Admiral Ackbar: Competent or Not?

[Havok]

And which one is the communication ship? When does that get blown up?

[Captain Seafort]

Relative to the action on the ground or aboard the DSII I'm not sure. However, the main site database provides this information:

Source: ROTJ novelization p.164
Lando, Wedge, Blue Leader, and Green Wing went in to take out one of the larger Destroyers- the Empire's main communications ship. It had already been disabled by direct cannonade from the Rebel cruiser it had subsequently destroyed; but its damages were reparable- so the Rebels had to strike while it was still licking its wounds.
...

Source: ROTJ novelization p.166
[after the destruction of the Communications Ship]
Ackbar reached Calrissian on the comlink. "The jamming has stopped. We have a reading on the shield."

The shield was still up at the time.

[DudeGuyMan]

I'll just say again since it I've said it elsewhere lately: Given the level of technology available to the Rebels, there was no good reason for the battle over the shield generator to consist of anything but a few man-portable missile launches followed by mushroom clouds.

[Havok]

Ahhh yes, the ROTJ novel battle. Something which time wise, absolutely can not be reconciled with the time frame we see in the movie.

I'll concede though as I don't feel like doing the comparison.

[Havok]

I'll just say again since it I've said it elsewhere lately: Given the level of technology available to the Rebels, there was no good reason for the battle over the shield generator to consist of anything but a few man-portable missile launches followed by mushroom clouds.

You are assuming the bunker couldn't stand up to that.

[LopEaredGaloot]

You are talking about Han Solo?

No. I'm talking about Calrissian.

Since he has apparently -just- been appointed General, based on something heresay related about his past performance at the battle of Tanaab.

More than a year ago.

You mean the Han Solo that helped blow up the first Death Star, also saving Yavin IV and the Alliance base, commanders etc. that were there.

Immaterial since it's not related to the performance of Lando Calrissian whom Han hasn't seen in X-years and may be biased by some misplaced sense of gratitude.

By showing up late, hawking the fight and taking credit for an attack he didn't make?

The Han Solo that helped the Rebel Alliance evacuate Hoth?

Immaterial since it's not related to the performance of Lando Calrissian whom Han hasn't seen in X-years and may be biased by some misplaced sense of gratitude.

No he didn't. For personal-not-personnel reasons, he got one person off planet. During the entirety of the battle and the preparations for it, he was busy being a selfish bastard, trying to get his ship underway so he could abandon the Rebels altogether.

The Han Solo that infiltrated the Death Star and saved Princess Leia and got the plans of the Death Star to the Alliance commanders?

Immaterial since it's not related to the performance of Lando Calrissian whom Han hasn't seen in X-years and may be biased by some misplaced sense of gratitude.

It should also be noted that Han did NOT infiltrate the Death Star. He was NOT a volunteer displaying any particular tactical genius. He was a captive audience who followed money as initiative of another player.

You mean Han Solo the guy that saved Luke's bacon twice, including during the above mentioned 'blow up the first Death Star?

Immaterial since it's not related to the performance of Lando Calrissian whom Han hasn't seen in X-years and may be biased by some misplaced sense of gratitude.

You mean Han Solo, the man that was trusted to command the most important mission the Alliance has ever undertaken, at the risk of almost their entire fleet?
You mean the Han Solo that held the rank of GENERAL, the equivalent rank of Admiral, in the Alliance?

Material, but only as a condemnation of Ackbar and/or Mon Mothma's own lack of tactical sense. The man has somehow gained weight while being in what amounts to a forced coma for over a year. He should not be leading anything. He should not be able to walk unassisted.

Nor should anyone trust his judgement about Lando Calrissian as he may be in entirely too charitable a mood to be thinking straight and in any case has no RECENT experience of this other newbie they hire to run the special mission force either.

I think this line pretty much sums up your level of thought that went into this thread.

Thanks. It sure doesn't do much for your case however.

You fly fighters and are out of the game for a couple weeks and you have to totally reacquaint yourself with the basics of managing the systems and interfaces, withstanding the G and sustaining the high rate of thought processing in a geometric sense of 4D variable vectors.

Lando hasn't even OWNED the Falcon in a coon's age. And he is a businessman, not a fighter pilot. If you believe the EU (first Han Solo trilogy), Han once was one. A long, LONG, time ago. And even he admits he doesn't have the reflexes necessary to play in that kind of a game anymore.

Furthermore, you can bet that this op was practiced at the squadron and wing level for months beforehand. Time when Han was stewing in his own juices and Lando was watching half naked dancing girls. Where is the cohesion, the 1,001 reiterations of the mission plan, directly and by simulator to help reinforce a top down understanding of the key points of the engagement where X has to be in place so that Y can happen?

THESE MEN WERE NOT THERE FOR ANY OF IT.

And Ackbar, who presumably was, should know better as whoever was present among the Colonel/Commander ranked Rebels during training is the obvious guy you tap for the strike force lead.

Which brings us right back to: "Who are you again? Why should I listen to you? Do I know you?"

The answers to which are: Nobody. You Shouldn't. You Don't.


LEG

[Darth Yan]

No. I'm talking about Calrissian.

Since he has apparently -just- been appointed General, based on something heresay related about his past performance at the battle of Tanaab.

More than a year ago.

People don't just loose tactical genius, and for all we know the battle of taanab could have shown extreme brilliance.

Immaterial since it's not related to the performance of Lando Calrissian whom Han hasn't seen in X-years and may be biased by some misplaced sense of gratitude.

By showing up late, hawking the fight and taking credit for an attack he didn't make?

1.) We don't know who gave Lando the job.

