Was Tarkin ACTUALLY cocky? Or was it realistic?

[thejester]

I would suggest the result was from a mixture of Tarkin's arrogance and poor Imperial air defence. As has already been said, a hundred TIE's could have been scrambled and forced a battle further away from the Death Star, not only destroying the Rebel attack (given how poor the Rebel teamwork was, it's not far-fetched to suggest they would have come apart under a sustained TIE attack) but also forcing the Rebels into showing their next move (in hindsight, we know the Rebels had put everything into a last stand and would rather die than evacuate, but Tarkin could not have known this; as at Hoth, the fighter attack could have been a cover, or failure in the attack could have resulted in evacuation; either way, Tarkin should have taken measures to ensure an evacuation by Rebel leadership did not occur). In the event, the reliance on turbolasers failed and it was only Vader's scrambling of a squadron under his command (I recall reading somewhere that the reason only one squadron went up was because it was the only one under Vader's command; if true, it's a further indictment of Tarkin's leadership) that prevented the Rebel attack from being highly succesful (again, I don't by the notion that it was only Luke's use of the Force that got that shot in the hole; it made it that much more probable, but more Rebel fighters means more protons fired, and as Luke himself pointed out the shot was far from impossible). One has to wonder how whoever controlled Imperial air defences missed the Millenium Falcon moving into the arena, and why the rest of the squadron was not providing some sort of top cover for Vader. Having said that, I think it's inexcusable that Tarkin didn't make use of his fighter compliment. Vader did, but only after it had been demonstrated that the TLs were failing and only in small numbers.

So the question remains: why did Tarkin not scramble TIEs at the start to intercept the Rebels? The only reasonable answer is that he was overconfident to the point of arrogance - he disdained the Rebel's chances and did not take into account possible outcomes as all good military commanders should.

[RedImperator]

I think thejester summed it up just about perfectly.

[Kadaeux]

Where does that 'billion to one' bullshit come from anyway?
And don't you dare use Han's comment after the kill.

Escpecially since Han is Corellian and they are famous for not wanting the odds so i'm fairly certain a Corellian smuggler would be incapable of working them out.

[Doctor Doom]

Where does that 'billion to one' bullshit come from anyway?
And don't you dare use Han's comment after the kill.

Where does this 'the Rebels had a good chance' bullshit come from anyway?
And don't you dare use Bask's comment before the kill.

[/irony]

[Dodge]

Well, I thought Vader would have sensed the Force in Luke as he approached the Death Star, and ordered their entire contingent of Ties to slow them down.

I mean, Vader with his droves of Tie-Fighters against a few X-Wings and a young pre-Jedi should have won.

And that's my opinion.

[General Brock]

Doctor Doom wrote:

IIRC, it took around 20 minutes for the Death Star to get into firing range of Yavin IV. Easily enough time to swamp the Rebel attack force. It took no more then ten minutes, IIRC, for Darth Vader's squadron to wipe out almost all of the Rebel fighters.

So swamping them with a massive force of fighters was a good investment of resources? The cruiser over Tantooine withheld firing on the escape pod with R2D2 and C3PO onboard because it didn't have any life signs. They thought it was a malfunction and a waste of firepower until Vader sent down people to check it out. Had they fired, the plans would have been destroyed and the movie would need a new plot.

In open space dogfighting, ties would be at a disadvantage, without station guns and jamming to back them up. Overwhelming numbers might only mean they get in each other's way. SW ships are fast enough that some rebel craft could run the gauntlet and still make it to the cover of the stations superstructures. So why risk any at all and let the rebels break themselves on the station defenses? The Death Star may be designed to thwart capital ships, but most SW capital ships seem to be able to launch fighters.

Had the rebels not known about the exhaust port flaw, they would have concentrated on disabling the superlaser. Dodonna mentioned that the station defenses were not tight; that leaves open the interpretation that critical areas were well defended at the expense of other areas, like the insertion point for the trench run.

The Rebel fighters were on a direct course with the Death Star itself. Only an incompetent officer would assume they weren't attempting a last ditch attack effort.

With ony ~30 fighters, and assuming they didn't know about the exhaust port, there would have been little reason to intercept.

