Is Holdo a good leader?

[Gunhead]

This arithmetric only works if your forces are roughly equally matched. Which is clearly not the case.
If Poe had obeyed the abort 'all' the rebel ships could've gotten out thanks to all of them having hyperdrive, to be used later with much better chances.
Yes, taking out a fleetkiller at the price of a handful of bombers and fighters is nice...if you actually have a fleet. The Resistance, alas, doesn't seem to at this point.

It's always in play because while I was in fact paraphrasing Garrus, the actual arithmetic states at its basest level that in any sort of armed conflict you are either trying to crush the enemy's will to fight or trying to remove his ability to wage war. Preferably both but one or the other will suffice. Yea someone even made a formula to say that but what I said is basically the jist of it. What you're talking about is attrition.

That said in all fairness yea the resistance was on it's last legs in both terms of will and material but since the plan adopted was to basically start over i.e you're betting that will alone will suffice to restart the resistance, sparing material is kinda pointless and if you can use up resources to give your will to fight even a slight boost it's very much worth it.

What better chances? The bombers were .. garbage, Poe got out of them more than anyone ever will in all probability. More to the point, the opportunity was there, he took it and it worked making sure the important capital ships wouldn't be fired upon by the honking big gun and took it out of the chase too. If you go waiting around for a better opportunity all the time you'll never take action. You will never even out the power disparity if you're not willing to commit your resources to cause damage to war capability of the opponent, nor will you ever hope to become an actual revolt if you cannot convince people that you can fight back. Yes it doesn't do much in the overall picture but it wasn't like the FO was going "Oh it's just a ship.. we'll have another by friday no biggie". Having a lot of resources is not the same as having unlimited resources.

-Gunhead

[Gandalf]

"Actual arithmetic?"

Is there some secret war calculus I've missed?

[Knife]

The bombers were armed and holding station in case an attack on the dreadnought was needed to allow the evacuation to be successful.

Says what?

It wasn't so Leia aborted the attack because it was no longer necessary, the Dreadnought was irrelevant now, the base was evacuated and the fleet was ready to escape.*

Bullshit. Those bombers were sent on their way early in the scene. In fact, watching it again, right after Poe hit his booster rocket thing and crossed the deck of the dreadnought the very first time shooting only some of the surface guns did he call in the bombers as he spun around for another run. So, seconds into shooting, those bombers were on their way. Immediately after that the Dreadnought captain called for fighters to be launched and the enemy fighters were launched. Then, while dodging enemy fighters, Poe was down to one surface gun, and the Dreadnought fired on the base. As that was happening the last shuttle takes off and returns to the Raddus and once aboard, Leia ordered fighters back.

That's a shit load of time. Slow ponderous bombers almost at target and you want to recall them? To be slow and ponderous back to the Raddus?

That's the order of events. Leia learns the base evacuation is complete, then she orders the bombers to abort. The simplest and sanest explanation of that is that there's now no point attacking the Dreadnought because nothing it can do in the current situation is tactically relevant.

Except those bombers would have been shredded in a retreat and Leia would have been to blame, not Poe. And the dumb story needs Poe to be blamed for something something. Those bombers were committed and past the point of no return. Poe being blammed for what every happened to the bombers at that point is dumb. Who ever commanded the bomber squadron, 'Cali?' is the blame if there is any. Who every came up with the dumb plan and those who signed off on it are to blame.

Poe ignored that because he's a gormless fuck who thinks blowing up a thing your enemy has lots of is worth it because you feel like you "won" even if you caused no meaningful damage and can't replace the resource you expended to do it.

Or, and just spit balling here, Poe kept going and the Bomber captain did as well, because they were committed already and retreat meant being run down and shot in the back?

[Shroom Man 777]

There's an option Holdo can do if she feels she cannot be responsible for leading the resistance members. Step down from command. That's a thing. If you chose not to step down the responsibility, then it is your responsibility not to screw things up further.

Up til then there was no indication she wasn't up to the task and the Hero of Starkiller Base's antics was unexpected, even his own commanders couldn't handle him.

You don't set a lone tech to guard anything important, so I think it's safe to assume that Holdo didn't set Rose up as a guard.

Maybe Holdo's subordinates or the other command crews, like the Raddus' own crew, had her take up that deserter-tasing role? I presume there was a lot of ad hoc stuff going around with the ship containing different Resistance groups aside from its own crew.

Yeah, but we know Imperial command is supposed to be awful because it was set up that way in ANH. The ST gives us zero setup and expects us to just roll with whatever happens next.

