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I was just thinking, don't the Y-Wings have turrets that can face to the rear?

So why in the Death Star trench doesn't anyone fire back at Vader and his TIE escort? And why doesn't anyone swoop back to take them on?

Only the first ship in line can take a shot at the exhaust port anyway, right?

Kurgan wrote:I was just thinking, don't the Y-Wings have turrets that can face to the rear?

So why in the Death Star trench doesn't anyone fire back at Vader and his TIE escort? And why doesn't anyone swoop back to take them on?

Only the first ship in line can take a shot at the exhaust port anyway, right?

All three ships were going to fire togather. This was to give a better chance of one of them hitting that port.

Some models of Y-wing are two-seated, with the gunner being able to independently control the cockpit-mounted ion cannon (e.g., the BTL-S3s flown by COL Horton Salm's Aggressor Wing in "In the Empire's Service"). Evidently these were not the models deployed at Yavin.

Speaking from a behind the scenes perspective, the first Y-Wing designs had a rear turret.

Is there a possibility that the models deployed at Yavin featured turrets controlled by the pilot, yet could not rotate? Has there been anything to contradict this possibility? It is very well plausible that the turrets were locked in place to act as secondary guns.

Or if they could rotate, they were too busy trying to not get blown away by gun turrets or slam into the Death Star to perform such an action.

TC Pilot wrote:Or if they could rotate, they were too busy trying to not get blown away by gun turrets or slam into the Death Star to perform such an action.

Well, yeah. But IIRC all models of Y-Wing sport astromech droids. So why can't the astromech operate the turret? Does it need to assist the pilot in flying/aiming in such a way that it doesn't have enough spare processing ability to operate the turret as well?

As I understand it, the one-seater Y-wing (BTL-A4) has boresighted ion cannons. Only on the S3 and similar models can the turret be rotated by the co-pilot.

The RotS novelization implies that astromechs may help the pilot in all gunnery--doing that and operating a turret on its own and doing everything else may be a little too much.

The OT ICS says that although most Y-Wings have turret-mounted ion cannons, their focussing crystal thingy gets knocked out of alignment very easily, and repairing it is a long and troublesome task for the rebel engineers, so most of them don't have functioning ones. IIRC, there was only two of Y-Wings in the Battle of Yavin that did.

Kurgan wrote:? And why doesn't anyone swoop back to take them on?

Based of the Rogue Squadron series they did speed up, decelerate euickly and hae the TIEs fly right over them.

and if not, the TIEs likely had similar acceleration/deceleration capabilities and/or the Y-wings wanted to be able to hit the port as soon as possible; it was a timed battle to get the DS before it could destroy Yavin IV.

oh, and Isolder74 was this for just the Y-wings or all rebel craft I thought shortages of proton torps forced it to that only Rebel squad and element leaders carried the rtorpe

Warsie wrote:

Kurgan wrote:? And why doesn't anyone swoop back to take them on?

Based of the Rogue Squadron series they did speed up, decelerate euickly and hae the TIEs fly right over them.

and if not, the TIEs likely had similar acceleration/deceleration capabilities and/or the Y-wings wanted to be able to hit the port as soon as possible; it was a timed battle to get the DS before it could destroy Yavin IV.

oh, and Isolder74 was this for just the Y-wings or all rebel craft I thought shortages of proton torps forced it to that only Rebel squad and element leaders carried the rtorpe

If I remember correctally, the shortages meant that each fighter was carrying only 2 torpedos. We know from the Y-Wing run that all thee ships were tying into the targeting computer of only one of the fighters. Hence the line "Computer locked getting a signal" if all three fired togather in that staggered formation then the chance of one of those ship's shots hitting the tiny target.

X---------v
...X---------v
.X---------v < Target fighter in Y-Wing run.

As you can see if that target shot, isn't right on then there are two more torpedoe sets in almost the same place increasing the odds of hitting the critical spot.

thank you for the explanation.

That's cool I guess, but that brings up another question. If all three ships are firing at once, wouldn't their torps have a danger of hitting each other on the way to the port?

Plus, Luke fired two at once...

I call BS on the idea that all three fighters were going to fire at once.

"Just hold them of for a few seconds" and "I can't hold them!". These lines strongly suggest that the back two fighters were just there as cover to hold off and fighters.
Even with the rear two getting telemetry, the way the were maneuvering, their torpedoes were just as likely to hit the lead fighter then the exhaust port.

If locking the computers in served any purpose it seems like that would be so that if the guns, which could have still been firing, picked off the lead fighter, one of the trailing fighters could fall into the lead position and take the shot instead of having to do another run.

Kurgan wrote:That's cool I guess, but that brings up another question. If all three ships are firing at once, wouldn't their torps have a danger of hitting each other on the way to the port?

Plus, Luke fired two at once...

Two thoughts, yes but with the fighters actually staggered the way they were it means a seperation from front to back that, though minimal, should be enough to prevet the warheads hitting each other while simultaneously being able to get to the target before being hit by debris from the preceeding impacts.

As to Luke firing two he doesn't have any wingmen anymore so two shots oubles his chances of hitting dead with one. He just happens to be spot on enough to get both in when odds were against hitting with either.

Well remember that Red Leader's run was made after the Y-Wing's run which was made before they knew that Imperial Fighters would be joining them in the trench. perhaps they change the plan in a pinch or the plan was the same but now they were on alert about enemy fighters now and were more concerned about that then checking the computer.

Ah, I haven't read that ICS. If A4 Y-wings do have turrets than they must be computer- or astromech-controlled. Good find!

Manus Celer Dei wrote:The OT ICS says that although most Y-Wings have turret-mounted ion cannons, their focussing crystal thingy gets knocked out of alignment very easily, and repairing it is a long and troublesome task for the rebel engineers, so most of them don't have functioning ones. IIRC, there was only two of Y-Wings in the Battle of Yavin that did.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it was only one, and that was the Y-Wing that managed to survive the battle. Pretty telling as to their usefulness really.

^ Source?

Manus Celer Dei wrote:The OT ICS says that although most Y-Wings have turret-mounted ion cannons, their focussing crystal thingy gets knocked out of alignment very easily, and repairing it is a long and troublesome task for the rebel engineers, so most of them don't have functioning ones. IIRC, there was only two of Y-Wings in the Battle of Yavin that did.

I guess it's been too long since I've read the ICS. So turbolasers have "focusing crystals" just like lightsabers now? If so, the mechanism for them isn't so far off after all it seems...

Anguirus wrote:^ Source?

It's from the OT ICS, which I have, but it isn't around at the moment, not sure where it's gotten to...

That reminds me, is there anything new in the complete ICS for the OT stuff?