2.) If han hadn't intervened vader would have killed luke and the death star would have annihalated the rebel base.

It should also be noted that Han did NOT infiltrate the Death Star. He was NOT a volunteer displaying any particular tactical genius. He was a captive audience who followed money as initiative of another player.

Han still broke into the death star; ergo he infiltrated it. he also held his own fairly well, and was able to survive in one of the most fortified imperial bases

3.) Han was able to survive in the death star, and take part in the infiltration. He broke into the cells with luke, lasted in a firefight, and who demonstrated combat skills. What's more, the pilots seem surprised by the info, and some are clearly getting it for the first time. Believe it or not, some militaries don't have the luxury of planning months in advance. how long did we have to plan eagle claw, gothic serpant, and the two desert storm and shield operations?

Lando wasn't meant to be a fighter pilot.

Get some facts. You missed the main moral point of the original (try to find the good in everyone, simply lashing out at evil and trying to fight evil with evil, love and forgiveness beat hatred and revenge,) and now you miss some basic military knowledge. You just look for any excuse to hate the Original trilogy.

[Havok]

You are talking about Han Solo?

No. I'm talking about Calrissian.

Hey wanna be big brain, that's all you needed to say.

But since you decided to get all wind bag about it, no, it isn't immaterial because Ackbar is basing his decision on counting on Han Solo, not on Lando's reputation.

[TK-984]

In regards to the idea of the rebel commando team sending an "all clear" message after taking out the shield generator, I refer you to this:

Lando: We've gotta be able to get some kind of reading on that shield, up or down.

Sullustian Co-pilot: *Alien giberish*

Lando: How can they be jamming us if the don't know we're *pause* coming.

Emphasis mine. The Imperials were already jamming, sensors at least, well before the shield went down. What makes you think this would stop when the shield went down, as opposed to the Empire turning it up to eleven.

Kind of a moot point. There should be a communique confirming the "all-clear" and upon non-receipt it should be determined that SOMETHING is not right. If jamming communications is something which is done routinely, then why would Lando be surprised?

And sorry, just now realized this had been answered. I'll go on by saying I have not seen any point by point dismantling of LEG's posts, and it seems extremely disingenuous to nick-pick his argument and attack his character. He's already admitted that he's "nobody." Address the argument and not the guy. I personally think his only rhetorical flaw thus far is the jargon he employs, and that's not really a flaw on his part.

[Bellosh101]

If jamming communications is something which is done routinely

Which may very well be SOP when planetary shield generators get blown up, making it impossible for saboteurs to send messenges back. On that note, how could the Rebel commandos send reports back to Rebel High Command if they don't have access to the Holonet? Unlike the Empire, the Rebels consistently have far more difficulty with long-distance communication. It is highly likely an all-clear message was all but impossible to send anyway.

it seems extremely disingenuous to nick-pick his argument and attack his character.

"Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people".

[LopEaredGaloot]

Darth Yan,

People don't just loose tactical genius, and for all we know the battle of taanab could have shown extreme brilliance.

Actually, you do.

Out at the NTC, they run about four days of actual 1:1 combat ops and as much as 2 weeks of command center exercises. Not simply because it's easier and cheaper to show assets as little symbols on a screen.

But because the intensity of extracting, interpreting and plotting a counter to a given enemy tactical action -ahead of- real time from an info dense digital presentation is actually harder to get right than simply pointing your MILES equipped rifle or main tube at someone and squirting them with a laser/rf.

And in the air (or space) where the pacing is at several hundred miles per hour, the tempo is even higher and the resulting tactical situation more fluid.

Until you get perfect global intel as reachback into his prep/marshalling actions, Deception and Saturation of the enemy OODA loop -psychology- is as critical an element of his frontal defeat, breakout and exploitation as any hardware or numeric disparity in a given engagement.

And if you don't practice against that stress factor, constantly, you are likely to be inundated and overwhelmed by the data as much as the enemy. Long before you make actual contact.

Patton, Rommel, Caesar, Alexander. None of these 'great generals' could keep up with the operational pacing of today's 4D digital battlefield. They could likely understand the concepts and dispositional potential. But they couldn't manipulate it fast enough to be survivable.

Why should I expect someone who has been playacting as a bodyguard for a year and running a business for ten before that to be any better _based on one unknown battle_ than these greats from history who fought whole campaigns in tuning their personal doctrines?

1.) We don't know who gave Lando the job.

Yes we do. Ackbar, as supreme commander for the operation, has the right to order anyone he doesn't like, replaced. At the same time, if he certifies them, even by default based on an underling's actual nomination, he is STILL responsible for that leader's performance.

With tens of thousands of men's lives at stake you can bet he has met them and gotten a feel for them as men and leaders.

And given both Han and Lando are poor choices for their respective mission slots, which are _critical_ to the outcome of the fight, IITS conditions apply.

And those IITS tropes (heroes to the for) make Ackbar look like an idiot.

2.) If Han hadn't intervened vader would have killed Luke and the death star would have annihalated the rebel base.

And if Han had intervened with the Y-Wings of Gold Group, maybe the first pair of torpedoes would have gone in. The thing about fighter pilots is that it is one of the few mission areas where senior squadron if not wing command staff both can and -are expected to- 'lead from the front'.

In air combat, if you push someone up ahead of you and then swing behind whoever swings behind them, you are using them as a bait goat based on the assumption that your shot will hit the correct target before the bad guy's kills the bait goat.

Which is why it's called Hawking The Fight. You watch the real warriors turn circles trying to get advantage over each other and then, absent anyoe turning in on you, you dive to exploit their distraction.