Yeah, I agree the OT had a lot of that old school sci-fi "imply just enough with a bit of dialogue and let the imagination do the rest of the job, don't overly info-dump crap but also don't presume that audience familiarity with the older films/comics/etc. will do enough." Though this is a segue from your issue with the paperworks and procedures regarding hyperspace-holotech ad hoc guerrilla groups' rank movement. I mean, we also had "assign farm boys/random old gambling buddies to operations that'll change the fate of the galaxy."

Or, and just spit balling here, Poe kept going and the Bomber captain did as well, because they were committed already and retreat meant being run down and shot in the back?

Bombers are hyperdrive equipped. Exfiltration may be easier than forming the attack run... presuming no interdictor fields and notwithstanding enemy guns.

[Gunhead]

"Actual arithmetic?"

Is there some secret war calculus I've missed?

Not really. It's like an axiom that applies to any war. It sometimes gets quoted in lectures and such about military strategy. The "formula" goes something like this: Power of resistance = means x will. In short, if you run out either the means or the will to keep up the fight, you lose. I haven't looked into how this formula came to be, but I've heard it used a few times and I think it stems from military strategic theory to develop ways to help improve strategic thinking.

-Gunhead

[Knife]

Bombers are hyperdrive equipped. Exfiltration may be easier than forming the attack run... presuming no interdictor fields and notwithstanding enemy guns.

Nonsense. At the very least Rogue One shows how this is flawed. The run up to hyperspace leaves you exposed for seconds, leading enemy fire to ravage you. Those slow ass bombers aren't just jumping out, they're going to be eaten alive.

[Knife]

"Actual arithmetic?"

Is there some secret war calculus I've missed?

Not really. It's like an axiom that applies to any war. It sometimes gets quoted in lectures and such about military strategy. The "formula" goes something like this: Power of resistance = means x will. In short, if you run out either the means or the will to keep up the fight, you lose. I haven't looked into how this formula came to be, but I've heard it used a few times and I think it stems from military strategic theory to develop ways to help improve strategic thinking.

-Gunhead

Attrition warfare has it's ups and down. So does maneuver warfare. Range and ability to disengage come to mind, as does tactical mobility.

[ray245]

Up til then there was no indication she wasn't up to the task and the Hero of Starkiller Base's antics was unexpected, even his own commanders couldn't handle him.

She lost the dressing room if we are using a sports analogy. She could not motivate the survivors and many members have so little faith in her that they'll abandon ship entirely.

She has a very public falling out with Poe, but didn't lock him up to remind people of her authority.

[Shroom Man 777]

Bombers are hyperdrive equipped. Exfiltration may be easier than forming the attack run... presuming no interdictor fields and notwithstanding enemy guns.

Nonsense. At the very least Rogue One shows how this is flawed. The run up to hyperspace leaves you exposed for seconds, leading enemy fire to ravage you. Those slow ass bombers aren't just jumping out, they're going to be eaten alive.

I guess this depends on the distance. I wonder how did those bombers even get to that range without being shot up? That same reason could be how they could possibly leave.

[Rogue 9]

What was that ship going to do that the rest of the First Order fleet couldn't?

Use the fuckoff huge "autocannons" it had to one-shot wreck every ship the Resistance possessed, which is clearly what everyone present believed it was going to do if left to its own devices.

I am talking about D’Qar. If the dreadnaught doesn’t show up and the dozen odd Resurgents who showed up first just start tearing ship up from the get go Poe and company are left sitting there with their dicks in their hands.

We start the move in media res with the Fulminatrix already present, so if it hadn't been presumably the Resistance would have been doing something different as well.

No we don't. Here it is arriving. The movie opens immediately before the First Order fleet arrives, not once it's already there.

[Patroklos]

Up til then there was no indication she wasn't up to the task and the Hero of Starkiller Base's antics was unexpected, even his own commanders couldn't handle him.

She lost the dressing room if we are using a sports analogy. She could not motivate the survivors and many members have so little faith in her that they'll abandon ship entirely.

She has a very public falling out with Poe, but didn't lock him up to remind people of her authority.

The situation was so bad they weren’t just abandoning ship, they were abandoning ship into what in the best case was directly into the hands of the FO to be likely interrogated or tortured or executed or all three, at worst into what they believed was an empty uninhabited system. Actually, I am not sure which of those is worse.

We know this is just shitty writing. But we have to interpret that in universe. That’s how bad the situation is for people that have been shown up to that point to be steel spined dedicated against the odds pros. They are now so demoralized and feel the situation under Holdo is so bad many of them make this choice.

[FaxModem1]

Up til then there was no indication she wasn't up to the task and the Hero of Starkiller Base's antics was unexpected, even his own commanders couldn't handle him.

She lost the dressing room if we are using a sports analogy. She could not motivate the survivors and many members have so little faith in her that they'll abandon ship entirely.