Any conventional defense against the Death Star would have focused on disabling the superlaser or propulsion. The rebels instead chose to assault a thinly defended section of the Death Star, the insertion point into the trench. It may be that in conventionally critical areas, point defenses would have slaughtered them. The blowhole itself may have been well defended, which is why the rebels had to use the trench for cover and enter it at a point well away from their target.

Nope, Tarkin was in charge. It wasn't until circa the events of TESB that Darth Vader would become the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armed Forces.

Vader was clearly in charge of the fighter defense. As others pointed out earlier in this thread, surpreme commanders delegate and the command structure works as a team; Tarkin's job at that time was to ensure the superlaser fired, not oversee Vader's fighter squadrons. Someone under Tarkin obviously screwed up, not warning Vader's flight that the Milennium Falcon was inbound to his position, but that is not somethng Tarkin was directly responsible for.

That's not the point, the point is that it would take the Rebel fighters by complete surprise.

If Vader and his wingmen had fired indiscriminantly down the trench they would have finished the rebels just as effectively. They clearly wanted a surgical removal, not to just blast away from above.

As the movie showed, however, due to the tight turn, small target area, and jamming by the Death Star, the Force was necessary to exploit the design flaw.

Luke was not trained in the Force. He was an experienced bush pilot probably not as dependent on targeting computers as the rest of Gold squadron. If Han made the shot, people would call it luck, not the Force, and he would call it skill.

I concede this point, but I would like to know if there is a more authoritative source then Wikipedia, which is not a terribly good one.

Well, the Star Wars Databank says it carried four strike cruisers, "and more", giving the franchaise some wiggle room for filler stories, I suppose. This is EU stuff, though. I never did buy the tech manuals, and I understand some of them aren't considered accurate. I prefer places like the Wiki because it is usually thorough, mistakes are edited out by better informed readers, and its easier to quote from to a newsgroup than typing out stuff from a hardcopy source. The SW Databank can be a little thin at times.

I'm meerly pointing out that a pragmatic military move would not have been to evacuate the station, but simply to deploy more fighters.

Deploying more fighters would be a pragmatic military move. On the other hand, not all military commanders have Darth Vader.

A limited evacuation would also have been the cautious, pragmatic thing to do, and Tarkin could stay behind.

Taking time out to extend the exhaust shaft into a stack above the trenchline, instead of flush with the surface, and installing more turbolasers and ray/particle force field barriers along the trench, covering the horizontal approaches to the port, would also have been sound military engineering.

Between eagerness to please the Emperor, further the doctrine of terror and his career, Tarkin made moves that defied military good sense. That does not mean he is incompetant. Tradeoffs between social reality (like cost, appearances, expediancy) and objective reality (what really could and does happen) occur all the time in the real world, and sometimes the traders get away with it.

Imperial standard procedure seems to involve launching tie screens whenever entering combat. It may well be that the Death Star was considered a unique enough weapon that early on the decision was made that a defensive show of force wasn't necessary and a CAP to initiate every engagement was a matter of discretion but otherwise a waste of resources.

If Tarkin had gotten away with it, he would have been considered daring and bold. He didn't, so we can tapdance about his smouldering tombstone.

And I am pointing out that the only way the design flaw could be exploited was in a very precise and exact turn of circumstances making use of the Force that could not possibly have been replicated, thus annulling the expediency of an evacuation. With hindsight, obviously, it would have been the right thing to do, but for a military man with no working knowledge of the Force, he acted accordingly. It was the failure to deploy a fighter screen that shows military incompetence/overconfidence.

All that was needed to exploit the flaw was knowledge the flaw existed.

Tarkin, (or someone who looks like him), was given a cameo in Revenge of the Sith. If Tarkin was a Clone Wars veteran, he would have a non-weilder's practical knowledge of Force applications within military contexts. Even if he never worked directly with a Jedi, he would have heard the vet's stories, seen the propaganda, and even been privy to after-action reports.

One officer recognized the nature of the design flaw that they were trying to exploit. Without Luke and Obi-Wan and the Force, the Rebels quite simply did not have a chance, as the movie shows.

They had a small chance. The difference between a lucky/probable shot and one guided by the Force is not great. Bast did not say "I have analysed the rebel attack plan..." he said "We"; he was just the unlucky guy voted to deliver the bad news arrived at by an analysis team.