Warriors of all kinds dislike being made to act as decoy forces to improve someone else' kill ratio. And so Han's 'Hun From The Sun' approach basically amounts to cowardice before and bravery after the fact of Luke being put in peril.

Han still broke into the death star; ergo he infiltrated it. he also held his own fairly well, and was able to survive in one of the most fortified imperial bases

"She's rich." "How rich." "Well...more wealth than you can imagine!" "I dunno, I can 'imagine' quite a bit." "You'll get it!" "I'd better!" "You will!"

"Here Chewie, let's put these on you." "RARR!" "Okay, Han, you put these on." "Relax Chewie, I think I know what he's got in mind."

"This isn't going to work." "Why didn't you say so before?" "I -did- say so before!"

"Great, when you came down here didn't you have a plan for getting back out?" "Don't look at me Sweetheart, _he's_ the brains!"

Does this sound like a man in charge of his own destiny or someone who's following his greed after someone else' bravery and cunning as initiative?

"I'm at full power, I'm gonna have to shut down, but they're not gonna get me without a fight."

"You can't win, but there are alternatives to fighting."

Han was thrown into a shark tank and swam hard for the edge and a bag of money. He didn't 'break into' anything because he didn't have the choice on whether he would be there to begin with.

3.) Han was able to survive in the death star, and take part in the infiltration. He broke into the cells with luke, lasted in a firefight, and who demonstrated combat skills. What's more, the pilots seem surprised by the info, and some are clearly getting it for the first time. Believe it or not, some militaries don't have the luxury of planning months in advance. how long did we have to plan eagle claw, gothic serpant, and the two desert storm and shield operations?

Han is outnumbered several hundred thousand to 1 it's not the fighting of those men that he will prove his merit but in the -avoidance- of that (unwinnable) battle. And the obvious excuse to use is a rampaging Wookie, now dead. Instead-

"We're all fine here...how are you?"

"Uh negative, large reactor leak, very dangerous, give us a minute to lock it down."

The Iranians took the hostages in early November 1979. The farce at Desert 1 occured the 24th of April, 1980. Five months.

Saddam Hussein, with the blessings of Madeleine Albright as U.S. ambassador, took Kuwait in August 1990. After CIA tethered Aerostats and U-2s out of Akrotiri along with a whole -host- of retasked satellites had been 'taking pictures' of the Iraqi buildup for about a month. Desert Storm began on January 17th, 1991. Desert Saber began around February 23rd, 1991. Say 4.5 and 6 months later.

The events of ROTJ occur **one year** after those of TESB. With vastly more effective logistical lift to support uninterrupted training outside the galaxy as much as operations theater of a single world.

If Ackbar wasn't driving his people like whipped dogs with: "Faster, Harder, Cleaner, Meaner!" that whole time, then he is even more of a moron than I thought. Because their tactical skills are as perishable as his own and he NEEDS their screwups as well as successes to drive his innovation process.

Lando wasn't meant to be a fighter pilot.

Then he shouldn't be there.

Get some facts. You missed the main moral point of the original (try to find the good in everyone, simply lashing out at evil and trying to fight evil with evil, love and forgiveness beat hatred and revenge,) and now you miss some basic military knowledge. You just look for any excuse to hate the Original trilogy.

Gumby, the chances are pretty good that I know more about military history than you do about your own private life.

I assign you this level of innocence based on your assumption that 'Moral Points' have a place in combat.

The reality being that in all facets of life there is unrelenting competition and those who are prepared to win, do. The rest get the 'for making the winner look good' trophy and a nice big slice of humble pie.

If the competition is dead-serious, sometimes they also get a headstone.

The sad part then being all the would-be winners who also get a Darwin Award instead because they let the idiot among them fail to do his job.

Good Intentions and PC bullcrap as social agenda mean nothing compared to competence. And in selecting his commanders to delegate authority too and -listening- to their obvious lack of experience talking (or failing to report in), as 'think positive!' reinforcement for continuing down a bad command decision pathway; Ackbar shows gross command negligence himself.

Death also rolls downhill from the point of highest incompetence.

Which is what the thread poster asked an opinion of.


LEG

[Darth Yan]

First of all, there is one scene where the second run on the trench actually succeeds in shooting the torpedos (with targeting computers with the same weapon) and the shot misses due to heavy jamming. Luke's shot succeeded due to the force. Luke was the only one who could make the shot due to his skills in the force. And han only came back because his consience nagged him (hell he probably just arrived in time to save Luke).

What's more, when did the rebels get the plans? For all we know it could have been have been 6 months; they still would have had to decode, do scouting, you name it.

how do you know lando wasn't briefed and ran through training before the battle. There is no evidence showing how much time passes between the briefing and the actual battle.

As for competion; one of the reasons terrorism thrives is because they harvest resentment, and there are always more. Violence is not always the answer.

[LopEaredGaloot]

Belosh101,

Which may very well be SOP when planetary shield generators get blown up, making it impossible for saboteurs to send messenges back. On that note, how could the Rebel commandos send reports back to Rebel High Command if they don't have access to the Holonet? Unlike the Empire, the Rebels consistently have far more difficulty with long-distance communication. It is highly likely an all-clear message was all but impossible to send anyway.

We know that Star Destroyer sized ships have the ability to notify sector commands along the last plotted trajectory of the Falcon's escape route to start looking.

So it is not beyond belief that the larger Mon Calamari ships at least have long range comms, if only to allow for the sending of an SOS in the event of a problem in deep space during their prior lives as civilian liners.

Probe droids certainly seem to be able to send data across interstellar distances too. Though it may be that they are using a relay capability in a larger orbital fragment of their delivery system.

