The DUMBEST Tie Fighter Variants You Probably Haven’t Heard Of 

TIE Scout was probably bigger with that weird thing on top because, as a long range scout, it needed more space for a pilot to be able to stretch, sleep, eat, etc. while on long missions.

TIE Crawler made sense as something the Warlords were throwing together when they didn't have the right parts for other vehicles, the Mauler being made at the height if the Empire made no sense.

The designers who created these aircraft truly possessed hidden talent that they should have kept hidden

To clarify, it is important to remember that none of the TIE Experimental M1-5s were finalized designs. They look so odd because they were, as the names reveal, experimental prototypes designed to test specific functions and all controlled from the safety of a Shuttle or ship at range, effectively making them remote controlled drones so that one could have the cheapness of Droid fighters, but with human adaptability from a safe distance. If aspects would have been successful, then the aspects that excelled would have been focused on and new designs tailored around those in the next iteration.

At least the idea of shielded TIEs and the legendary TIE Defender (with the short-lived yet grandiose Missile Boat following suit) happened because of all this experimental prototype kriffery, followed up with the legacy craft that is the TIE Predator. Anyways, pays to go beyond the casualness of Squadrons, this X-Wing video games know-how.

TIE/D actually makes sense if you have TIE fighters but no pilots. I actually like it as it makes sense that the Remnant wouldn't have alot of pilots and needed to recycle existing hulls

TIE Interceptor will always be my favorite TIE variant, great design, incredible speed and maneuverability, decent firepower, and a great lore reason for being made (before Disney retconned everything at least)

The Imperial Design Bureau would like to thank you for your feedback. Revulsion was the intended reaction to our TIE development program. We cannot express how difficult it is to maintain proper levels of fear when the citizenry puts up posters of your fighters simply because "they look cool."

Would like to see a video about fighter mashups. Think they called them “uglies.” Some of those were.. Well, crimes against engineering.

2:24 I’m surprised that you didn’t mention the fact that Drone’s armour is actually better than the TIE Interceptor’s armour

The TiE Raptor is probably the most terrifying one, replace the organic with a drone, you could carry thousands of them just completely overwhelming the opposition. But that actually makes sense 🤣🤣

You're not giving the Raptor enough credit; it doesn't just look silly, but it violates the logic of starship design. It has 4 cannons, 2 missile launchers, is more maneuverable and can even mount a hyperdrive and sometimes shields while being smaller than an A-Wing. It makes every other ship design that came after stupid for not using the similar ultralight, ultracompact components to create pocket-sized death-machines.

The tie tanks were meant to use cheap mass produced materials, with the pilots being washouts from the fighter schools. So they were using spare parts laying around, and finding a use for the washouts (they were already familiar with the controls, so easier to get them into the tanks)

The TIE Crawler was the weirdest. I mean it's literally a tank with the TIE fighter ball cockpit. I know it probably doesn't count but I really think it should

Some of those are the result of Raith Sienar getting drunk or coming up with stuff for fun... And then some jackass in the Navy actually wanted them into production, and Raith Sienar being also a businessman he did it.

Some of the tie experimentals were actually quite capable and probably capable of more than a regular tie.

It's not an official variant but I still think the cobbled together "TYE Wing" deserves mention. One of the more common "uglies" from Legends, they are made from the body of a TIE with the engines of a Y-wing. It featured the firepower and durability of a TIE fighter combined with the speed and maneuverability of a Y-wing; unsurprisingly it was also referred to as a the Die-wing.😅

The TIE Scout is an insult to its name, slow, hard to maneuver, and joke of a power does not make for a good scout aka stealthy reconnaissance.

Good video, the ONLY reason I would Ever utilize the TIE Scout is for fleet hyperspace jumps (like in EAW)

I think Palpatine sought to get some simple pleasures out of seeing people’s reactions to any outrageous and impractical TIE series vehicles on the table, hence why any of them exist.

The only thing I'll defend is the idea to make TIEs drone fighters, given how cheaply quickly they could be made and the fact that they didn't have shields, they were more suited to the role of a B1 in a sense, just throw it at the enemy and overwhelm them with numbers. Why waste the lives of perfectly good soldiers who could be used for other tasks by having them pilot these flimsy things when you could have made them drones. The Empire may have taken some inspiration from the Vulture Droid with the TIEs, attempting to combat them, but they didn't take the most effective part, the Droid aspect.

The Empire must been doing a lot of drugs with these Tie crafts.

