Inside the Battle of Hoth

[Worlds Spanner]

I quite enjoyed this link, apologies if it's old hat:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/battle-of-hoth/

[TOSDOC]

Good points include the Rebels centralization and defense and escape plans, yet the Rebels seemed to have no problem escaping through the blockade. But Vader wants Luke alive to the exclusion of all else, and this is reflected in the entire battle and overlooked in the article.

Admiral Ozzel's blunder was the worst for the Imperials, and since it was before the battle even started it only got worse. That made me think again about what Vader's motives were--to destroy the Rebels or just capture Luke. He never seemed to have come up with a plan for achieving both goals before arriving in the Hoth system and issued orders to the effect, which allowed Ozzel to Fail. He also didn't call for more SDs to blockade the entire star system before moving in.

The rest of the battle plays more like a routing of the Rebels then their destruction. Destroying the generator AND leading the ground assault indeed doesn't make sense if his aim is destroying the Rebels, but it does if he just is after routing them, destroying their base of operations, and capturing Luke. Not calling in orbital bombardments and TIE airstrikes just told me he wants the Rebel leaders alive, especially Luke.

Allowing a single X-Wing to escape may not seem all that important if Vader thought Luke was on the Falcon instead (feeling Leia's presence instead of Luke's through the Force), and explains the Empire's relentless chase of the Falcon through the rest of the movie to the apparent exclusion of the rest of the Rebels.

By calling in more SDs, blockading the entire star system, and sending in waves of TIEs and walkers, Vader could certainly have destroyed all the Rebels and prevented Luke from ever becoming a Jedi like his Emperor demanded after the fact. The movie shows Vader's plan is to capture Luke for his Emperor or his own ends (such as creating his own father-son Rule of 2), so an after-action report that examines the Imperials' flaws without examining their leader's motives is kind of useless.

[AMX]

Some questionable assumptions in there - specifically, that TIE fighters can penetrate the shield, and that fleeing rebels have to stay within the ion cannon's firing arc.

[lPeregrine]

Also, the whole "concentrate everything on the one escape route" idea ignores the fact that the ion cannon is really good at disabling star destroyers. Four shots and a star destroyer is disabled and drifting out of control. I don't know if it's ever said somewhere in the EU, but after seeing that kind of firepower I can imagine the rest of the blockade backing off to a safer distance until the power generator is destroyed and they're needed to pursue Vader's primary objective.

And of course there's the issue of whether Vader knows the rebels have a limited escape route. All he has is a brief scan by a probe droid, how does he know that there's just one ion cannon and not a whole network of guns protecting a wide range of escape routes?

[TOSDOC]

The ion cannon looked like it took the Imperials completely by surprise. If Vader knew it, did he tell anybody?

[PainRack]

Good points include the Rebels centralization and defense and escape plans, yet the Rebels seemed to have no problem escaping through the blockade. But Vader wants Luke alive to the exclusion of all else, and this is reflected in the entire battle and overlooked in the article.

Admiral Ozzel's blunder was the worst for the Imperials, and since it was before the battle even started it only got worse. That made me think again about what Vader's motives were--to destroy the Rebels or just capture Luke. He never seemed to have come up with a plan for achieving both goals before arriving in the Hoth system and issued orders to the effect, which allowed Ozzel to Fail. He also didn't call for more SDs to blockade the entire star system before moving in.

How did you know that he didn't call in reinforcements? One thing for certain, the search in the asteroid fields involved more starships than the initial few Star Destroyers seen in the opening scene.
Either he had more ships available to him off screen and they showed up in the novelisation or those ships, whether assigned to Death Squadron or called in from the sector fleet responded after the opening blockade.

Ozzel failure also only make sense if Vader original intention was to deploy further in the system, evading detection while confirming that the Rebels did have a base in the system. Presumably, while awaiting future reinforcements from other deployments of Death Squadron or etc to show up. We know that Ozzel and Vader disagreed on the exact tactics itself, although we don't know exactly why Ozzel favoured a closer jump. Perhaps he felt that his existing firepower was sufficient to overwhelm the Rebels, and he was right in a way.
But once Vader hand was tipped, he had no choice but to commit to an immediate assault.



With regards to the article itself, it makes certain assumptions that also ignores the inconsistency of the EU material on this.
First of all was suggesting that TIE fighters can penetrate the shields. We DON"T know this. Indeed, it won't make sense that the shield can prevent spacecraft from passing through it, cannalising an escape while also allowing fighters to penetrate through it, a singular lack of inconsistency on the author part. The very fact that TIE fighters were deployed against Echo base after the shields were downed(Luke X-wing fends them off in his escape) shows that yes, the Empire did deploy air cover.... but something stopped them. We have fan speculation on this very site about why......... or why didn't the Empire drag TIEs in through the shield and etc......

