Numbers without context are meaningless. I was debating in good faith, but, alas, the Edgelord won't hear my counter unless one o' y'all quotes me or tells him what I said, if you feel it's relevant...
The TIE Fighter has been one of the most problematic things recreated from the get-go. The scale and the wing proportions (to themselves and to the cockpit ball) are all over the place. The studio model is assumed by many to be 1:24 because it has a 1:24 figure in it, but it can't be. That figure wasn't modeled to look like a TIE Fighter pilot, was just an unpainted gray pilot figure from one of the donor kits, and is too big for the space, plus eyeline doesn't line up. But the old official size in the '80s was based on the assumption that miniature was 1:24, and they arrived at a fore-to-aft length overall of 6.3 meters. That is also the basis of Round 2's new kit being advertised as 1:32. 1:32 is 75% of 1:24, and the Round 2 kit is 75% the height of the filming miniature.
I have some of the old models and some of the new models. I do not have others. I never got the old Darth Vader TIE Fighter, so I can't speak to its dimensions or scale. I trust the model nerds on the internet who say it's 1:32, but only provisionally. I don't know what that's based on, and I'll get to The Problem™ in a bit, here...
I do have a couple of the old MPC snap-together TIE Interceptors from 1983 (and one of the more recent Round 2 repops). Many depictions and recreations give the Interceptor misproportioned or shrunken wings compared to the studio miniatures, but this kit got it pretty close. There is no scale listed on the original box, and I can't remember if the repop box has one. But...
I also have the 1999 AMT TIE Fighter two-pack (the first commercial injection kit of the TIE Fighter released). The box says 1:48 scale, and the cockpit halves, despite being split vertically rather than horizontally (as with the MPC Interceptor), are an almost perfect overlay with the '83 kit parts, and the viewports can be used interchangeably. The wings are 12.5cm fore-to-aft. Basic math from a 6.3m official full-scale length yields about 1:50. Which is darn close to 1:48. And means both this and the above kit are that size -- if the studio miniature is 1:24. Which, as I said, it can't be.
But here's The Problem™: A never-clearly-seen unpainted and inaccurate 1:24 scale model-airplane pilot does not trump the blueprinting drawings Joe Johnston made, the sets built from those, or the animation reference from Rebels which agrees with both. There is more room in that cockpit than there can be at 1:24. From those drawings and the set, the forward viewport works out to around 1.65 meters across. (This also means a big asterisk on everything from Rogue One, because all the viewports are smaller, proportionally, than the OT ships'.) I need to go do more research to see if I can find dimensions of more of the components of the studio miniature (the rest of the wing dimensions besides height, and the viewport frame diameter would help immensely). But comparisons show a 1:32 model-airplane figure would have been a more apt drop-in. There was a reason I likened it to the differently-scaled pilot figures in the two A-Wing filming miniatures.
So with upscaling the miniature to 1:32 and going with a 1.65-meter-diameter viewport (until I can get more accurate measurements of the miniature), that makes the TIE Fighter longer than 6.3m. The figure has fluctuated, and I'd love to chase down the whys of that, but it currently sits at 7.24m. Without knowing the fore-to-aft length of the filming miniature, I can't do math to figure out what that might be derived from. I do know the largest figure for a TIE Fighter's length was over eight meters, which would be consistent with a 1:32 scale filming miniature... Since the pilot in the model was obviously not meant to be seen clearly, I do prefer to go by the consistent depiction of cockpit size from the sets, their drawings, and the animation reference bible. Going by lengths derived from overlaying cockpits and viewports, and presuming a1.65m viewport...
With the MPC Interceptor, going by the wings the kit is about 1:58, and going by the cockpit ball and viewport, it's about 1:55. I'll point out that length is accurate only if one is going by measurements derived from the studio models -- the official length is currently 88% of what it should be (which is a whole other math thing), which would skew the wing scale the other way, to about 1:50.
And the AMT TIE Fighter would also be 1:55, based on the cockpit and viewport... but the wings are a travesty. They are, as Edge said, six inches tall. If the filming miniature is a bit over 18" at the assumed 1:24 of the time, at 1:48 the AMT kit's wings should be about nine inches tall. As I said above, the fore-to-aft wing length works well enough given all the other assumptions, but that means the aspect ratio proportions are all off. Ironically, the fore-to-aft length, adjusted, would make them also 1:58, as with the Interceptor's. Bizarre place to find consistency. When I read that Round 2 fixed the wing proportions with their re-pop, I thought that meant they'd made them taller, but the height still says "6 inches", so I don't know what they did. I don't own one.
This also drops both annoyingly in the no-man's-land between 1:48 and 1:72. The closest it comes to anything is the S scale (1:64) of model railroad. They are fine for me for using for Legion setpieces, though. I may get a Round 2 TIE wing sprue to see how they differ. I also have 3D files I could print parts from if I feel the 1:58 wings are too small to be happy with. *shrug*
But there's still a problem...
Remember up top where I said wing depiction is the most inconsistent element for the TIE Fighter? The original studio miniature was a skosh over eighteen inches tall. The current official dimensions place a TIE Fighter at 7.24m long and 8.8m high (an aspect ratio, incidentally, of about 1.22:1). Since I know the height of the miniature, that would make it 1:19 scale. A 1:19 pilot wouldn't really have fit in there at all. Certainly not had the cockpit be as roomy as it's shown to be. Regardless of whether the studio model is 1:24 or 1:32, the official height is way off. If it's 1:24, the real TIE's wings would be 11 meters high. If 1:32, they would be almost 14.7m high. In neither case are they only 8.8m high. The depth seems fairly close, though. Say... aspect ratio of 1.84:1, instead.
There's an annoying dearth of square-on orthogonal pictures of the original filming miniatures where you can compare features with minimal distortion. The length seems about right, but the height seems way off -- but, further, if the wings need to be made that much taller, that throws off the proportions. That's a pretty huge difference. I'd never really delved this deep into it, and need to retire to do more research. The takeaway right now is that Round 2's 1:32 scale figure for their new kit is wholly dependent on the filming miniature being 1:24 (which it can't be). But if the studio model were more properly something like 1:32, then the new kit would be about 1:43 instead.
What all this means for the older kits I'll sort out later once I know more. But that's why it mattered to me which kits were being talked about, and what the base scale assumptions were and why.
Oh -- and if anyone wants the old low-detail Death Star base from that TIE Fighter two-pack, it's free to a good home. Never taken off its sprue.