To be honest the TIE D could work from a strategic POV. When pilots are rare to come by and all you have is mass producability and swarm tactics, the TIE D starts to look more attractive

Not gonna lie. I love it when I see Geetsly’s or Ecks use screenshots of those old (now cringeworthy) 3D models I made back in Junior High. Just makes me smile thinking back on them.

I actually like the idea of several of these! Especially the TIE raptor. It would be pretty fun to do a mark two of some of the designs imagine if the scout was repurposted with the mini-turbolaser and shield? The booster could be made into a add-on perhaps with hyperdrive etc

If I were to fly anyone of those, it'd be the Experimental M2 BigGun, mostly due to it's firepower. Can't imagine using it in a starfighter dogfight though, it seems more like an anti-armour weapon like the Ju-87 G1 from ww2.

Do forget about the horrific junk fighters that became common after the Battle of Endor, and the innumerable junk fighters that were made out of Tie Fighters parts.

"The TIE Bizarro was an excellent concept and idea. When it was introduced as an RPG ship, our squadron was equipped with four of them, and I had the privilege to pilot one until I had the opportunity to switch to a TIE Scimitar. The turbo laser was a powerful asset, giving a substantial attack boost to a squadron of TIE fighters. A single hit was all it took to take down an A-Wing and even obliterate the reinforced shields of an X-Wing, which typically withstand six double hits. The original TIE Fighters, as you may know, were not equipped with landing systems. The TIE Bizarro, however, was ingeniously designed to dock using the same landing clamps as a standard TIE Fighter. This facilitated the formation of an attack squadron comprised of 8 TIE Fighters and 4 Bizarros, as opposed to 12 TIE Fighters requiring support from TIE Bombers and their torpedo payload. This change represented an efficient and effective evolution in our combat tactics."

I honestly don't think the TIE Scout looked all that bad, I actually like the way the taller wings look

There was a TIE Scout upgraded version that had shields, and IIRC 2 guns. And was sold on the civilian market in the New Republic era.

“So the cockpit doesn’t roll away if the pilot land it on the ground” I don’t know why I found that so funny but I literally Laughed out Loud!

As silly as the TIE Raptor looks, it could dish out some punishment, considering its armament. Though imo, the TIE Hunter would be my TIE of choice. Having almost as much ordinance as a Y-Wing with the speed (and S-Foils) like an X-Wing? Pretty deadly, I'd say.

Honestly I'd argue that the experimental ones for as dumb as they were are likely idea boards that served an additional purpose than just being a failed ship from day one

TIE Mauler also has blowing itself up as a standard operating procedure

The dumb thing about all but 5 or so TIE designs is the big panels blocking the pilot's sight lines.

There was a tie crawler Lego set. I thought it was so cool when I was little, and I still do. The wings could flip around!

Honestly, I think some of the Uglies (fighters built from scraps of other ships kit-bash style) probably had better designs than some of these.

The Senate never sanctions stupidity.

Seems like they let their kids design some imperial fighters

Missed opportunity to say "The imperials reinvented the wheel here, and they made it a rectangle."

The Bizarro has two whole reactors for an actually usable turbolaser.

People trash the TIE Crawler, but you gotta admit that the Lego set’s box art made it look awesome

Honorable mention goes to the TIE Brute. It’s essentially a TIE/LN with a turbolaser attached to its side like the Experimental M1. I don’t know if it also has standard laser cannons, but I do know that attaching a capital-ship grade weapon to a small starfighter is silly when it takes more fuel to fire, and they’re not as fast or precise enough to shoot down opposing starfighters.

My favorite and lesser know Tie is the Tie Star Cruiser. Big, Slow, and Ugly but their always a sense of Dread seeing them slowly lumber through the battlefield because you know it can whip out your army in one shot. Many times one of these ship turn the tides of a battle for me in Star Wars Galactic Battleground. Haven't seen anyone talk about it even in Tie related video and I always suggested these ships.

I remember the TIE/D actually coming in a LEGO set of 4 TIE's. 2 standard and an Interceptor came with it as well.

Imagine there were a bunch of Imperial remnant warlords in the sequels and you could tell how strong their faction is based on the level of how Tie Variants look. The better they look, the stronger the army is. The laughably bad, the weaker they are.

9:24 that's from an error where someone mixed feet and meters. It's SUPPOSED to be TIE Bomber length, not 3.3x thst.

The quality of video production dropped like a rock in this video. A lot of what was being said didn't match up with the images shown,despite clearly having the images for it soon after.

Oh, that last one is just so comical, I have to presume it was either the result of trying to scam people out of money, OR it was a designer who was just like "FINE, You want some new variant, I'll give you this monstrosity, then you'll understand why we haven't changed the base design..."