The fact that Tarkin did not deploy an appropriate fighter screen does show military incompetence.

It was obvious the fighters were attacking long before Vader scrambled his squadron, and even then Tarkin did not attempt to launch any countermeasures.

There may not have been any reason to, if Tarkin believed the flaw was as of yet undiscovered. Launching ties may have been considered extravagant, until the rebels attacked parts of the station that were poorly defended and not critical to the operation of the superlaser. There was loss of life and materiale there; then the other shoe dropped and a group of fighters made for the exhaust port trench, at which point Tarkin and Vader realized their bluff had been called.

Exactly. He had no reason to believe the Force could be used as a weapon against him, so had no reason to believe the design flaw could be exploited.

It would reduce the likelihood of success, but not eliminate it. The only real defense the flaw had was that no-one was suppposed to know about it.

The only reason the Rebels had a chance was because of the Force. Without the Force, the design flaw could not be exploited.

The Force made a critical difference, greatly improving the probability of success. The flaw could be exploited without the Force. Luke was was doing extremely well flying by the seat of his pants, and the difference between Force and luck would not have been that great in him at the time.

Exactly. But Tarkin failed to launch an appropriate fighter screen, which would be the standard protocol for such a situation, thus showing a level of military incompetence/overconfidence.

Tarkin obviously dispensed with standard protocol; but then, he's in the Death Star, not a cruiser. He didn't even send scouts ahead like he did for Dantooine. Possibly, he figured the less time the rebels had with the plans, the less chance they could transmit them to another cell, or analyse them, or run away, so he proceeded at full speed to Yavin, skipping scouts and waiting to launch a fighter screen. An invinceable space station dosen't have to waste resources on a fighter screen, and it may not have been DS protocol to do so as it would be for a lesser warship.

It took the Force for the design flaw to be exploited. Wedge Antilles, an ace pilot, believed the shot to be impossible (for a normal pilot), which turned out to be true.

The veteran squadron leaders who went down didn't say as much, or call off the attack. They would know the odds better than Wedge. It was just business as usual to them. Force or no Force, missions sometimes fail.

Tarkin should have launched fighters long before Vader scrambled them at the last minute. Hell, by all rights he should have launched fighters as soon as he entered the system. Ever heard of a CAP?

Combat Air Patrol, or some such thing. Probably standard since ships could carry and retrieve aircraft. He did not for reasons he judged sound at the time, even though it appears to be standard Imperial procedure. I listed my reasons. In SW, a CAP dosen't seem to consist of more than a couple of fighters. Given the effectiveness of capship sensors and point defenses, it is understandable why a navy that cheaps out on turbolaser fire would also hold back on fighters and pilots. They are meant for offense, not defense, and the Death Star was supposed to be offense incarnate.

There are limits to how far modern carrier protocols can be compared with SW. In SW, it is far easier to launch fighters, and the capital ships are not normally vulnerable to fighters. In a real navy, the CAP is a necessary first line of defense against airborne threats, because the odds of the point defense system picking off a swarm of incoming missiles is a bit slim, and just one could cripple or sink even a carrier.

Tarkin entered the Yavin system, didn't pick up any capital ships, and decided to save his firepower. Starfighters are used in support of capital ships against other capital ships supporting their starfighters. ~30 incoming fighters alone shouldn't last long in a conventional assault against the station sheilds and gunners. Had they not headed for thinly defended areas, so as to better access the exhaust port, Tarkin would have been correct.

The movie makes it quite clear that, without the Force, the attack would have failed. If Luke Skywalker had not been there with the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Rebels would have lost.

That is one interpretation of the movie events. Luke made the shot, the Force aided him. It dosen't rule out that a normal pilot couldn't have made the shot; the plot required that Luke do so, and he happened to do so with the Force.

Hitting womp rats doesn't require a 90 degree + sharp turn at high velocities in the midst of heavy jamming, while under fire from enemy fighters.

No, it only takes a focused mind that can operate under pressure. Han relieved most of the pressure by taking out Vader's flight. The targeting computer the previous runs used was experiencing interference, so it makes sense not to use it; Luke appeared to have doubts even before Ben started talking to him. If I recall, Luke's eyes were wide open when he fired; he was visually tracking the target and not viewing it dispassionately, entirely through the Force.