She has a very public falling out with Poe, but didn't lock him up to remind people of her authority.

The situation was so bad they weren’t just abandoning ship, they were abandoning ship into what in the best case was directly into the hands of the FO to be likely interrogated or tortured or executed or all three, at worst into what they believed was an empty uninhabited system. Actually, I am not sure which of those is worse.

We know this is just shitty writing. But we have to interpret that in universe. That’s how bad the situation is for people that have been shown up to that point to be steel spined dedicated against the odds pros. They are now so demoralized and feel the situation under Holdo is so bad many of them make this choice.

That's assuming that the First Order runs a scan for escape pods. Because apparently the argument for why Poe and DJ were so important in their fuckups is that the First Order doesn't run decloaking scans unless prompted, and they didn't seem to notice Finn and Rose leaving the Raddus, so while the best case scenario is torture and death via the First Order, the most probable scenario is slow death via suffocation in the pod as the air runs out or if it keeps going, starvation. Because the First Order has the laziest people at their sensor stations, who will only actually do a scan if they're told to, and not before.

[Q99]

Note that the first mutinies apparently happened like, right after the fighter strike. Holdo was thrown into a situation with horrible moral, I'd say she didn't lose the dressing room so much as she was the sub of a dressing room that was lost.

It was a very uphill situation and a lot of it didn't have anything to do with her.

[Patroklos]

Maybe, but we don’t hear anything about escape pods until after Poe’s first encounter with Holly Graff. What you say could be correct, but it’s equally possible those first escape attempts were people slinking off after witnessing that.

[Gandalf]

What was that ship going to do that the rest of the First Order fleet couldn't?

Use the fuckoff huge "autocannons" it had to one-shot wreck every ship the Resistance possessed, which is clearly what everyone present believed it was going to do if left to its own devices.

Leia didn't seem too fussed, hence her ordering Poe back so they could flee with more lives intact.

[Gandalf]

Not really. It's like an axiom that applies to any war. It sometimes gets quoted in lectures and such about military strategy. The "formula" goes something like this: Power of resistance = means x will. In short, if you run out either the means or the will to keep up the fight, you lose. I haven't looked into how this formula came to be, but I've heard it used a few times and I think it stems from military strategic theory to develop ways to help improve strategic thinking.

Used by whom? I find this intriguing.

By this formula, doesn't removing the Resistance's only bomber force represent a smaller x, especially relative to the First Order?

[Q99]

Maybe, but we don’t hear anything about escape pods until after Poe’s first encounter with Holly Graff. What you say could be correct, but it’s equally possible those first escape attempts were people slinking off after witnessing that.

Didn’t Rose say she’d already stopped several? And there was *barely* any time there.

Morale was in the crapper, but I’d chalk it up more to most of high command just dying and a lot of their fighters being blown up and them losing their bomber wing than to the confrontation, which only a smaller number of ranking people were there for.

While Holdo didn’t save the situation, that bit does seem pretty overshadowed by everything else that happened in the last 12 hours.

[The Romulan Republic]

Pretty much. Its rediculous to attribute all the moral problems to Holdo's leadership. At most, you can say that she failed to reverse an already catastrophically bad situation.

[ray245]

Pretty much. Its rediculous to attribute all the moral problems to Holdo's leadership. At most, you can say that she failed to reverse an already catastrophically bad situation.

What people are saying is instead of trying to keep the status quo and prevent the situation from getting worse, she added to the problem by being utterly demoralising and giving the survivors no clear plan whatsoever.

If there is ever a time for a leader to lie to their troops, this is it.

[Shroom Man 777]

This is the problem when the people's fighters aren't given a solid background and backbone of Gerrerist education, we see in the Resistance an utter lack of understanding of theory and praxis and thus the catastrophe of their organization. This would not have happened under the watch of Benthic Two Tubes and most especially Saw's ideological partner Bor Gullet. In fact, this criticism of solely one leader figure displays the critics' own misunderstanding and inadequacy of the state of matters cosmopolitical and astro-ideological. A truly successful people's revolution must, as Gerrera and Bor Gullet formulated, come from the quality of said people themselves and not on any dependence on a single individual - the formation of this mobilized community with ideological foundation and unshakable solidarity will provide the critical inertia needed to save the Rebellion, save the dream... whether operating as a whole or as their single components. Hence we see the Gerrerist-educated Jyn Erso, despite her departure from the Gerrerist cause, nonetheless capable of an upset victory due to her own will as well as how it caused Cassian and his cadre with their own hardliner Gerrerist-adjacent tendencies to gravitate to her cause and even later galvanizing the usually indecisive Mothma clique and proceduralist Ackbarites into action. Indeed, comrades, we see that the ethos of the entire Rebellion from its very first victory acting as dominos to perpetuate all later victories, spring forth from adherence to Gerrerism. Thus critics arguing over a single leader's capabilities are groping in the dark much like those followers of feudal superstitions and folk tales, whereas even after the demise of Gerrera himself* the Partisans continued to embody the cause and fulfill their goals in the great purges and ideological correction of all class traitors in Coruscant and Kuat.