That said, there are two other points to consider here:

1. SpecOps teams on our world can shoot a message several hundred miles up into to space to a MILSTAR satellite with a transmitter antenna that looks like an oversized cocktail umbrella.

2. The shield generator is HUGE, easily identifiable from space, using radar or optics and it's likely that the destruction of same would also be readily visible as an even larger pall or downwind plume.

3. I never said it had to be all or nothing. Indeed, my argument was the opposite. DO NOT send in the full offensive line until special teams has cleared the field so to speak.

Whether thats a fighter sweep or lighter capital ships, just make sure you mix up the approach axes and timing to keep them all from becoming a shared target.

Indeed, a single messenger torpedo, with a camera and a needle beam pick up for laser or tightband (X or Ka) could, with Agrav capabilities, come to a highly specific point over a specfor's planetside location _while itself still in space_. And the Strike Teams computerized commo package could point it's squirt beam via a computerized antenna system into that tight volume via nearby star-survey. Taking all of 2-3 seconds to send a 1-way burst message while the torp took pictures.

Comms has an edge over sensors in this because sensors require a potentially maskable characteristic to be measured or interrogated and then the -return- beamed back, somewhat randomly due to uncertain/dynamic range = time of flight conditions, to an open-ended receiver system. A receiver that can be jammed white while it awaits the real return signal.

OTOH, a commo receiver can have guarded antennas (essentially creating a self-jammed polarization 'null' around known interference sources) as well as scheduled listening dwell periods in specific band use segments of a known transmission encryption that makes it very hard to 'set on' with a jammer long enough to interfere with.

This technique is something which the burst-send Tx and Rx systems are able to get around because they are preprogrammed to the same spectrum spreading/PRN incremented band allocations.

BAM. 10 seconds later, damage assessement done and strike confirmation code received, the torpedo does a hard 90`, accelerates at 10,000G back up out of the planetary gravity well and then, a few hundred miles later, jumps back out-system.

And a minute or an hour after that, Ackbar is looking at the pictures, listening to the code words and deciding if Solo/Organa look like they are under duress.

He makes his decision and looking up... "We go."

Fight's On.


LEG


Note: When Lando yells "All craft pull up!" nobody has any problems hearing him.

[Knife]

Sigh: Why would the ground unit need to communicate the data. They were not surprised by the fact that there was a small Imperial fleet there, but were surprised at the jamming meaning they probably didn't anticipate the communications ship to be there and would be able to detect the presence or lack thereof of the shield.

On the Rebel command ship bridge, smoke and shouts filled the air.

Ackbar reached Calrissian on the comlink. "The jamming has stopped. We have a reading on the shield."

"Is it still up?" Lando responded with desperate anticipation in his voice.

"I'm afraid so. It looks like General Solo's unit didn't make it."

Note: this was right after the Rebels destroyed the communications ship.

It was a spectacular display, explosion after explosion sending a wall of fire hundreds of feet into the air, creating a shock wave that knocked every living creature off its feet, and charred all the greenery that faced the clearing.

The bunker was destroyed.



A captain ran up to Admiral Ackbar, his voice tremulous. "Sir, the shield around the Death Star has lost its power."

Ackbar looked at the view-screen; the electronically generated web was gone.

They did detect the absence of the shield around the Death Star, so why would they want the ground unit to reveal it's position with a transmition? Why would you want the redundancy?

From the movie; it goes right from the explosion to Ackbar saying the shield is down, commence attack. You guys are adding complexity to the mission that's not needed only because you can look back and say "There was a jamming ship there and they should have planned for it." That is not a good reason to say Ackbar was incompetent.

As for Ackbar being supreme commander, I don't see that in the movie or the book. He was definately the Fleet Commander but not supreme commander of all forces, perhaps he got that title later in the EU, I seem to recall something about it. However, in RotJ, he is not, he is refereed to as one of two of Mon Mothma's chief advisors with a specialty in Imperial defense procedures, Madine being the other one and Madine was the one who briefed the ground mission and in charge of covert operations.

[LopEaredGaloot]

Darth Yan,

First of all, there is one scene where the second run on the trench actually succeeds in shooting the torpedos (with targeting computers with the same weapon) and the shot misses due to heavy jamming. Luke's shot succeeded due to the force. Luke was the only one who could make the shot due to his skills in the force.

You don't know this.

Every weapon has a GDOP and CEP based statistical summary of probable hit factors. GDOP or Geometric Dilution Of Precision is 'the basket' by or funnel of space above a target which a munition, if correctly delivered into, can kinematically reach the target itself.

Circular Error Probability covers essentially 'everything else' from that release point to the center of the target shack. From guidance errors derived from (say) laser jitter to casting imperfections in the weapon casing and fins causing subtle aerodynamic scatter effects to the actual cyclical delay between detecting an error and correcting for it with bang-bang or hydraulic circuited control surfaces.

Given I don't know the precise mechanization of a 'proton torpedo' these basic factors should still apply: "Can it hit at all and how much time does it have to compensate for internal and external error generation in the weapon:target geometry" to achieve a lethal hit.

It could just as easily be that the initial torpedoes missed because of a flaw in the weapons or a Murphy's Law element in the trajectory and the _next ten shots in a row_ would go right down the pipe.

I say this because of an obvious conclusion reachable from the drama: Luke didn't 'Force Push' the torpedoes into the reactor shaft. With his sudden pullup, he didn't have time as they were self-guided AFTER he released them.

The most he could do would be to adjust their firing pulse timing to make sure they were 'heart of the envelope' fired to minimize compensation lag getting them to lineup on target azimuth and make that 90` snapturn of their own.

And han only came back because his consience nagged him (hell he probably just arrived in time to save Luke).

