Excerpt From The Alliance To Restore The Republic's Intelligence Briefing On The TIE GX1:
Sienar Fleet Systems latest TIE (Twin Ion Engine) Fighter variant, the GX1 (Gunship Experimental) is primarily a ground attack craft carrying enough firepower to decimate an entire battalion. Besides the standard L-s1 laser cannons found on virtually all TIE variants, the TIE GX1 also sports a carbonite cooled 6 barreled Mag-Pro cannon capable of firing durostreel pellets at nearly the speed of light, two proton torpedo tubes (located directly underneath the laser cannons) each with an internal 12-round magazine and a pair of concussion missile launchers with 3-round capacity carried one under each solar panel wing.
The GX1, while lacking shields like all of Sienar Fleet Systems' mainline fighters, is heavily armored. The GX1 is capable of taking several direct hits from directed energy weapons (but is still vulnerable to ion weaponry) and can stay in the air with large portions of the craft damaged. The heavy armor of the GX1 makes it slow and lumbering in flight but its durability more than makes up for the lack of speed and agility. The craft can operate in space but due to its heavy weight it must be launched from a space born carrier as it is too heavy to break free of a planet's atmosphere on its own. Despite the craft's weight, it can still engage in combat with Starfighters although it cannot match their speed or maneuverability.
Most of the GX1's internal volume consists of a magfield fed container for the Mag-Pro cannon's ammunition. Due to the cannon's high rate of fire, a massive ammunition store is required for sustained combat. The durosteel pellets, when travelling at near lightspeed, release a devastating amount of kinetic energy upon impact destroying even the most heavily armored vehicles or fortified installations.
Before The Galactic Empire could unleash these horrors against us, the Alliance hero Daxxon Ral and his crew destroyed the secret SFS manufacturing facility on Zelkott where they were being developed. A singe squadron of a dozen fighters are believed to have been constructed before the facility was destroyed and all but one are accounted for (including the three fully functional fighters Ral engaged in combat with his YT-1300 the "Howling Wolf"). The remaining craft is believed destroyed along with the facility, but there remains the possibility that it may have escaped destruction...
TIE GX1
Mag-Pro close up:
Concussion Missile Launcher (right wing) close up:
This project came about as a way to utilize the "Rogue One" TIE Striker vehicle I picked up on clearance at Walmart after I ripped out the ridiculous Nerf launcher leaving a gaping hole in the front of the craft. I built the Mag-Pro out of a piece of a "Clone Wars" spring loaded missile launcher (sadly the only one I had of this design) and a connector from one of the old "Robotix" building sets. It fits perfectly where the Nerf launcher once resided. After removing the Nerf dart storage racks from under the wings, I modified a pair of "Dino-Riders" missile pods to fit on the Nerf rack posts.
I wanted to have the Star Wars equivalent of the A-10 Warthog, one of my all time favorite military aircraft and the TIE-GX1 fits that role to a t.
