The B-wing is a bomber starfighter used by the Rebel Alliance in the Star Wars Franchise. They were named because they resemble the letter "B" when viewed from an upright position with their strike foils closed.
Overview[]
The most powerful starfighter belonging to the Rebel Alliance, the B-wing or Blade Wing was created as a "blockade buster" and an anti-capital starfighter with its vast array of heavy weaponry.
Intended to serve as a high-tech technological replacement for the venerable Y-wings, it took part in numerous engagements in the Galactic Civil War. But the B-wing proved to be a difficult starfighter to fly thanks to its complex gyroscopic control system and its awkward strike foils. Only the most talented and skilled pilots proved capable of exploiting the fighter to its full potential and these crafts were frequent causalities to enemy TIE Fighters.
The B-wings were later redesigned and regulated to a more support role in the later days of the Galactic Civil War as strategic bombers, relying on faster and more agile starfighters such as the A-wings and X-wings to cover them while they bored in to attack capital ships or planetary targets.
Technical Specifications[]
- MODEL: A/SF-01 B-Wing Starfighter
- CLASS: Heavy Assault Starfighter / Bomber
- OVERALL LENGTH: 16.9 meters
- OVERALL BEAM: 2.9 meters
- OVERALL DRAFT: 2.5 meters (Cruise Configuration) / 7.3 meters (Attack Configuration Position)
- MAXIMUM CARGO CAPACITY: 45 kilograms
- CREW COMPLEMENT: 1 Pilot
- MAXIMUM ATMOSPHERIC SPEED: 950 kph
- MAXIMUM SUBLIGHT SPEED: 91 MGLT (Megalight)
- HYPERSPEED CLASSIFICATION: Class 2 Lightspeed
B-wing Design Schematics
Design Features[]
The quirky and ungainly appearing B-wing starfighter appears to be an elongated airfoil or flying wing which consists of most of the starfighter's length. Roughly midway in this airfoil is a boxy Quadex Kryomaster engine cluster with four Slayn & Korpil JZ-5 Fusial Thrust Engines that allowed the starfighter to attain flight speeds slightly below the premiere starfighters of this era such as the TIE Fighter and the X-wing. This engine also contained a HYd-997 hyperdrive motivator that gave it a Class 2 hyperspeed capability.
The B-wing was equipped with Vinop O2K cryogenic power cells and ionization reactor power plant that provided energy for its various weapons and its heavy deflector shields that was twice as powerful as an X-wing.
Positioned at one end of the airfoil is a cylindrical shaped cockpit with another, smaller cylindrical pod housing the heavy weapons array is mounted on the opposite end.
There are also two S-foils that unfurled themselves from dorsal and ventral mounts on the B-wing's hull in combat. Aside from acting as stabilizer wings, these S-foils also deployed lighter weapon turrets and increased the range of fire arcs that the B-wing was capable of. With the S-foils locked in position, the B-wing resembled a top heavy cross.
One of the most unique features of the B-wing is the rotating gyroscopic cockpit which always maintained the pilot on a stationary position while the rest of the starfighter literally spins around the cockpit. This allows the B-wing to radically alter its already narrow target profile at need, confusing hostile targeting systems thanks to its shifting shape. However this gyroscopic control system was often baffling and confusing to this ship's pilots and thus made it difficult to fly in combat. This gyroscopic ring was also prone to breakdowns and would and could lock the airfoil into a single position in-flight.
The B-wing was a highly adaptable fighter and was capable of landing horizontally but also being stored and carried in vertical racks for ease of storage.
Armaments[]
The B-wing was the most heavily armed starfighter ever built during the Galactic Civil War and possessed an unmatched arsenal of firepower to unleash upon its enemies. Typically, the B-wing's weapon systems consisted of no less than three ArMek SW-7a light ion cannons which discharge ionized particles which seriously disrupted and shorted out advanced circuitry and electronics; one was mounted on the weapons pod and the other two were mounted on the S-foils wings. Further, there was one Gyrhil R-9X heavy laser cannon mounted on the weapons pod and a pair of two Gyrhil 72 twin autoblasters located on the nose of the cockpit.
Finally, the B-wing could carry a total of 16 advanced proton torpedoes in its internal magazines. Faster and even more destructive than the standard proton torpedo carried by the X-wings that destroyed the Death Star, these lethal ordnance unleashed a devastating powerful burst of proton-scattering radiation. However, these advanced proton torps were not as accurate as the regular model. Further, the B-wing had external ordnance hardpoints that would allow it to carry additional ammunition packs of proton torpedoes for bombing missions.
However one of the greatest strengths of the B-wing was that it possessed a modular and interchangeable weapon systems. This enabled technicians to rapidly alter the weapon configurations of the B-wing at need and allowed them to adapt the B-wing to different or specific mission profiles on the fly or in some cases, the pilots themselves preferred to customize their ships with a different weapons configuration.
It was not unheard of to replace the Gyrhil R-9X heavy laser with a heavy ion cannon instead or the three ArMek SW-7a light ion cannons with a trio of laser cannons; or have all of the weapons of a specific type such as having the B-wing mount all ion cannons for missions to temporarily disable or seize enemy warships or all laser cannons for missions to destroy large amounts of targets. One of the more popular alterations was to replace the Gyrhil 72 twin autoblasters with a light laser cannon.
The Blade Wing
The B-wings have even been refitted to serve for emergency firefighting duties with foam dispensing sprayers instead of its customary weapons.