Don't expect someone to pat you on the back for overcoming your cowardice 'later', when they need you to stand with them, shoulder to shoulder NOW.

Say I have a wall of 7 Eagles flying east out of Bitburg AB in Germany and it's 1983 D1/R1 of the Big Surprise as a formation of 30 Russian/WARPAC bandits come the other way.

Now ordinarily a wall would be at least two division fourships firing four weapons each at .75SSPK. Except one guy turned back because 'something was wrong with his navigation system' (yeah, the hand holding the stick is shaking like a leaf).

Then suddenly, instead of 24 kills from 32 shots. The senior flight lead can only expect 21 kills from 28 shots.

And the residual odds as the enemy comes into their own firing envelopes are not 8:6, good guys favored. They're 7:9 for the other side.

Now maybe we get lucky and 'superior flying skills' (ECM, airframe design and YEARS of training) save the day. Or maybe we don't and a couple guys don't come back because that ONE MAN, maybe you, didn't stick with the engagement because he wanted to live more than he wanted his buddies to survive to remember the moment with him.

The difference? If he's not deemed such a whiskey delta that he's taken off flight duties when he gets back, he's still gonna have to go out and 'be braver this time' again.

Only this time, it will be HIM who is short a couple guys on each wing as a division and a section. 6 aircraft, not 8. And if he's smart, his pucker factor is gonna be huge, because he knows each one of the other guys is gonna be lookin' at him, or maybe you, and saying to himself: "Well, is he gonna run this time?"

Which is a lousy thing to have circling around the drain in the back of your mind when you are fighting for your life and you need to know that the man to your left and the man to your right are _in the fight_.

Now, having said that, Han is not a military pilot, he's a smuggler flying the equivalent of a gulfstream in a warzone. And so if he doesn't want to be there, that's fine, I sure as hell wouldn't be. But DO NOT puff him up as some kind of hero. Because a real hero does his job when all other's abandon their's. He doesn't lead the lemming rush the other away.

Some colors don't run when washed with blood.

What's more, when did the rebels get the plans? For all we know it could have been have been 6 months; they still would have had to decode, do scouting, you name it.

Doesn't matter. If they aren't ready, then it's up to Ackbar to tell the politicians the truth and if they won't listen, to fall on his sword in as noisy a manner as possible to let other elements of the Alliance command structure know it is a mistake to go.

And from their reactions and chosen combat leadership, they were not ready.

How do you know Lando wasn't briefed and ran through training before the battle. There is no evidence showing how much time passes between the briefing and the actual battle.

Sigh. You're being stupid. Lando made the wrong decisions in the fight. Therefore his training was substandard and his 'prior experience' was too dated and/or inappropriate to compensate.

And if Lando was on Tatooine for as little as a fortnight before the mission itself, his 'training' is abbreviated by those two unnecessary weeks when his competency could have been upgraded and his chance to study the battle plans and make them his own, lost.

This is why the military says "Train like you fight, fight like you train." A man may -practice- his whole career for a war he never sees. His son may join up and face three in a row in the craziest intensity levels imaginable.

But if they both _train to the same degree of competence_, the chances for each to win thru for their nation and themselves will be roughly the same, at least to the point where direct experience starts to drive understanding more than practice-practice-practice.

As for competion; one of the reasons terrorism thrives is because they harvest resentment, and there are always more. Violence is not always the answer.

Terrorism thrives because evil exists and good does nothing about it. Evil, unlike good, doesn't need any excuse to be what it is and you will recognize it, instantly, when you see it. Period.

It is not the responsibility of the military to prevent 'they' from using their evil to harvest anything in time of peace. Peace is the politicians job which they undertake so fraudulently and thus perform so miserably as to often necessitate war.

It is the responsibility of a uniformed military to be so fiercesomely competent that, in time of war, the hatred that 'they' harvest cannot compete with the training, dedication and skills of those who are prepared to do nothing less than win.

Superior warfighting skills /=/ 'violence' if the objective is not worth the losses.

It is ironic that you fall back to the traditional libtard defense of that assumption when in fact I am the one saying that Lando, Ackbar and anyone else with their heads screwed on right would immediately equate loss of surprise and 'shields still up' with a compromised (read: dead/captured) Strike Team condition and a resultant need to instantly reconfigure objectives around a mission abort and phased withdrawal of high value assets before crushing and unnecessary losses built up.

But then again, I'm not you. I actually understand the full spectrum of what war demands in a given situation and am not glued to a polarized understanding of killing as an all-in obsessive pursuit to justify some kind of 'good person' social uplift or guilt.

Point Blank: Killing is killing, when it's necessary you choose where and when to the best advantage of your overall objectives and team survival.

Or you become the defensive victim of someone who does make those proactive choices.

You don't do -anything- to 'prove a moral point'.


LEG

[Darth Yan]

Given that lando's orders kept the superlaser from fully vaporizing the fleet he wasn't totally in the wrong.

They mention heavy jammers, and it's fairly goddamn obvious that's why the first shots failed.

And as for evil: Bullshit; Countless villains have manufactured excuses to justify their crimes; the nazis did it, the soviets did it, the guys who ran the salem witch trials did it.

As for the withdrawal: It's made abundantly clear that they would't have another chance. Terrorists will always have enough recruits if they have the right recruiting skills and mindless violence will make it easy to recruit.

[LopEaredGaloot]

Knife,

Sigh: Why would the ground unit need to communicate the data. They were not surprised by the fact that there was a small Imperial fleet there, but were surprised at the jamming meaning they probably didn't anticipate the communications ship to be there and would be able to detect the presence or lack thereof of the shield.