Luke was the only pilot with a clean, unopposed shot at the target, and he made it. The Force sharpened his innate advantages, but there's nothing to say he couldn't have made the shot conventionally without the target computer and the Force.

We have no evidence that Chief Bast used any sort of detailed analysis, he simply realized the Rebel attack plan when he saw fighters going down the trench towards the exhaust port.

Bast said "we have analysed the rebel plan"; it was more than a by guess and by golly conclusion made by just himself. Support staff with Tarkin's ear and access to the control room would not deliver anything but the best.

It was still a member state of the Empire. Just because the local senator (who was just out of a job, remember?) complains of the Emperor's policy does not a clear link to the Rebellion make.

Tarkin could not just blow up Alderaan without the Emperor's permission, either. Princess Leia could hardly have hidden her attitude of treason from Vader, especially under interrogation droids and drugs. If Vader asked for Bail Organa's involvement in the rebellion, Leia could hide the details but not prevent Vader from sensing through the Force that he was involved. That may not stand in a conventional court, but it would be enough for the Emperor.

An advanced, modern, member state with a planetary sheild and no offensive weapons, but daring to intrigue against the Emperor nonetheless. What better target to christen the Death Star? Tarkin declined Dantooine because it would not make a big enough impression. From the looks of things, Alderaan could very well have been slated to become asteroids even before his little bargain with Leia.

You are missing the point. Tarkin failed to deploy an appropriate CAP or fighter screen. This shows a level of military incompetence. Hell, he had at least one fighter on patrol after Alderaan was destroyed (remember the fighter the Falcon ran into?).

At Alderaan, there would still have been ships coming to what they thought was a planet, not an asteroid field. Furthermore, an inhabited system like Alderaan might have outposts about the star not confined to the planet, and some of the orbital traffic might have survived if they fled far enough in time. The Death Star was probably lingering to see what showed up and so had fighters patrolling the area. There is no indication that there were any fighters up before Alderaan was blasted.

It may be that a CAP is not considered necessary for the Death Star. The Empire seems to cut corners in the strangest places, like not shooting down malfunctioning escape pods. As has been pointed out in the thread, there were tie fighters warmed up and ready to go, should they actually be needed, not sitting in their packing crates.

IIRC, he was more pensive then nervous. In any case, this proves absolutely nothing. So a military commander is engaged in a battle that could potentially destroy one of the last major threats to the Galactic Empire, why shouldn't he be pensive?

What could go wrong? He was winning. Of course, there is that matter of damage and casualties, and the near-misses to the exhaust port.

If he was truly militarily incompetant, he would have been strutting and preening just a bit more, anticipating the rewards of guaranteed success, and not realizing things were going wrong. If Luke fired late, and the superlaser destroyed Yavin IV, Tarkin would still be dead.

The Emperor never canonically used battle meditation. It was Grand Admiral Nial Declann, Thrawn's analysis was incorrect. In any case, the Emperor was not present at Yavin, making this irrelevant.

Conceded. I don't know enough about the Emperor's use of the Force during the ANH period.

The movie made it quite clear that the use of the Force was the only reason the attack succeeded.

The movie also made it quite clear that the normal pilots could get lucky. The buildup to an impossible odds showdown is standard in cowboy movies. Its just that in this case the deadeyed hero's incredible luck and innate skill is also associated with the Force.

(The reason I didn't respond to every single point you made was that I didn't want to be repetitious, there were several points where I would simply be repeating arguments I already made).

A good practice; I can't seem to resist rephrasing myself.

[thejester]

So swamping them with a massive force of fighters was a good investment of resources? The cruiser over Tantooine withheld firing on the escape pod with R2D2 and C3PO onboard because it didn't have any life signs. They thought it was a malfunction and a waste of firepower until Vader sent down people to check it out. Had they fired, the plans would have been destroyed and the movie would need a new plot.

And that's a ridiculous comparison because it fails to take into account the fact that the pod was no threat to the star destroyer and if it had been it would almost certainly have been destroyed by the gun crew - unlike the Rebel fighter force.

In open space dogfighting, ties would be at a disadvantage, without station guns and jamming to back them up. Overwhelming numbers might only mean they get in each other's way.

