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What do you think of Admiral Piett, concerning command ability, tactics, and also his ability to not get killed by Vader.
Personally I have always liked him, he's no genius, but he's certainly a competent commander; his defeat at Endor IMO was mostly down to the bizarre orders given to him by the Emperor, and the ridiculous fluke of the Executors destruction.
What did he get up to between TESB and ROTJ? I have read Shadows of the Empire, was Piett commanding the attack on the Vergesso asteroids, I can't remember.

if he wasn't he was on vacation

Piett seems to have been in overall command of the Executor and attached ships; IIRC in the USN, an Admiral will command groups of ships, a Captain will be in charge of the individual ship. However, for a command ship, especially one as large as the Executor, I imagine Piett would've been in command; the Captain underneath him (I don't know who replaced him after he got promoted) probably ran day-to-day affairs, while Piett would've given the commands during alert and battle.

That last bit is just conjecture, though...

In any case, yes, he would've been with the Executor from ESB to Endor, performing as Lord Vader's chauffeur...

Piett became a Fleet Admiral after his promotion in tESB, he had overall command of Vader's Death Squadron (which was more like a small fleet).

Piett was an Imperial officer who attained his status to to his own ability rather than his name. He had few or no connections in the military or beauracracy at the time of his admission into the Academy. He served as Ozzel's Flag Officer and his Chief of Staff and was well liked by Vader (probably why he continually survived mistakes while less liked officers like Ozzel and Needa were executed). He seems to have a very competant officer loyal to the Empire and not too proud of his post as Ozzel was.

There is some speculation as to whether Piett was promoted to High Admiral in between tESB and RotJ, as in the game Rebellion he is shown with the extrapolated insignia of that rank. However, other sources have him seeming to be punished for his tESB mistakes by being temporarily reassigned to the ISD Accuser, which doesn't seem to coincide with a promotion, so this is purely speculation.

Firmus Piett was not 'demoted' in anyway between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. What happened is simply that Vader departed from his fleet for a short while, and Piett quite properly remained with his command, transferring his flag from Executor to Accuser (it was the presence of Ozzel or Piett aboard Executor that made her Death Squadron's flagship, not the fact that she was the only Star Dreadnought in the fleet). In the meantime, one of the Galactic Emperor's pet admirals, Admiral Okins, hoisted his flag aboard Executor to keep an eye on Vader. When Vader and Executor rejoined Death Squadron in the Outer Rim, Okins had departed and Piett hauled down his flag aboard Accuser and hoisted it aboard Executor again.

Captain Piett was apparently Executor's first Commanding Officer (he was seen as the CO in Splinter of the Mind's Eye, even before Ozzel hoisted his flag aboard her), and certainly her longest-lived. When Death Squadron was formed, he became the flag captain – i.e., the CO of the flagship – and was also apparently captain of the fleet, since he helped direct Death Squadron's overall operations, not just those of his own ship (cf. Capt. Gilad Pellaeon's subsequent role as G. Adm. Thrawn's flag captain and captain of the fleet). It is noteworthy that once Piett himself gained a flag of his own, he apparently rated an admiral as his chief of staff, not a 'mere' captain of the fleet as Ozzel had before him.

Piett always struck me as the quietly competent officer. One of the best ways to ingratiate yourself to your superiors is to not constantly bombard them with various crises. When a crisis must be reported, the quietly competent usually say something along the lines of, "Here's a problem, but here's how I plan to fix it."

That's how Piett appeared to me (also General Veers, but that's another thread). Just a quiet guy who sits in the corner and does his job as best he can while higher maintenance officers like the Ozzels or the Needas of the Imperial fleet jockey for Vader's attention and end up shooting themselves in the face in the process.

Firmus Piett was not 'demoted' in anyway between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. What happened is simply that Vader departed from his fleet for a short while, and Piett quite properly remained with his command, transferring his flag from Executor to Accuser (it was the presence of Ozzel or Piett aboard Executor that made her Death Squadron's flagship, not the fact that she was the only Star Dreadnought in the fleet).

Yes I know, I apologize if my post gave the impression that he was demoted.