Because you aren't going to commit to an attack before you know that the way through to the objective is clear. And bits and pieces of the shield generator are scattered over the landscape, then that's a pretty good clue.

OTOH, if the generator array is still standing, and the Strike Team have done -something else- to achieve the same effect, then hearing that confirmation (with explicit code group phrases and encryption) also helps.

In theory, there could be a second generator, or there could be interference with the torpedo and/or the transmission of a false report. But the combination of risk-reduction factors vs. the knowledge of what you are there to do as achieved goals will accumulate on one side or the other of the balance scales until you decide: "Yeah, let's do this."

Making the go/no-go decision a function of blind ignorance is beyond stupid.

Note: this was right after the Rebels destroyed the communications ship.

Frankly I doubt a 'communications' vessel could jam military sensors purposefully designed to operate in a different part of the spectrum. Any more than a Compass Call EC-130 could jam a Grill Pan radar like an EA-6B could.

There are other issues related to power, spatial coverage and time domain mechanics but in general, Lucas making a blanket statement about a single 'communications' ship in the novelization _which does not show up in the film_, makes no sense at all. I would expect that much broadband Jx power, if it was possible at all, to have to come from the DS itself.

That said, you are missing the point. You make your decisions based on what you do know and what you don't know AT THE TIME that that knowledge can do you some good. Which often means as much lead time as you can grab to think about it without compromising opsec before the mission. It does NOT mean waiting for conditions to change -during- the battle when the key parameter necessary for success is indicated (by the lack of surprise and the shield still being up) to have most likely been the compromise-cause of things heading south.

If the Strike Team is captured as soon as they land, then all this prepared ambush: "Unless...they knew we were coming..." stuff makes sense.

And that realization MUST (in the absence of any other compelling evidence, like the smoking pile of rubble that was the shield generator or a "We're still here and fighting hard!" communication from the ground) drive all your subsequent tactical decisions.

ALL OF THEM.

They did detect the absence of the shield around the Death Star, so why would they want the ground unit to reveal it's position with a transmission? Why would you want the redundancy?

1. Time.
2. Positive Declaration beats "Ainh, can't really tell."

Again, I am not an idiot. I am NOT going to put an entire battle group into tight planetary orbit restricted maneuver condition and then scatter them around on the basis of a maybe.

If that shield generator isn't down. I'm not going. If I can't read whether that massive energy flux of a shield barrier is down, I'm assuming that it's up. And I'm not going. But what if my camera package fails and I get the correct come-ahead signal? If I blow that chance based on a legitimate takedown of the shield generator, then everything up to that point, the Commando's sacrifices, the gathering up of the fleet, taking it away from other nuissance raider missions and even basic resupply-by-fire raiding. All of the training. Will have been _for nothing_.

OTOH, I know that the Commandos are brave. And I know that they know, if they don't respond to the messenger torpedo within a given time window, anything they DO say is going to be ignored as having been made under duress. So all's they have to do is spit in the eye of the torturers on those key go/no-go code phrase groups for maybe a couple hours.

And I will also KNOW that something is wrong. I want that dual, preraid, photo+commo redundancy because even though I hate to kill such men for nothing, I would slaughter every one of them if it meant saving the warfighting capacity of the entire Rebel Fleet from the overwhelming fury of the Imperial one.

From the movie; it goes right from the explosion to Ackbar saying the shield is down, commence attack. You guys are adding complexity to the mission that's not needed only because you can look back and say "There was a jamming ship there and they should have planned for it." That is not a good reason to say Ackbar was incompetent.

If they can bend optical frequencies from an entire region of the planet sufficient to hide a multistory Arasebo Array type dish, then they can do other things which make the whole concept of the Death Star and one man fighters attacking it ridiculous.

Screw the jammer. It's not in the movie. The physics don't make sense and so it's not 'real'.

If the Rebels don't come because the shield generator ARRAY isn't blown apart before they jump in-system, then it doesn't matter whether the 'communications' ship is there or not.

As for Ackbar being supreme commander, I don't see that in the movie or the book. He was definately the Fleet Commander but not supreme commander of all forces, perhaps he got that title later in the EU, I seem to recall something about it.

Can a politician hanging back at the leap off anchorage handle the fleet in combat better than the military commander on the scene?

The, for the duration of the mission, he is THE commander of all Rebel Forces in the region.

President Bush may have been POTUS in 1991. But he was not supreme theater commander of all U.S. Forces in The Gulf. Schwarzkopf was. Because only Schwarzkopf could do things in a timely fashion, with ready access to a knowledge base of intelligent decision making expertise, to solve problems.

Schwarzkopf, for better or worse, led the U.S. military in 1991. At least during Desert Storm/Saber and within the geographic confines of CENTCOM.

However, in RotJ, he is not, he is refereed to as one of two of Mon Mothma's chief advisors with a specialty in Imperial defense procedures, Madine being the other one and Madine was the one who briefed the ground mission and in charge of covert operations.

Then Ackbar is an even bigger moron, not a lesser one. Look, it's nothing new or special but the fact is, when you have two giant egos in one tiny space, so long as there is ANY room for 'interpretation' there is gonna be friction and debate.

Which is why, even though Halsey led the fleets and Nimitz had command of the overall theater back at Pearl, the USN was made subordinate to MacArthur's Phillipine Islands invasion. If MacArthur said jump, the Navy said how high on the fly.

If MacArthur said, "I wanna sit in on this key mission briefing." for a carrier airwing, there would be a detached destroyer with a motor launch standing too off the beach, ready to take him to the battlegroup to be a part of that brief.