Depicting the Imperial win as an accident is also....... insane. A close look at the sequence of events show that it was the Imperials successful push through the Rebel defences that invoked Rieekan decision to ACCELERATE the evacuation and collapse his defences on the base. Unless he finds it entire non concidental that the Rebels accelerated their evacuation as well as ordered them to fall back to k---- after the AT-AT had crossed the ridge....(Again, problems with depicting the scale, range and distance due to EU material)


To put it simply.... The author displays SOME knowledge of EU material, such as how the shield cannalised movement, but ignores every other bit of the EU data. He's creating his article based solely on observation from the movie, ignoring other high level canon material such as the novelisation and radio drama. And even here, he ignores that we have a canon quote about how many Rebel transports were intercepted and extrapolate from there the subsequent equipment/personnel loss this had on the Rebel Alliance(ALBEIT, the staggeringly immense effect this supposedly had on the Rebel Alliance, ala Rogue Squadron Derricote/Alderaan arc is stupidly stupid)

[Eternal_Freedom]

The article states that Luke was able to just fly out of the system without problems, yet it is stated in X-Wing: Isard's Revenge that he and Wedge flew escort for the Dutyfree through the blockade - and that they made it out because the transport's navigator found a way through an area the Imperials did not think was passable.

As for the ion cannon, I don't think anyone on the Imperial side knew about it. It was clearly a surprise to that Star Destroyer. Also, destroying the main generator would not have prevented the ion cannon from firing: it was powered by it's own reactor that they yanked out of an old battlecruiser. It was still in firing condition about a decade later.

There is also an excerpt from "The Tale of Bossk" that explains the Rebels loaded up on casualties at the expense of equipment and that seventeen transports were destroyed or disabled by the Imperial bloockade. That's a lot of valuable equipment left behind which hurt the Rebels badly.

I'm not disputing that the Imperials screwed up, but was Vader explicitly looking for Luke at that point? My recollection of TESB's opening crawl was that he was searching for the Rebel leaders rather than Luke specifically. I may well be wrong on that one though. Despite the screwup though, the Imperials did manage to inflict a serious defeat on the Rebels - demoralising them enough to flee into deep space rather than another world.

[DesertFly]

That's it! The Rebels are there...That is the system, and I'm sure Skywalker is with them.

Vader was explicitly looking for Luke from the get-go.

Also,

The evil lord Darth Vader,
obsessed with finding young
Skywalker, has dispatched
thousands of remote probes into
the far reaches of space....

[lPeregrine]

I'm not disputing that the Imperials screwed up, but was Vader explicitly looking for Luke at that point?

Seems like it. When they receive the probe droid report Vader's comment is that the rebels are there, and Skywalker is with them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ah my bad, like I said I wasn't sure. Been a while since I saw TESB. Conceded.

Nontheless, the Imperials did manage a victory, even the Rebels acknowledge how serious a defeat it was.

[Adam Reynolds]

The comparison to Tora Bora is somewhat interesting, but the idea that TIEs could penetrate the shield is almost certainly wrong given what was seen in TPM with the Gungan shields. Given that the battle droids required physical contact with the ground to penetrate the shield, it is likely that the shield on Hoth was similar. This is also likely the reasoning behind walkers in the Empire over repulsorlift tanks in that they have the advantage of being able to penetrate theater shields(though tracked vehicles would obviously be superior).

[Vympel]

Vader clearly says in the movie that the troops should be deployed beyond the energy shield. The idea that TIEs could penetrate the shield is completely unfounded, the only way they could do so is if they were loaded on a ground vehicle and then launched one the vehicle got under the shield.

[Sea Skimmer]

I've noticed anytime the writers at wired touch anything involving tactics or strategy, things get stupid fast. This follows the trend.

[Batman]

If TIEs could penetrate the shield, why did the Rebels have to open it go get their own ships out? Last I checked the purpose of I shield was to stop stuff from getting in, not from getting out.

[lPeregrine]

If TIEs could penetrate the shield, why did the Rebels have to open it go get their own ships out? Last I checked the purpose of I shield was to stop stuff from getting in, not from getting out.