In fairness the TIE-D came out well over a decade before the Prequel movies did so at the time it was rather cool! And in universe they were pretty dangerous - we see them in swarms taking out tons of far more advanced fighters that the New Republic fielded against them. In universe World Devastators could just suck up debris from destroyed craft and debris, fabricate and deploy it out as TIE-D's mid battle as reinforcements so they could literally be forged in a fight!

One thing I love about these crazy ship designs, is that Lego made the TIE Crawler and the TIE-D (Drone) into sets back in 2003

There is one good reason I can think of for removing the standard laser cannons from the cockpits of the M-1 and M-2. With the upgraded weapons they may not have had a large enough power plant to support the standard weapons as well, so they removed them in favor of dedicating as much power to the larger weapons as possible. No excuse for removing them from the M-3 though.

Got click baited by the possibility of Defender slander that I would not have. Thanks thumbnail. Lmao

You're right to lambast these *abominations.* I would *never* fly any of them. Instead, I'd prefer to be an ace in a TIE Interceptor.

There were also the abominations created by pirates where the engines of a Y-Wing were grafted to the ball cockpit of a TIE Fighter to create something that was the worst of both worlds by having poor defenses and being slow and sluggish. In the X-Wing books they are most known for the speed with which they get exploded when fighting anything at all piloted by anyone remotely competent.

I love how you used the Star Wars: Battlefront Cover Art for the opening of this video :)

One thing to remember is that TIE fighters never actually landed on the ground. TIE fighters were always launched from special racks in the hangar bay. This is something that Disney grossly overlooked/ignored and drives me crazy every time I see a TIE fighter "land" on the ground

Officer: “proudly presents tie bizarro designs to me” Me: are you alright in the head?

I don't know much about the TIE-D.... but their cockpits were always spotless!! 😂😂

A couple of defences: - The idea of the TIE Scout, I think, was that it should be fitted with a tiny Master hyperdrive, similar to those of cruiser class ships, so that it wouldn't leave any theoretically traceable logs in the hyperspace lane systems, that smaller conventional craft would use to travel by. Hence, the massive hump on it's back. - The M3 was just mobile artillery, designed off a TIE due to the cost-efficiency of those blueprints. Maybe it could've had a single turret for defence, but it wasn't really supposed to be in the thick of battle, just creep along the outskirts, and snipe a quick big hit, before returning to their hangar to reload. It didn't need dogfight lasers. - The TIE Bizarro doesn't land, it either gets guaranteed destroyed in any engagement that would welcome a fast mobile turbolaser, or provide ineffective supporting fire, area denial in squads, far enough away from combat, to return to hang in tractor suspension, like the Milenium Falcon hung beneath the frigate in the closing scene of ESB.

The only reason I can see the original lasers removed from the ones with the wing mounted ones is maybe it wouldn't have the energy to run both. But that doesn't exactly work for the concussion missile one since missiles don't tend to require a ton of energy that isn't stored inside the missile. And you'd think they'd just be able to swap from big guns to smaller ones and redirect the reactor's energy

"So, what if we made a Tie Fighter...but worse and it looks like a child made it." "I'll take those blueprints for a million credits."

your intro gives me such nostalgia kicks i love it

As soon as you mentioned that the previous ones 'were at least starfighters', I knew the tanks were coming. I freaking love the TIE Tanks, the Mauler and Crawler. They're just so goofy and scrungly. I love them.

Not sure if you’ve played Jedi Survivor, but if you have I’d love to see some videos explaining some of the lore within that game! Great opportunity to talk about the High Republic era💯

TIE RC is capable of detecting ships on the far side of a system, and could scan underground structures. It's niche, but useful.

Why was the TIE Defender on the thumbnail? It was better armed, shielded, and had more flexibility than any other Republic fighter of the era and it was one of the best starfighters _period._ It was as fast as an A-Wing or TIE Interceptor, it was as well shielded as an X-wing, and as well armed as a B-Wing easily. Unless its purely to draw a distinction, it seems bizarre to put it on the thumbnail for this video.

Unpopular opinion, I actually like the Tie experimental M1 a lot.

The fun thing about Tie Mauler is, because it was drived on chains and are fast, the pilots can just mow over infantry. it is still bad, because it need one shot from a rocket launcher or a laser cannon from a T2B to destroy it, but at least, it had a terrifying effect for infantry

I see your farming those rage clicks with the TIE Defender in the thumbnail.

