B-wing Starfighter
| |
| Certification | Alliance Ace Pilot |
| Mass | ~240k |
| Role | Heavy bomber |
| Crew | Pilot only |
| Weapon Mounts | Projectile weapon x4 Ordnance x2 |
| Astromech Technology | Flight computer |
| Acceleration | 300 |
| Deceleration | 350 |
| Yaw Rate | 75 |
| Pitch Rate | 75 |
| Roll Rate | 50 |
| Speed Modifier | 0.90 (S-foils closed) 0.85 (S-foils open) |
| Pictures | All 8 Textures |
The B-wing Bomber is an advanced fighter ship available to Alliance Starfighter Pilot Aces. The B-wing is not known for its maneuverability; however, with four weapon ports and two ordinance bays, the firepower this monster can bring to bear is truly frightening. Though is takes patience and practice to master, the B-Wing has great potential to rip apart larger ships and take an incredible amount of punishment. However, because of the handling difficulties, it is not a ship for pilots with little or no experience. The Alliance selects its B-wing corps from among the best pilots available.
Star Wars Lore[]
Perhaps the oddest-looking starfighter in the Rebel Alliance fleet, the B-wing fighter is as powerful as it is ungainly. The ship's structure is almost entirely taken up by its primary airfoil, which houses a cylindrical cockpit on one end, an engine cluster in the center, and a heavy weapons pod at its base. Located just below the engine cluster are a pair of S-foils which can deploy to extend the firing arc of twin laser cannons.
The B-wing's command pod has a unique gyroscopic control system. The pilot can orient it so that it always stays level with a pre-designated horizon line. No matter which way the B-wing may maneuver laterally, its pilot remains upright.
B-wing fighters figured prominently in the Battle of Endor as Alliance pilots such as Ten Numb piloted the ship into the historic showdown.
The Alliance drew many needed supplies by raiding Imperial convoys with their venerated X-wing and Y-wing starfighters. In response to this piracy, the Empire countered with heavily armed starships—escort frigates—protecting their shipments. The Alliance countered with the B-wing starfighter.
The B-wing/E (or B-wing Expanded) was a modification to the original Slayn & Korpil B-wing design. First proposed by Admiral Ackbar and the Verpine after the Battle of Yavin, the B-wing Expanded had an elongated cockpit that allowed a gunner to assist the pilot on missions. This allowed the pilot to concentrate on piloting, and resulted in the B-wing accounting for an increased number of kills in battle. It was faster and tougher than the original B-wing, but was somewhat less maneuverable. There were two models of B-wing/E—the first was simply a military ship, while the second generation (known as the B-wing/E2) was designed as a personal military shuttle. Ackbar used one of these E2-designs as his own shuttle, which he was forced to crash on the planet Vortex after it had been tampered with by Terpfen.
The B-wing carries an extremely powerful array of weapons, including a heavy ion cannon, proton torpedoes, auto-blasters and a trio of laser cannons. Alternate configurations feature three laser cannons, three ion cannons, and twin torpedo launchers. Since the vessel is designed to engage capital ships, it has phenomonal firepower, but lacks speed and maneuverability.
The peculiar shape of the B-wing fighter worked against it in earning screen time. The extremely thin front and back views of the fighter made it all but disappear in shots against space, so many of the planned B-wing sequences were cut from the film.
The rotating cockpit assembly was inspired by designs originally planned for the Millennium Falcon.
While the B-wing was designed to replace the aging Y-wing, the fact that it was very difficult to fly meant that it never fully succeeded in this respect. The fact that its entire hull could rotate separately from its cockpit made the B-wing a challenge to master, as well as making the ship abnormally delicate; too many sharp turns could cause extreme strain to the spaceframe. Only a few pilots were qualified to fly the ship before the Battle of Endor, resulting in a smaller number of B-wings present than expected. These difficulties forced the Rebel Alliance to invest in an upgraded Y-wing, rather than an entirely new ship, to fulfill their needs.
Despite its limited numbers, it was a key Rebel craft in the Battle of Endor, where a squad of these fighters took down an Imperial-class Star Destroyer.
Pilot Opinion[]
The B-wing is mostly used as a bomber and used to great effect against gunboats, capital ships, etc. That being said the B-wing is more than capable of going head to head with interceptors and other bombers and will usually win a joust, though it has a bit more trouble winning in a turn fight, even with a p/y/r engine. The B-wing has a unique advantage over other ships in that it has a different roll axis. The axis runs through the cockpit and therefore the B-wing is harder to hit when rolling. If the pilot can make use of this roll combined with yawing and pitching they can be very hard to hit.
The B-wing's mass allows it to easily fit a Nova engine and 4 re-engineered level 8 weapons, or 3 level 8s and a level 10 if needed.
A note on weapons: It's somewhat in-efficient to use more than 3 level 8s during PvE. The only time it's recommended to use all 4 weapons is during a PvP encounter when the weapon spread is really needed. Against most NPC ships it's very unlikely that all 4 weapons will hit and there's not much of a risk when they do not all hit the target as there is while PvPing.
The B-wing also has potential as a mining ship due to its numerous weapon slots, which still allow a good amount of firepower when you have a mining laser and tractor beam equipped as well as enough mass for a huge starfighter cargo hold. It is suggested to place your tractor beam in the first slot (The gun on the cockpit) since anywhere else will cause some difficulty when using/aiming a tractor beam to collect astroid chunks.