Y-Wing Fighter Bomber Study

Gold Leader had flown too many missions not to listen to his gut. No fighters they reported; there wouldn't have been time to load the fighters with the Empire so hungry to snuff the Rebellion out.

He'd heard rumors that Alderan was the operational test of the fracking thing but, no, he just knew there'd be fighters. There were always fighters, and even a half squadron of Ties would cut them to pieces. He switched to the squadron frequency:
"Gold wing, this is Gold Leader. Switch top guns to rear fire arc. That'll keep any fighters off our asses when we make our attack run."
"Gold Leader. this is Red Leader. We haven't picked up any Tie fighters yet."
"They're here, they're always here."
And Gold Leader blows the Death Star up and becomes the hearo of the moment, while a certain Luke Skywalker takes a little longer to become the Jedi he needs to be.

Everyone loves the X-Wing, but I don't think the Y-Wing got the love it should have and so I gave it some upgrades. Made the upper gun turret beefier, useful, and added some rear fairings to smooth out the shape. If there was a WW2 analogy, the X-Wing is like the P-51 Mustang. Fast, sexy, everyone loves it. The Y-Wing is like the P-47 Thunderbolt. Slower, but a brawler that keeps getting up.