a variety of weapons, each designed for much more specific roles than "slow target" and "fast target." If you look strictly at air-to-air capability, a decent parallel might be the AIM-9 versus the AMRAAM missiles, the former of which is a short-range, high "turn rate" weapon (like a Concussion Missile) while the latter is a longer-range weapon with an inferior tracking ability. Additionally, the AMRAAM missile, because of its range, would be used as an initiation action in combat, just like Proton Torpedoes are often depicted (you rarely see pilots use torpedoes against other starfighters once they're in a furball).