In theory it could have been an umbrella-style shield that protects against orbital bombardment but doesn't reach all the way to the ground. So the escaping transports would be taking the most direct route to space (out through a gap in the shield), while the fighters could have flown around the long way and come in underneath it. But the absence of air support and the statements about having to land the first wave of the ground assault beyond the shield makes this pretty unlikely.

[Batman]

If the TIEs could duck in under the shield, why couldn't the Rebels duck out from under it? There's no mention of a perimeter watch that forced the Rebels to stay away from the edge of the shield or be blown to bits and with Wars accelerations, the delay for going for the edge would be minutes at absolute worst and allow them to scatter in all directions rather than having to (at least initially) follow a rather narrow trajectory.

[lPeregrine]

I didn't say that an "umbrella" shield was the best explanation, in fact I already said that it isn't likely. All I'm saying is that the rebels opening the shield to let the transports out isn't necessarily proof that TIE fighters couldn't enter, there could be other factors beyond shield geometry that would make the rebels take the direct route through the shield. For example, if the ion cannon has a limited firing arc then why go anywhere else when you're in full control of the shield and can safely open a window?

Also, the absence of specific statements about a perimeter watch isn't the same as proof that one wasn't happening off-screen. So, for example, if getting through the shield requires flying low and slow then any patrolling TIE fighters/AT-AT weapons/etc might make it suicide for a transport to try to get out that way. We don't have an omniscient point of view here, the conversation about a perimeter watch could have happened off screen, or maybe there wasn't one but the rebels couldn't confirm that the area was clear, etc. All we can say is that we don't know.

[Stark]

It's probably as simple as direct ascent meaning the shield covers the transports for the longest time. I they ran out like roaches on a lower ascent there would be much more time to track and explode them from orbit.

It's kind of sad people need explanations for this sort of thing.

[TOSDOC]

How did you know that he didn't call in reinforcements? One thing for certain, the search in the asteroid fields involved more starships than the initial few Star Destroyers seen in the opening scene. Either he had more ships available to him off screen and they showed up in the novelisation or those ships, whether assigned to Death Squadron or called in from the sector fleet responded after the opening blockade.

Ozzel failure also only make sense if Vader original intention was to deploy further in the system, evading detection while confirming that the Rebels did have a base in the system. Presumably, while awaiting future reinforcements from other deployments of Death Squadron or etc to show up. We know that Ozzel and Vader disagreed on the exact tactics itself, although we don't know exactly why Ozzel favoured a closer jump. Perhaps he felt that his existing firepower was sufficient to overwhelm the Rebels, and he was right in a way.
But once Vader hand was tipped, he had no choice but to commit to an immediate assault.

With regards to the article itself, it makes certain assumptions that also ignores the inconsistency of the EU material on this. (snip)

I only rebutted the article with movie references. I agree with you that the article seems to only reflect the movie, not the EU. Reinforcements may have certainly followed in the asteroid field, but it is perplexing to me why more of the Rebels weren't taken escaping Hoth in the EU if the Imperials had enough ships to bottle them in the system.

Veers told Vader Ozzel favoured a closer jump to take the Rebels by surprise in the movie. Vader makes it clear to Ozzel this was not his own intention. Yet Ozzel may have committed the fault, but if I were the Emperor I would consider Vader ultimately responsible for the failure for not ordering Ozzel to not come out of lightspeed so close to the system in the first place. Vader's already not pleased with Ozzel for past failures ("You have failed me for the last time, Admiral") so I'm not clear why he allowed Ozzel to go ahead and make this one.

[Lonestar]

As one of the guys on the TL forum said(CF, not USMC):

I don't really understand why there is the impression that the Empire got a black eye from Hoth

They lost a couple ATATs and a handful of snow troopers, but they killed off most of the rebel infantry and their ground defences, took out a bunch of speeders, a large scale shield generator, forced the rebels to abandon most of their kit including a massive ion cannon, and made them flee almost outside the galaxy. That doesn't even begin to cover the intel they would have gained from capturing the Hoth base intact.

that was a hell of an effect for what it cost them.

yeah, ideally they could have crushed the rebellion if they'd managed to take out the transports, but considering that the rebels were already in the process of running, they jumped in with the area's QRF. They really didn't have a lot of resources to draw from immediately and were hit with the space equivalent of an IED because they accidentally jumped in too close. They intended to come in stealthily.

like I said earlier. I don't see what they could have done differently. If they had waited another few hours to muster more ships they may have only arrived in Hoth to find an icy patch where the rebels melted the empty base.



You think those guys running from their trench line feel like this is a rebel victory?



Think these guys made it to fight another day?