The Sienar Technologies board of directors did not really appreciate that Rothana Heavy Engineering - one of their direct competitors - started selling the Katyoucha variant of their TX-225 tank to the Empire. (see the full article from 3 years ago here). Clearly, by proposing a relatively cheap rocket-launcher, Rothana would start grinding some of Sienar's market shares.

But Sienar did not waste time before reacting and quickly started their own project of a rocket-launcher for the Imperial Army. In order to remain competitive from the pricing side, Sienar took two important decision. First, the new design should reuse as many existing components as possible. This first decision quickly make Sienar look toward their TIE families and existing designs. The second decision was to use the same model of rockets as Rothana. This would allow the Empire not to change their ammunition supply chain and permit in theory to quickly swap the Rothana TX-225 Katyoucha by the future design from Sienar.  

The project resulted in a fast prototype delivery and the TIE-Calliope was released. It was based on the existing TIE-Crawler which was already in use inside the Imperial Army but on tope of the existing Crawler a rocket launcher was mounted. But Sienar did not mount any small rocket launcher. They designed a rocket launcher that could carry no less than 50 rockets! And the TIE-Calliope could fire these one by one, in salvo, or even all of them within a handful of seconds. Useless to that the the impact of such firepower on any target was devastating. On top of that, the noise produced by the rockets during their flight generated a frightening feeling on the receiver's end. Thanks to this impressive solution, Sienar could even develop a great commercial argument: the ratio between the firepower and the deployed man on the field is way above whatever any competitor can offer (and  almost 10x higher than the Katyoucha ratio). Indeed, the TIE-Calliope is equipped with 50 rockets, 2 blaster canons, and one turbolaser canon while only requiring a single pilot. On the other side, the TX-225 Katyoucha is only equipped with 16 rockets and 4 medium blaster canons and requires 3 crewmen to operate. Definitively, Sienar knows how to market their products.

TIE-Calliope by Veynom, on Flickr

But enough of the historical speech and let's discover the beast:

TIE-Calliope by Veynom, on Flickr

TIE-Calliope by Veynom, on Flickr

TIE-Calliope by Veynom, on Flickr

TIE-Calliope by Veynom, on Flickr

Both of them together:

TIE-Calliope & TX-225 Katyoucha by Veynom, on Flickr

Naturally, before creating the Calliope variant, I had first to build a TIE-Crawler. Here it is, without its launcher.

TIE-Crawler by Veynom, on Flickr

You can see the 2x3 plates inside the track module panels. They were intended to receive the rocket launcher. In the final version, these plates were moved backwards. After all, when moc-ing, it is all about doing and undoing, isn't it?

TIE-Crawler by Veynom, on Flickr

TIE-Crawler by Veynom, on Flickr

For those of you following our Desert Wars project, the TIE-Calliope will replace the Katyoucha as of June 24. Have a thought for the poor Katyoucha.

Katyusha! by Veynom, on Flickr

Please note that neither the TIE-Calliope, neither the TX-225 Katyoucha appear in any Star Wars material. They are both designs I created, aiming to propose ideas that could exist in the Star Wars universe. And while the old TX-225 Katyoucha was based on a soviet rocket launcher truck from WW2, the TIE-Calliope is based on a M4 Sherman tank variant. In the end, it is quite common to derive Star Wars designs from WW2 materials.

Comments welcome, hope you liked it.

PS: in the end, the Imperial Army selected the AT-AT from Kuat to mass equip their forces. Sienar and Rothana only received minor orders. 

Great build for a (for me) very stange Tie-concept (Tie-Crawler).

How you display the rocket launch is absolutely fantastic.

Edited June 18, 20231 yr by TheScaryDoor

20 hours ago, TheScaryDoor said:

Great build for a (for me) very stange Tie-concept (Tie-Crawler).

How you display the rocket launch is absolutely fantastic.

Thank you! And I believe bringing dynamism is essential when you include a MOC in a large layout. It makes the difference between static and eye-catching.

I've never understood TIE land-vehicles, but this sure looks cool!

You clearly are a very skilled and talented builder, but maybe some concepts should stay in the designer's head :)

3 hours ago, Falcrum said:

You clearly are a very skilled and talented builder, but maybe some concepts should stay in the designer's head :)

  Thank you! But believe me, this is not the craziest design I've produced .... did you ever see my TIE-Krykna?

TIE-Krykna by Veynom, on Flickr

Interesting design and build. The TIE/Crawler design was always an oddball, but it somehow works with a rocket rack. Well done.