Given how easily the TIEs took the Rebel's apart over the Death Star, I don't think this will be a problem. The absolute No 1 factor in favour of the TIEs is that they have some kind of teamwork, the Rebels have virtually none.

SW ships are fast enough that some rebel craft could run the gauntlet and still make it to the cover of the stations superstructures.

Because they did so well when in the cover of the station superstructure in the first place. Oh wait, no they didn't. This is a ridiculous argument - Tarkin expected them to do this anyway, and was confident (wrongly as it turned out) of his defences ability to destroy them - so how could he possibly object to scrambling fighters on the basis that some Rebels might break through to the defences that would have to deal with them if he didn't scramble fighters?

So why risk any at all and let the rebels break themselves on the station defenses? The Death Star may be designed to thwart capital ships, but most SW capital ships seem to be able to launch fighters.

Because he possesses a 1,000 of them with an essentially limitless supply of replacements. If he doesn't destroy the Rebel fighter force, he risks blowing a chance to wipe out the Rebellion.

Had the rebels not known about the exhaust port flaw, they would have concentrated on disabling the superlaser. Dodonna mentioned that the station defenses were not tight; that leaves open the interpretation that critical areas were well defended at the expense of other areas, like the insertion point for the trench run.

Which is just all the more reason to launch fighters in order to prevent the Rebels from finding a weakspot.

With ony ~30 fighters, and assuming they didn't know about the exhaust port, there would have been little reason to intercept.

That's stupid. There was still a chance that the Rebels could knock the Death Star - and they did, something you consistently seemed to have missed. With such an overwhelming number of fighters on his side, Tarkin should have scrambled and made sure of the issue.

Vader was clearly in charge of the fighter defense. As others pointed out earlier in this thread, surpreme commanders delegate and the command structure works as a team; Tarkin's job at that time was to ensure the superlaser fired, not oversee Vader's fighter squadrons. Someone under Tarkin obviously screwed up, not warning Vader's flight that the Milennium Falcon was inbound to his position, but that is not somethng Tarkin was directly responsible for.

How do you come to the conclusion Vader was in charge of the fighters? He makes one comment which could easily be a spur of the moment decision. Either way, this doesn't absolve Tarkin of the blame - he should have ordered the Rebels intercepted as they approached.

A limited evacuation would also have been the cautious, pragmatic thing to do, and Tarkin could stay behind.

A limited evacuation of who? Did the Death Star just have men sitting around playing with themselves? It's a warship, every man should have a role in combat.

If Tarkin had gotten away with it, he would have been considered daring and bold. He didn't, so we can tapdance about his smouldering tombstone.

No, he would have been considered lucky but arrogant. If he had gambled - ie I will not scramble the TIEs but instead send them on a strike mission to Yavin to wipe out the Rebels who are getting into transports - and succeeded he would have been considered bold. As it was he, left a large part of his combat power out of the fight simply because he wanted to, not for any sound military reason.

That's basically the key idea here. Tarkin neglected a large slab of his combat power for no good reason - he simply believed his Mighty Death Star was teh uber, end of story. The fact that the TL defences failed, the Millenium Falcon snuck in unannounced, and that the port was attacked twice, all suggest he hadn't even bothered to mount any kind of exercises - a definite sign of incompetence.

[General Brock]

thejester wrote:

And that's a ridiculous comparison because it fails to take into account the fact that the pod was no threat to the star destroyer and if it had been it would almost certainly have been destroyed by the gun crew - unlike the Rebel fighter force.

What is ridiculous is that Vader specifically ordered that prisoners be taken alive, and the gun crew exchange clearly indicated they were blasting pods with lifeforms. They should have been tractoring them back in, as they also posed no threat to the vessel. The example was used to illustrate that the Imperials had deliberate and restrictive policies governing the use of firepower; I suppose it also indicates communications and morality problems as well. They weigh the cost and benefit of a turbolaser shot; they probably weigh the costs of a fighter deployment versus relying on fixed defenses.

Given how easily the TIEs took the Rebel's apart over the Death Star, I don't think this will be a problem. The absolute No 1 factor in favour of the TIEs is that they have some kind of teamwork, the Rebels have virtually none.

The rebels certainly went down fast, considering their later reputation. That last Y-wing must either have one heck of a good story behind him, or a rather embarassing one.