History[]
During the Galactic Civil War, the resource strapped Rebellion were simply unable to equal the overwhelming might of the Imperials' capital ships could bring to bear upon them as they were forced to use older ships and even retrofitted civilian models in combat. In response, the Rebellion turned to guerilla warfare and small starfighter tactics and were for a time, highly successful against the Empire with their innovative tactics.
That lasted until the Empire began redeploying their larger fleets of capital ships to overwhelm the Rebellion's paltry forces and starfighter corps. The venerable Y-wings took massive causalities in assault waves and in response, the Rebellion decided that it needed an upgraded and specialized platform designed as an anti-capital starfighter.
A Rebel sympathizer and eccentric Mon Calamari engineer, Quarrie heard of their need and took it as a challenge to create such a starfighter known as the Blade Wing on the planet Shantipole. Rumors of his attempts leaked to the Rebellion and during a difficult mission facing a blockade of Imperial Star Destroyers, Hera Syndulla was desperate enough to seek out Quarrie and his untested ship on Shantipole. She was able to convince him to release his unfinished prototype to her and the blockade buster of the Blade Wing proved its worth, shattering the Imperials' fleet. Senator Bail Organa was able to find the Verpine company, Slayne & Korpil which were willing to manufacture production models of the Blade Wing or as their pilots affectionately dubbed them, "the B-wing".
Admiral Gial Ackbar would also make heavy contributions towards refining the production model of the B-wing. The redesigned A/SF-01 Model was considerably different from the original prototype which eliminated the energy-intensive composite laser weapon system and equipped it with a modest Class 2 hyperdrive as the earlier model required an external hyperdrive equipped ship to dock onto.
Further, to save on space, life support requirements, and manpower; the secondary pilot/gunner post in the primary weapons pod was removed. To make up for the lack of the anti-capital ship laser system, the B-wing was redesigned with a heavy proton torpedo load for a bigger offensive strike as well as modular hardpoints to allow it interchange with a wide variety of weapon systems enabling the B-wing to specialize for various missions profiles making it one of the most versatile starfighters in the Rebellion and capable of handling bombing runs, anti-capital ship attacks, and even fast raiding missions.
However, the removal of a specialized gunner position also made the B-wing into a troublesome starfighter as many pilots found it difficult to master it's complex flight characteristics and divided their attention to also utilizing its multitude of weapon systems properly in heavy combat situations.
Attack of the B-wings!
Further, it was expensive to manufacture and considered a maintenance hog and required larger hanger spaces to adequately repair and maintain the vessels. Thus the simpler but more reliable Y-wings that the B-wings were intended to replace continued to remain a visible presence in the Rebellion Starfighter Corps for many years. It wasn't until the New Republic was firmly established that the resources became available that allowed the B-wings to fully supplant the Y-wings entirely.
Over the years, the B-wing also underwent various modifications to increase it's capacity as a combat starfighter including improved targeting computers and an ejectable cockpit module. In the waning years of the Galactic Civil War, the Rebellion developed a new variant model; the B-wing/E2 or B-wing/Expanded.
The new B-wing/E2 featured an enlarged cockpit to allow for a dedicated gunner position which greatly relieved the demands on the pilot and also heavier armor and improved deflector shields which greatly augmented its lethality and survivability in high-intensity combat missions. These modifications however made the B-wing/E2 much slower than its previous model and while the original B-wing would never have won awards in grace and maneuverability as a starfighter―the B-wing/E2's heavier armor and weightier components made it much more clumsy and less agile. Some pilots viewed it as not a worthwhile trade-off despite the improved combat effectiveness.
Admiral Ackbar was noted for his use of a customized B-wing/E2 that he flew himself as his personal military shuttle.
Production Notes[]
The B-wing as well as its sister ship, the A-wing were created specifically for Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi film to expand the Rebellion fleet of starfighters. The ships themselves were unnamed for the most part and were simply referred to as the "A Fighter" and "B Fighter" by the film crew for the background shots. The B Fighter was created by Joe Johnston and Bill George. In fact, George contributed so much to the design that many of the production team took to calling it the "Bill-Wing Fighter". This in addition to their distinctive shapes led to fans referring to them as the "A-wing" and "B-wing" which stuck.
The B-wing only has several short appearances in the Return of the Jedi thanks to it's odd and thin design which caused it to blend into the starfield background. This resulted in several of the planned sequences starring the ship to be cut for the final version of the film. Nevertheless the distinctive B-wing design has been used over the years in various other Star Wars related media including books, comics, and video games and earned a nickname of the "Blade Wing" which would subsequently become canon in the Star Wars Rebels episode "Wings of the Master" which also provided the background story of the origin of the B-wing which also establishes that the B-wing was developed and has been in existence for several years before the Return of the Jedi.
To explain why the B-wing (as well as the A-wing) were not part of the earlier Star Wars films; it has been proclaimed that the Rebellion functioned as several different chapters or cells which operated roughly independently of each other for security. Each cell were only tangentially connected via a small and secretive overarching command structure and thus had different ships, resources, and support personnel. The Rebellion unit that Hera Syndulla worked with was a different cell from the group that Luke Skywalker belonged to and thus they did not have access to the B-wings and A-wings that Hera's cell employed. The Battle of Endor was the first time that all of the different Rebellion cells were united in a grand fleet in a desperate attempt to destroy the Death Star II and why these previously never-before-seen ships made their first appearance.
All items (6)