And the same can be _guaranteed_ for Ackbar. Because the he is not supporting a massive amphibious assault. Rather, the commando attack is supporting his at-risk naval engagement.

And Madine would be secondary in that command ranking, based on risk and operational command experience. So when Ackbar said: "Show me what ya got. Madine would open up the files."

And Ackbar, looking at that halfbaked mission plan (no plan to penetrate the target facility, no heavy weapons to compensate for a wide kill ring perimeter, no means to signal success, no means to mechanize the approach and thus provide superior penetration of a prepared defense.) would fire Madine's ass in a heartbeat.

That Ackbar didn't 'coordinate' with his ground force specialist to MAKE SURE his naval element wasn't at risk before commitment goes to show how dumb he is.

3G Theory: Get in. Get It Done. Get Out.

Never stand ontop of the target just to become one yourself.

If the shield isn't down before you go, you get stuck on the second G and are subject to being trapped and ANNIHILATED, waiting for something that may never happen. Because your most vulnerable mission enabler, your 'door kicker' force, died within moments of entering the system.

How stupid is that?


LEG

[Havok]

Jesus christ.
They are acting on intelligence that they believe to be accurate. Ackbar is basing his decision to keep the fleet engaged on the reputation of a general that is famous/infamous for coming through at the last minute... REPEATEDLY.
The Rebel fleet has the might to stand up to the Imperial forces, as long as they don't have to deal with the DSII's super laser, which they nullified by moving in to the Imperial fleet's perimeter.

[Darth Yan]

uhh lets see how do the jammers render it pointless? And the films show that it's real, so suspension of disbelief shows that it is real. The empire blocked communications so the rebels couldn't tell them, and they had no idea about the full extent of the defenses. they don't know all the details, so they thought the shields would be down when they got there.

[Bellosh101]

We know that Star Destroyer sized ships have the ability to notify sector commands along the last plotted trajectory of the Falcon's escape route to start looking.

That's because the Emperor nationalized the Holonet so that only the Imperial government and military could use it. Everyone else is shit out of luck, including the Rebels.

I never said it had to be all or nothing. Indeed, my argument was the opposite. DO NOT send in the full offensive line until special teams has cleared the field so to speak. Whether thats a fighter sweep or lighter capital ships, just make sure you mix up the approach axes and timing to keep them all from becoming a shared target.

That's a dumbass plan you've conjured up; a small offensive line will ruin the element of surprise that the Alliance desperately requires for successful operations. By the time the special forces complete their mission, the Empire would already have a huge armada at Endor that will fuck over Ackbar's complete offensive line the moment it hypers into the system (except of course, if the messenger torpedo gets shot down). What a brilliant use of your piss-poor logic!

[Knife]

LopEaredGaloot, you are still operating under the delusion that having a hard go/no go communication is a must for any sort of mission where they are not a must. There is absolutely no reason to plan a raid on the DSII that involves the strike team to send a transmission that both paints their position and gives warning to Imperial forces that something is happening.

Plenty of operations are based off of the 'synchronize your watches and at T time we go' timing. Using it does not equate to incompetence and you sound foolish pimping that thought process. I think you are losing focus of scale here, whereas the Rebel Fleet was pretty big but not really a threat to the Empire. This wasn't a huge set piece theater battle, it was akin to a raid with (in the Empires view) limited amount of forces.

And I really don't care if you personally discount the Communication ship and jamming, it's in the novel and doesn't conflict with the movie. It's in. They killed the comm ship, jamming stopped, shield was up, bunker blew up, shields down. The rebels were operating off of intel that included some Imperial ships, Han and co. were not surprised at the presence of the SSD and a couple escorts, and didn't seem concerned that the mission was off until Luke felt Vader int he Force. There might have been a time period where the ground team could egress out of the system and contact the fleet with a no go report. But once on the ground, if the intel would have been right, the fleet would have jumped in and if the shield was still up could have still attacked Imperial escorts with no DS superlaser and retrieve ground team.

It was that their intel was wrong, almost like the Rebels thought there were WMD on Tatooine, and worse it was wrong and a trap. You can play arm chair general with hind vision, but Ackbar and Madine's plan seems sound under the intel they had. If you sent in a team, and transmitted a message saying shield is down, jump on in and attack, you're giving time for Imperial reinforcements to come in as well while the fleet is en route to Endor.

[Havok]

Actually Knife, I'm the one that discounts the communications ship, not Lop, unless he said that somewhere that I missed. I simply discount it because it doesn't fall in line with the time frame given for everything based on the movie. I don't contend that there wasn't one there or that it didn't get destroyed, just the way it happened in the novel.

Also Yan, the Empire clearly didn't block communications, or else how were the rebels communicating ship to ship?

[Stofsk]

Actually Knife, I'm the one that discounts the communications ship, not Lop, unless he said that somewhere that I missed. I simply discount it because it doesn't fall in line with the time frame given for everything based on the movie. I don't contend that there wasn't one there or that it didn't get destroyed, just the way it happened in the novel.

Can you be a little more specific about the time frame in the movie not gelling with the events in the novel? I always considered such things taking place 'between scenes' as there were quite a few scene cuts during the space battle portion of RotJ.

[Knife]

Actually Knife, I'm the one that discounts the communications ship, not Lop, unless he said that somewhere that I missed. I simply discount it because it doesn't fall in line with the time frame given for everything based on the movie. I don't contend that there wasn't one there or that it didn't get destroyed, just the way it happened in the novel.

Also Yan, the Empire clearly didn't block communications, or else how were the rebels communicating ship to ship?