Because they did so well when in the cover of the station superstructure in the first place. Oh wait, no they didn't. This is a ridiculous argument - Tarkin expected them to do this anyway, and was confident (wrongly as it turned out) of his defences ability to destroy them - so how could he possibly object to scrambling fighters on the basis that some Rebels might break through to the defences that would have to deal with them if he didn't scramble fighters?

They would last longer dodging fighters and defensive fire in the superstructure than they would cruising in the open, not do well there. The rebels never actually broke through the station defenses; they were broken by them and could only circumvent the defenses by the trench run, where Vader intervened.

It was never demonstrated that Tarkin expected the rebels to attack the Death Star with fighters to exploit the flaw, or that he objected to launching fighters; he just didn't launch them, although pilots were on standby. The canon backstory suggest reasons for this, but nothing definite.

Tarkin could never be certain what became of the Death Star plans, as they were never found on Leia's person or her ship, or the Millenium Falcon. After he let Leia escape, even assuming she could produce them for the rebels at Yavin IV, Tarkin might conceivably believe the rebels had no time to analyse them as he arrived within hours of Leia.

The Death Star was as much a political statement as a military one. The superlaser was proven operational at Alderaan, and intended to overcome planetary sheilds on rebel planets. Yavin had no demonstrated planetary sheild, and it is not reasonable to suggest an underinhabited planet would have a full planetary sheild. Perhaps at best it had a theatre sheild and some ion cannon and turbolaser emplacements. The station could easily overwhelm Yavin IV with its assigned conventional forces, and capture valuable material, personnel, and intel that could not come any other way. Yet the decision was made to go with the superlaser.

During the Death Star briefing room sequence, Tarkin clearly stated the rebels were a threat to Adm. Motti's starfleet, not the battle station. What clearer way to demonstrate the ascendancey of Imperial rule and the Tarkin doctrine of fear by using the Death Star alone to crush the rebellion once and for all, unaided by any conventional forces, including fighters.

It was an expression of power politics, logical within itself. It would have told the rebels they had no hope and told starfleet admirals not to get any grand ideas about their importance to the Imperial hierarchy.

Because he possesses a 1,000 of them with an essentially limitless supply of replacements. If he doesn't destroy the Rebel fighter force, he risks blowing a chance to wipe out the Rebellion.

The Imperials have a limitless supply of tibanna, yet still measure their shots. How much is the life of a pilot and his ship worth? (Not in human terms, obviously, but as a lost Imperial resource that has to be accounted for).

Until it became apparent that the rebels knew of the station's achilles heel, there was no reason for Tarkin to expect serious trouble. After it became evident, he had Vader taking care of business, the rebel base in his sights, and his career on the line. Granted, dying would end his career, but so would admitting the Death Star had a problem that couldn't written off as minor, overestimated flaw.

Which is just all the more reason to launch fighters in order to prevent the Rebels from finding a weakspot.

Um, how were the rebels suppose to figure out the weak spot on their own? Until, the rebels committed to their attack, Tarkin could entertain the possibility they didn't know about the flaw.

In military terms, it is possible the potential loss/expense of launching fighters was greater than the potental damage to the station itself. If one didn't know about the exhaust shaft, the most logical way to impede it would be to attacking the superlaser array, not some isolated, superficially non-essential section of the station. A capital ship assault would certainly concentrate on this area, and capship-borne fighters would concentrate on this area in support of the capital ships.

That's stupid. There was still a chance that the Rebels could knock the Death Star - and they did, something you consistently seemed to have missed. With such an overwhelming number of fighters on his side, Tarkin should have scrambled and made sure of the issue.

I never missed that the rebels had a chance, and in fact have been accused of overestimating it.

Without knowledge of the thermal port's location, importance, and local defenses, there is no way the rebels could have prevailed. Tarkin had no reason not to act as if the Death Star was everything it promised to be.

After it becomes clear the rebels know the achilles heel, it becomes a question of what outcome works for Tarkin best. He can acknowledge the problem and take pragmatic steps to minimize it, launching more ties and evacuating non-essential personel, and perhaps some command staff, or sticking with the original plan and riding out the threat, certain that the odds are still comfortably in his favour and he can present an invinceable Death Star.