*The demise of Gerrera himself, this luminary of progressive revolutionary thought, on a planet known as a shrine of feudal superstitions and crystallized destructive ideology known as kyber, at the hands of the greatest apparatus of galactic modernism-turned-fascism which was itself late felled due to the actions of Gerrerists, being symbolic of the ideology's interplay in the galactic dialectic - one would say that Gerrera's vision constitutes the most influential "force" driving events in the cosmos, an all-permeating dynamic of actual consequence unlike aforementioned inconsequential feudal superstitions used by class traitors to regress the civilized peoples of space, feudal superstitions wielded by those fittingly fashioning themselves as feudal lords holding the fate of all in their gloved hands.

[FaxModem1]

I'm not sure feeding people who are on your side to space monsters is a sign of good leadership.

[Patroklos]

Maybe, but we don’t hear anything about escape pods until after Poe’s first encounter with Holly Graff. What you say could be correct, but it’s equally possible those first escape attempts were people slinking off after witnessing that.

Didn’t Rose say she’d already stopped several? And there was *barely* any time there.

Morale was in the crapper, but I’d chalk it up more to most of high command just dying and a lot of their fighters being blown up and them losing their bomber wing than to the confrontation, which only a smaller number of ranking people were there for.

While Holdo didn’t save the situation, that bit does seem pretty overshadowed by everything else that happened in the last 12 hours.

There are several hard cuts between when the situation stabilizes post bridge explosion and the Rose escape pod scene. The chase itself is 18 hours, so there or no reason not to insert some of the missing 15 hours there.

The simple fact is that prior to Holdo taking over, and even after she does, people are not ejecting themselves into deep space on a hope and a prayer as a superior option to anything the think Holdo might come up with. This happens after her interactions with Poe.

So did Holdo create the situation? No. Were the Rebels facing this situation with grim resolve before Holdo showed her colors on the bridge? Yes. Keep in mind these are the same people that held steady when seconds from death via starkiller base face shot, sitting dutifully at their stations. They have nerves of steel (or are stupid but ANH did it first). This only changes when Holdo takes over. Holdo’s sin wasn’t creating the situation, it’s being so uninspiring that battle hardened veterans voted with their feet. And it’s not like they are not used to talentless hacks parading as military leaders, as they followed people like Leia through shit show plans like the D’qar boondoggle.

[Gunhead]

Not really. It's like an axiom that applies to any war. It sometimes gets quoted in lectures and such about military strategy. The "formula" goes something like this: Power of resistance = means x will. In short, if you run out either the means or the will to keep up the fight, you lose. I haven't looked into how this formula came to be, but I've heard it used a few times and I think it stems from military strategic theory to develop ways to help improve strategic thinking.

Used by whom? I find this intriguing.

By this formula, doesn't removing the Resistance's only bomber force represent a smaller x, especially relative to the First Order?

Linky This guy for one, I know I have heard it before but for the life of me can't remember where. Anyhow I think it quite neatly summarizes a core concept in an easy to understand form about warfare. It's not really relative to the opposition either, it's just "can you keep fighting?". Like why insurgencies are so hard to put down permanently. To keep up an insurgency you only need the will to fight and modest resources. The formula is also about what part of the enemy is the target of your attacks. In simplest of terms, if the enemy's means are too great to target, you should try and damage the will instead. This is quite apparent in conflicts like Vietnam or Soviet occupation of Afganistan.
But this is kinda getting off topic really.

-Gunhead

[Rogue 9]

What was that ship going to do that the rest of the First Order fleet couldn't?

Use the fuckoff huge "autocannons" it had to one-shot wreck every ship the Resistance possessed, which is clearly what everyone present believed it was going to do if left to its own devices.

Leia didn't seem too fussed, hence her ordering Poe back so they could flee with more lives intact.

She believed, probably correctly, that they could flee before the cannons recharged if they left at once. As I said, the necessity of the attack to their survival only becomes evident with hindsight knowledge that they were tracked through hyperspace. That said, if all the strike craft were equipped with hyperdrives, waiting for them to withdraw was foolish, and if they were not, recovering them would have doomed the Raddus.

[Gandalf]

Doesn't that assume that said autocannons have some sort of extra special range otherwise not demonstrated in the film?