The Bad Piggies font on the thumbnail is a nice touch

If I HAD to pilot one of these it would be the kamikaze bomb. I know, it's pilotless, but I'd rather be blown to bits by a proton torpedo than be seen in an M1

"It's appearance was an absolute crime against humanity." To be fair those are the guys who didn't mind blowing up entire planets.

Heyyyy! Don’t bully the TIE Crawler, I wanted that to add to my Star Wars Lego sets when I was a kid.

In fairness to the TIE Mauler, it functions more like a light/scout tank, which are never really meant to withstand punishment - they prioritize speed and mobility over armor. Best case, it was light calvary that supported infantry or armor in flanking maneuvers, and for flanking, you need speed and mobility in order to get into position before your infantry/armor is overwhelmed. Though I doubt it was that fast, it might have been fast enough for the job. As far as profiles go, it was probably much better than the AT-ST, which towered on two rather lanky legs; a low-crawling Mauler is not going to be spotted as easily as a tall standing/walking scout walker, and without noisy TIE engines, it might have also been comparatively quieter. Granted, the AT-ST was comparatively more armed and armored, but it still depends on the terrain and tactics being utilized. Of course, its effectiveness was likely questionable at best. Given that it had an overload feature that basically turned it into a kamikaze in Empire at War, it probably was not something most ground vehicle operators wanted to pilot.

One tie wing between two cockpit balls -Geetsly 2023

7:30 I think this could have a reasonable use, mainly as a starship killer where it would be based at a small imperial base that lacked any local star destroyer cover. It's use would likely be to intercept and unload missiles into hostile starships for quick destruction before fighters could be deployed. It just reminds me of some WWII aircraft that were designed to launch really quick to intercept bombers, make a couple strafing passes and then return. Given that reason, the removal of it's standard weaponry could make some sense, where it would have been to reduce weight as it wouldn't be expected to have a long drawn out fight, but a quick strafe or two of a much bigger ship before returning

The stupid TIE variants all hold a special place in my heart BECAUSE of how stupid they are. They are peak ridiculous Legends.

(4:55) Someone still plays "Spore"? The game of my childhood. Anyway, I think airlock is a little overkill for creators of these "designs". I would send the men responsible to Kessel, maybe there they'd put a thought about what've gone wrong and what they'd do better.

Can Confirm: that video was a violation of the Yavin Convention.

The fact that the Empire chose to discontinue the clone trooper program and instead fund these ridiculous projects is a testament to why it only lasted a generation.

the TIE LN's job was something different then a tie fighter. They were supposed to act as forward observers for star destroyers... with the star destroyer using the Tie LN's sensor information for long range targeting and bombardment. They would also do after action reports with their sensors monitoring damage done by the guns.

One of my favorites that wasn't mentioned, and probably because perhaps it might not be too ridiculous a design, save for its overall size, is the TIE Punisher. Essentially, a TIE Bomber with a central cockpit surrounded by four bombing pods in an X configuration, flanked by the two bent-wing solar panels, so you can imagine it is somewhat wider and taller than the vanilla TIE Bomber. The first time I saw this was as a miniature for the table top game Star Wars X-wing. I had to get this miniature (and have several miniatures from both X-wing and Armada ...the capital ship table top board game). I don't know if the Punisher ever appeared in any Star Wars EU/Legends novels. Gotta say, I love the miniatures made for both X-wing and Armada.

I believe the mauler was made up for the rts empire at war as a counterpart to the rebellions light hovertank. It was fast, could mow down infantry, was cheap and interestingly enough, had a special ability where it just blew up and did damage to everything around

The TIE Bizarro was probably just an engineer taking the piss.

TIE Scout looks like it should be piloted by Lonestar and barf. The TIE Winnebago 😂

I am totally in agreement on the Tie Crawler and "Mauler." Aside from being very bad at being tanks, there was no sense in using TIE parts in them anyway. "Oh, it helps in familiarity when our rare in number fighter pilots can be retrained to drive tanks along the ground... What do you mean it would take less time to train tank drivers and just build more tanks rather than retrofit fighter facilities to build TIE tanks?" ...But I will defend the first two of the TIE experimentals to my last breath. Here is a mad science project more fitting for the Empire. They were test runs of starfighters that were thrown into combat (and that's the type of budget shenanigans and corruption that you expect from the Empire anyway.) The M1 and M2 in particular give you something that normal TIE squadrons lack. Heavy firepower in a small and agile fighter package. A bunch of M1s will have the firepower of a capital ship while being agile enough that the enemy needs other fighters or anti-fighter turret screens to take them out. (Which ironically would make them really good against the Imperium, since anti-fighter capability was their biggest weakness.) The experimental with the dual rocket launchers had a flaw as it would have needed the cannons to have firepower after the first rocket volley, but maybe this was a flaw of it being a testbed and not the finished product? Now, the kamikaze-experimental has no excuse. Just make a better torpedo and you'll do the same job at a fraction of the cost. ...In fact, all the experimentals seem to be still in the "experiment" phase and had they spent more time planning and testing before throwing them to real combat (typical Empire arrogance probably) they might have come up with a few good TIEs from that bunch.

