Admiral Ackbar: Competent or Not?

[jollyreaper]

>>Regarding the post above.

Unfortunately all of the tactical concepts you described (which are valid points) are way
above the head of the target audience at the time(+). After all the easiets way to destroy
anything in SW is to take something big and put a hyperdrive on it and point it at your
target. Whatever it is just came apart, explosively.

(+)And likely the script writer's...

That's something that could be fixed in technobabble. "Running into" something in hyperspace could depend on relative masses. Two ships collide, they're smeared across realspace as a mass/energy conversion. Ship runs into a planet, it's colliding with the hypershadow which is further out than the surface of the planet in realspace. In other words, you get a boom some tens of thousands of miles out. If it's a Star Destroyer hitting that hypershadow, then it could still be a massive gamma flash that cooks the side of the planet facing the explosion but it won't be planet-smashing.

These are the wall-banger logic holes you often find in imaginary technologies. The usual classic point is Trek transporters being capable of reversing the aging process and everybody forgets this at the end of the episode. The new classic example is the BSG jump drive. They can operate from a planetary surface so why do the ships need to be in space?

[jollyreaper]

I can't believe I'm saying this, being ex-Army but how things work here and now are not necessarily how they work in the Rebel Alliance. Lets not forget that these guys where an amalgamation of the Mon Cal military and whatever assorted smugglers, crooks and idealists they could get.

Valid point. There's the kind of tactics you can pull off with trained troops and the kind of tactics you can pull off with ad-hoc forces. With a scratch team, you have to keep it simple or risk losing through trying something remotely complicated. The most classic example of a "hard" thing to do with untrained troops is a fighting retreat. One of those often becomes a route without strong unit cohesion.

[jollyreaper]

None of which changes the fact that if you're out of the fight after a second major defeat and who knows what existing consequences to your backers after blowing up the first Death Star, your support will start to sag but your existing fleet assets can still be used to 'self supply' as _all_ insurgent forces do, from commercial and military supply convoys and depots.

I appreciate your detailed deconstruction of how the Endor battle plan sucked. I loved it as a kid but admit to seeing some gaping holes. It's the same weakness as with the final battle in Lord of the Rings, faith-based military operations. "I believe in Frodo/Han. We have to give him more time." Wonderful in a fairy tale, not something to base a real military plan on.

So, here's the question. You're one of the writers on this movie. Lucas says to you "Ok, so this movie is going to be about the final battle of the Galactic Civil War. We see the Emperor and he's a bigger big bad than Vader. Luke is going to try to save his father, bring him back from the Dark Side. Meanwhile, there's a big, decisive space battle to decide the fate of the galaxy. What I'm thinking is the Empire decides to build another Death Star. The Emperor leaks word of it to the Rebels to goad them into making an all-out attack. See, they're guerrillas and he's been having trouble chasing them down all across the galaxy. He's going to present a target they can't ignore, force them to come out and defeat them in detail.

"So, what I want from you is a suggestion on how we can get all the characters in place for this battle. The whole 'save Han from Jabba's palace' stuff is written and we like it. We want to work Lando in as well. I want to have a space battle but I'm having trouble figuring out how Luke and Vader have their confrontation. Kind of hard to have if they're just flying starfighters. And it would be kind of boring just having the droids and Leia standing around looking anxious for the second two-thirds of the movie. But I'm not sure how I can plausibly get them out of the op center and into danger. You tell me."

Looking at it this way, you can see how the storyline developed. Ok, so we need to have something to go along with the space battle. Lucas looked at his WWII movies and thought about the paratroops going into France right before D-Day. Aha! Commando raid. Nevermind that something like this takes months of prep and you wouldn't just add people onto the team at random. You also wouldn't take along a mincing gay stereotype golden droid to go shouting and drawing attention. But if you leave them off the team then you've got a bunch of commandos nobody's ever seen before or will care about. Stupid as it was, we cared about seeing Han and Leia there.

Echo Base had that same logical problem in Empire. Or Yavin IV for that matter. Why tie yourself down to a planetary base when it's already been established that starships are huge and the whole rebellion could remain based in space? A fixed base just gives the Imperials something to attack. You could get around this by having rebel cells operating on a HUGE planet where they can get lost in the civilian shuffle. You have a planet, lots of interesting things happening there, and the Imperials could still attack. You could have the equivalent of a Hoth evacuation when the Imperials decide to raid an entire city quarter flushing out rebel agents. Lots of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire but whose deaths will be blamed on the rebs.

[hunter5]

The reason for planetary bases is to house ground forces and give a place for the ships' crews to rest off the ship as well as do ship maintenance you can't do in the field.

[jollyreaper]

The reason for planetary bases is to house ground forces and give a place for the ships' crews to rest off the ship as well as do ship maintenance you can't do in the field.

The problem is that a planetary base represents a dangerously fixed target the enemy can hit at any time.

In classic guerrilla operations you run this same problem. Build an elaborate fixed base, the enemy comes in and destroys it. If the enemy is the government and can always bring superior concentrations of force, the primary goal is to preserve your forces as a force in being since getting destroyed means you're no longer a threat. Because the government can't be strong everywhere, you pick your best places to attack and strike there. Guerrilla forces don't tend to operate as standing armies or operate in fixed formations. You don't see guerrilla tanks, a guerrilla air force, etc. Things can get rather interesting when external support is provided by a third party with a vested interest in seeing the government fail.

If we're talking about a galactic-scale war, we're looking at amateur rebels gradually becoming a professional military. They're no longer operating as guerrillas but as forces equal in might and stature to the government's. That evolution of scale was visible between the three movies.

If the rebels can defend a planetary system against the best attack the Imperials can muster, they can afford to have a planetary base. If they cannot, then it is a target simply waiting to be destroyed.

As far as Earth examples go, a guerrilla navy would need land bases to operate from and an extensive supply line. That's why we tend not to see many examples of such. You can't get around the need for land bases. But Star Wars has many examples of mobile starbases. There's no need to have a planetary base. Supplies can be routed to the fleet from sympathizers throughout the galaxy. The particular need for drydocks and shipyards of a wet navy don't exactly translate to space. Yes, ships will need to be maintained but much of that infrastructure could conceivably be made mobile to travel with the fleet.

The Macross series of anime liked to run with the idea of an entire technological civilization self-contained within a fleet of colony ships. They can repair the existing ships and build new ones from asteroid material.

The danger for the imperials in this situation is trying to suppress the rebellion without creating more sympathy. Recruits are drawn from planets, obviously. And logistical support is likewise going out to the rebel fleet. But how do you prove guilt, how do you break the support ties without killing a bunch of people and radicalizing the survivors? It's the whole squeezing fingers/systems slipping through problem.

[hunter5]

This is true but with out fixed bases you have no means of resupplying your forces no place to store extra ammunition, fuel, and food you have to hope your non combatant supports can get you only exactly what you need when you need it. Finally the ground bases can give the political leaders the staging ground they need to drum up extra support.