My bad, I thought he was also saying that so if he isn't, my apologies. That said, the dialogue in the movie lines up pretty well, as do the various attacks on a couple SD type vessels. Anyway, in the movie, right after the bunker is blown up it cuts to Ackbar saying the shield is down, so they figured it out pretty quick without a 'go/no go' code from the commandos.

[LopEaredGaloot]

Havok,

Jesus christ.
They are acting on intelligence that they believe to be accurate.

Military intelligence is not a contradiction in terms. 'Central' Intelligence is. Why?

Because there are three basic rules to intel:

Confirmation (Confirmation, Confirmation)
Timeliness
Exploitability

If you are working off ONE asset then that asset is in fact a liability because you have _no way_ to vet his accuracy or honesty 'except as the enemy chooses to prove it'. And if the moment they choose to reveal that agents double status (as a turned or always-enemy condition) happens to be a battle, you're screwed.

OTOH, if you have ten people in the organization, none of them know each other and they can see INTENT as a trail of evidence that is both documentary and presence based (right assets, right time, right orders) for it to be plausible. Then the bad guys have to be able to 'fake' an entire headquarters/logistics system which is far harder to do, convincingly.

And if it's being done _in theater_, where the military is the dominant force exponent as insertion/recovery/comms agency, then timeliness is not such a big issue.

Exploitability gets to be a bitch when there is ONLY ONE PERSON who 'could've known' about a ops detail that is compromised. The CIA won't let you use that knowledge (half the time, they won't even tell so you can do a 'work around' with other capabilities gaining the intel) if it gets their guy killed becaue it may be another 10-20 year process of 'is he for real?' finding and grooming a replacement.

OTOH, if shit happens and it all blows up in your operators face because he sent a critical piece of intel and -they caught him- because it was (gasp) a context specific bait piece designed to expose whoever was leaking, the military can be _right there_ with a recovery team to bail his sorry ass out.

Which tends to make junior more heroic. And to reinforce the idea that his bit of the puzzle is or is not itself a major piece of disinformation, given, again, someone else sees the exposure op being set up.

Elements of this, along with publically humiliating the Commander In Chief during wartime by stating that 'Iran has no nuclear weapons project' is why the CIA is no longer in charge of prosecuting terrorist threat intel, the military commands now run it directly.

It is also why the military have an automatic institutional bias against any spooks not their own.

Ackbar is basing his decision to keep the fleet engaged on the reputation of a general that is famous/infamous for coming through at the last minute... REPEATEDLY.

Doing something 2-3 times for one individual in say 5 years is not going to get you famous or notorious. It's likely sub-par for the conditions that they are all operating under.

Added to which, Solo got captured at the end of TESB and has spent a year in a coma. That right there should disqualify him for any combat service in a mission critical role.

Furthermore, as of TESB Solo is not even acting within the Rebel command structure. He is 'Captain' Solo merely because he is a ship owner/operator. And after TESB, he's hybernating.

Finally, Ackbar doesn't get to conveniently excuse ignoring his own higher responsibilities based on "Well, I trusted this one guy..." as an excuse.

Inability to keep a broader perspective is NOT what gets you the funny cross-wise hat in the navy.

Having multiple backups to backups to alternatively redundant go-nogo decision points is.

You are a warrior, yes. But you are also an asset-as-risk management specialist. And you have been given the command of the ENTIRE Rebel naval force on the premise of not throwing it away on the notion of ONE GUY being able to accomplish a mission impossible.

'Which you know nothing about'.

The Rebel fleet has the might to stand up to the Imperial forces, as long as they don't have to deal with the DSII's super laser, which they nullified by moving in to the Imperial fleet's perimeter.

Rubbish. The Rebels in the film jump with all of about 12 ships. Only two of which (shown) were Mon Calamari MC-80/80A pickle cruisers of the size of Home 1.

NEITHER of those was itself an original military design but a converted liner. BOTH of which together could not face up to the SSD.

Indeed, the MC80s were not equal to a basic ISD.

>
According to Expanded Universe material, the peaceful Mon Calamari converted their passenger liners into warships to support the rebellion against the Galactic Empire.[1] Expanded Universe texts state that the ships are crewed almost entirely by Mon Calamari due to the ships' Mon Calamari-oriented controls and interface.[1] The primary opponent of Mon Calamari cruisers are the Imperial Star Destroyers. Although Mon Calamari cruisers are roughly the same size as most Imperial Destroyers, in head-to-head engagements the Mon Calamari cruisers are **usually at a disadvantage, due to their thinner armor**. Even so, Mon Calamari cruisers are still a formidable threat to the Imperial fleet; their large numbers of fighter squadrons, modular weapons systems and overlapping shields make them ideal for **hit-and-run attacks** on Imperial ships, bases, and military outposts.
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_One

All the other Frigates and Corvettes shown in the film would not be be able to stand in a slugging match with a single ISD, even as a group.

And there at roughly 15 or so of these ISDs visible, spaced out in a wall formation, while the Wookie page states there were at least 30.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Endor

ANY ONE OF WHICH is a match for the best Mon Calamari ships.

Given the force disparities and the lack of decent intel, the entire premise of the attack is getting in with the shield generator already down and attacking a defenseless DSII just long enough to cripple or destroy it before leaving again.

Ackbar's battlegroup is essentially an overmuscled raiding force.

Nowhere is there intent or displayed capability to take on the entire Imperial Fleet.

CONCLUSION:
You don't have to like what I say. But you have to acknowledge one fact: sending in a single recce asset to take a premission snapshot of the wrecked shield generator and pick up a commo squirt confirming the attack is not something that should be that difficult for a 'genius commander' to think up and execute. As a function of managing risk before committing his entire force.

There is simply too much riding on too few shoulders not to take that most basic of precautions.


LEG