The 'Incompetant Tarkin' crowd consistantly overlooks the fact that Tarkin's chances doing nothing were still better than the rebels' by a fair margin and he had a lot of military and non-military incentive to save face an not break with his original plan.

How do you come to the conclusion Vader was in charge of the fighters? He makes one comment which could easily be a spur of the moment decision. Either way, this doesn't absolve Tarkin of the blame - he should have ordered the Rebels intercepted as they approached.

Vader was subordinate only to Tarkin, was seen giving orders to fighter forces, was a fighter ace from the Clone Wars, and also developed his own tie advanced fighter. If Vader had any official positions on the Death Star, chief of fighter operations would be among them.

Grand Moff Tarkin had other duties than overseeing fighter operations. Even if some other officer were actually in command, Vader effectively took charge at Yavin when he ordered his own squadron into action regardless of whatever Tarkin wished.

A limited evacuation of who? Did the Death Star just have men sitting around playing with themselves? It's a warship, every man should have a role in combat.

Unlikely. There would be at least a third or more station crew off-duty on their sleep/recreation cycle and not even on reserve call despite battle conditions, people in the infirmary, non-combatant support staff, visiting Imperial flunkeys and officers on other missions.

No, he would have been considered lucky but arrogant. If he had gambled - ie I will not scramble the TIEs but instead send them on a strike mission to Yavin to wipe out the Rebels who are getting into transports - and succeeded he would have been considered bold. As it was he, left a large part of his combat power out of the fight simply because he wanted to, not for any sound military reason.

It wasn't a purely military calculation on Tarkin's part. As a statement of the power of the Death Star over conventional forces it was sound to rely on the superlaser alone. The Death Star had enough conventional firepower to take Yavin IV even without the superlaser, and military logic presents a good case for taking the base conventionally, not blowing up the planet, if that is what you are suggesting.

That's basically the key idea here. Tarkin neglected a large slab of his combat power for no good reason - he simply believed his Mighty Death Star was teh uber, end of story. The fact that the TL defences failed, the Millenium Falcon snuck in unannounced, and that the port was attacked twice, all suggest he hadn't even bothered to mount any kind of exercises - a definite sign of incompetence.

The Death Star was Teh Uber, but it is not the end of the story.

Since the Death Star had just been completed, it is unlikely that Tarkin had time for live exercises, other than perhaps testing against capital ship assault. Nor would he mount exercises to advertise a specific flaw that was not supposed to exist, especially if he were pressed to get rid of the rebellion as soon as possible. If he had wherewithal to do so, then why not simply spend the resources to fix the flaw?

The Milennium Falcon could not have been undetected; what is clear is that nobody thought to inform Vader's flight. This is a problem with sensor communications and flight control that Tarkin and Vader would surely deal with had the station survived, and the personnel responsible got of lucky, dying instantly instead.

The military reality was that the Death Star flaw was serious, but difficult to exploit without detailed knowledge and crack piloting on the part of would-be attackers. The political reality was that the Death Star had to work as advertised, or Tarkin would have some serious explaining to do.

Tarkin's career suggests a person of extremely high competance, a taker of bold and calculated risks capable of managing many complex situations at once. Tarkins actions make sense from a political, careerist point of view where military reality becomes obscured and harnessed by considerations other than military realities. He did not believe in the infallibilty of the Death Star - his fierce reaction to Chief Bast's report clearly indicates he knows what is going on.

Tarkin believed the odds were in his favour. That is not incompetant or overconfident; real military leaders move to protect careers and play the hands they are dealt. In Tarkin's case, it was a very strong hand. Real military leaders also sometimes make costly miscalculations.

Tarkin's actions were not unrealistic and are reflective of complex human dilemmas that occur in real life, where only in hindsight, after the fact, would'ves, could'ves, and should'ves crawl nattering in accusation out of the woodwork.

As well they should, as constructive criticism can prevent future disasters. Nonconstructive criticism, simply writing off a bad decision as idiocy, invites the same potentiallty dysfunctional conditions to recur. If Tarkin were a real person, his accomplishments and last second failure would be a source of considerable study in militarist circles.

[Marko Dash]

It seems that someone of Tarkin's rank should have had access to quite a few ships of the line. The fact that he went to what he believed as the rebel main base without any backup is prove enough of his arrogance.

[Batman]

Um-dont?