Admiral Ouzell's clumsiness

Vader seems pretty cross when Ouzell brings the imperial fleet out of hyperspace 'too close to the system'. I've always found this quite interesting - what do you think the orignal plan for the attack was?

 

Well, the origonal plan was that the imperials probably was to get out of hyperspace AWAY from the system and start worming its way to Hoth and the Rebels do not know it, so KAPOW! KAZOW! The end of the rebellion!

(Yes, i know, the Imps won anyway, but still, they would have crushed the Rebels a lot harder than they did if Ozzel had not gotten too close to the system.)

That's why Vader was ticked at Ozzel. Ozzel had ruined the origonal plan so Vader had to quickly think up of a new one.

 

Did he not want to get Luke as well tho? Nuking the planet would have spoiled that plan.

 

thomashenrydavies makes a good point. Darth Vader probably had a plan worked out to capture Luke Skywalker. Ozzel completely screwed it up. Vader was probably more mad about that, then the Rebel base being alerted.

 

Indeed! Are there any suggestions or hints as to what that plan might have been? Do you reckon he'd have tried to kidknapp Luke discreetly?

 

I think he was gonna put his Destroyers in orbit of Hoth and use thier turbolasers to blast away the power generators before landing his troops, that way thier wouldn't be a lot of causilaties (to get info on other rebel cells) and prevent the Rebel Command (Mon Mothma, ADM Ackbar) from escaping, and capture the Son of Skywalker to turn him to the Dark Side.

 

I think he wanted to catch the Rebels unawares, and wanted to sucessfully interdict the Rebels.

However, the reversion to hyperspace so close to the planet gave time for the Rebels to bring up the shields and hold back the Empire.

 

I think he wanted to catch the Rebels unawares, and wanted to sucessfully interdict the Rebels.


Yes, I agree.
It wasn't the raised shiled that was the issue, it was the fact that the rebels were aware of the Imperial ships and were evacuating. Vader was hoping to capture all the rebels before they even had a chance to react.

The ships were supposed to come out of hyperspace far away, and creep up to Hoth. That way the ships would be almost impossible to detect because of the asteroid field. General reekan even says as much in the bunker.

 

I think, in all fairness, Ozzel would be a Dead Man Walking anyway. The Rebels put up thier shield and started to evaucate right after the destruction of the Probot.

 

I don't get him, did he feel sorry for the rebellion, did he hate Vader or was he jealous of the other guy whats his name (Admirial Piett was it) not sure.

 

Probably wanted to slowly move into the system, with full TIE fighter screen to make the blockade of the planet complete.

The Star Destroyer thats hit by the Ion Cannon appears to have no TIE fighters launched yet, possibly because of Ozzels blunder meaning they barely had time to form a make shift blockade, et alone a TIE screen?

Ozzel appears to have been a fairly competent officer, however, his inability to take a risk (was going to disregard the data from the probe droid) coupled with his over confidence in the awe and terror that his Squadron would instill led to hs downfall.

An ok captain, a poor Admiral.

 

I always liked to belive that Ozzel was a rebell deep inside, just never had the guts to quit the Empire.
And Vader was actually punishing him for trason, not incompetence, but no one was in on that except the two of them.

 

Ozzel also wanted to disregard the "lead" of a settlement on Hoth. Vader over-heard the discussion and over-ruled Ozzel.

Ozzel was either clumsy, stupid, or a rebel sympathizer.