OUI, THE TIE CRAWLER IS PRECIOUS they made a lego set about it 😞

"Whichever Imperial bureaucrat signed off on this should have been thrown out an airlock" Given that it was probably Palpatine, I wholeheartedly agree. :P

my headcanon to make the Tie Crawler even remotely tolerable is that they were phasing out ties without the interceptor's new ion stream projector and thought they could be decent second-line tank hunters, reusing the cockpits of the older fighters.

A bit of context with the TIE/D. They were designed to be built and used by Palpatines "New Superweapon" the World Devastator. The World Devastator was a giant, mobile, factory created to consume rebellious worlds piece by piece and use the materials to create weapons for Palpatines "Dark Empire". The primary defense for the World Devastator, besides its own sheids and armo(u)r, was the TIE/D, which the Devastator itself would create and control: by the _MILLIONS_ given the chance. According to Legends, these things were all but unstoppable by conventional means(one of these things went up against a Star Destroyer and ate it) and fleets of Devastators were sent to multiple New Republic worlds simultaneously. The World Devastator fleets were only stopped when Luke Skywalker, nd R2-D2, after infiltrating one and stealing enough data, created a virus that destroyed the Devastators CPU. TLDR: Was the TIE/D worse than the Vulture? Probably. Would that matter when, without Luke and R2, there would have been an almost _INFINITE_ amount of them across the galaxy? No.

The fact that the tae scout has no shields despite having a shape that's way more shootable is very much a crime against starfighter design

I liked the Tie Scout. Most of the others I get, but I liked the scout. Like a small car home when you go camping. Plus I could see the upper part as housing the hyperdrive possibly. I think it was okay, though why the Empire would have more then a ISD2 Hangars full of them… I would not understand.

The M/1 Bizarro looks to be a test bed for drone-control flight as a "proof of concept" lab design, and not something that was intended for mass production whatsoever. The TIE Scout's ugly top does serve one very logical function: Living space, and storage supply space for long distance recon. It was lightly armed and unshielded because it was never intended to fight, and had to be livable for extended periods of time. However, my issue with the TIE Scout raises an even greater question about its purpose: Why bother when a non-TIE vessel would be more effective in the same role? There are GOBS of frigate-merchant navies in the setting in the Empire era. Why not just buy a light frigate design and then militarize it? What exactly makes the TIE design suitable for this? A YT-1300, which is an ANCIENT design by the Galactic Empire era, is far better armed (with two Turrets and forward firing weaponry) better shielded, reasonably fast, HIGHLY modifiable and even in the base model is perfectly equipped for carrying 1-3 operatives very long distances entirely on its own supply. Make that your baseline of performance, and get Sienar Fleet Systems to build something around it.

storing: since every tie stored with claws grabbing the connections between the wings and the cockpit, most has no issue with storing, so that part is not an issue. the turbolaser on the m1 meant it can one shot most fighters and do serious damage to even capital ships, so not really a problem to lose the normal laser pair, even if it should stay for saving the big gun for actual targets that need it. the rocket launcher variant also has no issue, i mean, most actual fighters ditched the cannon or other gun for more rockets, and very few can carry more than 16 of them, in full load, not in normal load. if the kept the interceptors speed and maneuverability, than it is a more dangerous bomber than the bomber itself, and can defend almost as well. the tie crawler is an in universe thing, spaceships have better armor and firepower than most land vehicle, so the tie fighter is actually on par with other armor in defense and well above in offense. Adding the scrapyard benefit, any damaged tie/ln can be turned into a somewhat decent land combat vehicle while repairs are not possible for full space fighter state.

Respect for the Tie Scout! It could at least hold a fresher

The Empire should have had Vader have final say on all TIE designs. He would have known which one was good, bad, and ugly

I propose the Tie Advanced XX1 where its literally just a Tie advanced with like 2 more cup holders and a tiny microwave for imperial popcorn

The impact of seeing a SimplePlanes build in these videos will never not surprise me

LucasFilm designers... "heh heh, yeah... Those Imperial engineers sure suck... It's all their fault. Look, we were just told to sell more toys, okay?"