CT Analysis: alliance fighter losses at Battle of Endor

Short Answer: estimated losses 91.6% or 395 fighters.
How on Endor did I get this number?
Well, it's based on a number of assumptions and ONLY on what can be deduced from what's seen on-screen:
1: The 22 fighters led by the Millenium Falcon are all members of Gold Group. That the groups contain a mixed assortment of fighters is no longer much debated. One could argue that the 23 ships are Gold, Grey, Red and Green Groups combined but the fighters seen outside the various group leaders' cockpits as they report in give no hint of a B-Wing anywhere, but are present among the 23. Also, if we postulate that each group has about 5-6 fighters then the rebels only lost about 33% of their fighters which is certainly not reflected by the anxiety of the pilots during the battle.

2: Each Mon-Cal cruiser seen carries a group. In Home One's hangar we don't see more of any fighter type than is present in my postulated Gold Group (8 Y-wings, 4 B, 5 X and 5 A). MF and the Tyderium take up a bit pf space so I hypothesize that other groups contain (roughly) 24 fighters. There are 18 Mon-Cal cruisers that can be accounted for on-screen (2 destroyed and 16 seen pulling away from the Death Star when she's about to blow). 18x24-1= 431 fighters all told.

3: Lando calls for all Gold and Red group wings to follow on the Death Star run. Five fighters plus the Falcon heed the call and two of these are subsequently seen destroyed. I extrapolate from this that an average of two fighters per group survived the battle, or 36 total. 395 fighters were thus destroyed during the battle.

Thoughts?

 

I believe almost all of your assumptions to be flawed.

I can not find a good screen cap of the rebel fleet as it moves away from the DSII, but I would be surprised if 16 Mon Calamari cruisers can be identified from that shot. You're extrapolations of how many groups and how many starfighters a group contains are more aken to guess work. And your 'extrapolation' that 2 fighters from each group survived is less then scientific.

According to this: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Endor

There were several starfighter squadrons present: Yellow, Renegade, Gray, Gold, Red, Corona, Green, and Blade .. that we know of. Half of Yellow squadron was believed to have survived the battle.

 

In the screenshot there are 14 galofree transports, three corellian corvettes, two Nebulon B frigates and 16 mon-cal cruisers. I admit that saying that two fighters from each group survived is erroneous. I should say that 4 out of two groups survived. In fact It's likely Wedge is the only survivor of Red Group as Lando probably orders his own group back up to the surface (or he would have said "red group, head back..." me thinks.

 

Well you learn something new every day...



While I'm not sure I agree about your individual class counts, I didn't realize you could see 35 capital ships in this scene. The Rebel force at Endor was larger than I originally thought and the fact that the Imperials retreated after the destruction of the DSII and the Executor is now far more realistic.

Ever wondered why the Rebels brought so many GR-75-class medium transports to Endor?

Regarding your thoughts on the size and casualties of the Rebel starfighter forces at Endor, I don't think we can reliably come up with those numbers with the available information. I think your numbers are complete guesses VERY loosely based on on-screen information. If I had to guess I'd say your starfighter total is pretty good and losses were around 50%. I can't imagine the Rebel Alliance / New Republic fighting the remaining Imperial forces with no starfighters for a year or however long after Endor it would take to manufacturer new ones.

 

I'm well aware that the analysis I've done disregards everything ever written and/or expanded on regarding the Battle of Endor. I see a point in actually analyzing the movie by itself and gleaning what can be gleaned from it. After all, most of the EU is decanonized anyway, and presumably so are group names and numbers. I don't claim that my numbers are right, but with only the movie to go on, what numbers do you arrive at? Can it even be done? An interesting Thing I found is that 90% is also the casualty rate from the attack on the first death star.

 

The squadrons and strength of the Rebel Alliance on the Wookiepedia page I linked are all new canon. I have not listed or discussed anything related to Legends.

If you want to interpret the movie by itself go ahead, but with the new canon being more tightly integrated, I'm not sure why you would.

I don't think you can relate the Battle of Yavin to Endor that closely. Entirely different engagements.

 

Oops... Missed your reply. I have read many strange accounts about the medium transports place at the Battle of Endor. They were NOT kamakazi ships, of this I feel certain, or else 14 would not have survived. My personal theory is that they were an anti-starfighter screen and decked out with laser cannon. That would explain why so many survived the Tie Fighter onslaught. The corvettes and frigates seem to have taken the brunt if the damage.

 

Awesome that the Wookiepedia info is canon. And I see your point that disregarding canon is going to get me nowhere, nor is it what I want. What's bugged me is all the stuff out there that contradicts the movie. Regarding the incurred losses I imagine coming up against 2000 odd Ties will do that to you. I will point out that I have NO idea how many Ties there were but there were at least 30 Star Destroyers on screen at once and if it's canon these days they each carry 72 Ties. "There's too many of them!" Yep.

Could it be that the rebels actually managed to beat the Ties and that without its fighter screen the Empire saw no option but to retreat a la Midway Island?

 

This ought to be a seperate thread but regarding the size of the rebel fleet: if each mon-cal cruiser had an escort and were the centerpieces in the fleet then we can work this out. Home One's escort consisted of 4 medium transports, 4 corvettes and 2 frigattes whilst the ships seen escorting Liberty (the one shot by the DS2) are one corvette, one frigatte and two medium transports. Reasonable to assume that Home One had a heftier escort but at a minimum the fleet would have had 18 Mon Cals, 19 frigattes, 21 corvettes and 38 medium transports.

 

While I bet the Rebel Alliance starfighters had a better than 1:1 kill ratio against the TIEs, I think the strategic loss of the two most capable combat assets in theater and the demoralization of losing not only the leaders of the Empire but also a significant portion of the admiralty left the remaining Imperials a less than effective fighting force after the destruction of the DSII.

Interesting theory that each Mon Calamari cruiser may have been the centerpiece of a task force, and that these task forces may have been at least somewhat standardized.

 

Plenty of Earth-armies have been similarly demoralized and fled the field when in fact they outmatched their opponent. The reason I came up with the escort idea is that Ackbar's Home One goes to hyperspace with smaller ships and Lando's fighters. The other Mon Cal which the Falcon just flew past does not go to hyperspace on screen. This gives the feeling of a task force comprised of 23 fighters, 10 escorts and Home One, not unlike a carrier force to make another Earth-comparison.

 

...of course whether they're standardized or not is impossible to tell but in absence of contradictory evidence it's more likely that they're similar than dissimilar.

 

BadEwok, you have raised several points that bear consideration, some of which I have not experienced. You might read the Lost Rebels thread from a month ago. Plenty of worthy topics from the space battle of Endor never got covered in that thread. This thread can take that baton. I'll be back.

 

Grrrrrr BadEwok - I have to get ready for work and I am in front of the TV zooming in and counting freaking Mon-Cal cruisers!!

 

Sorry Avnar. As I write this it's 00:50 here in Sweden and I'm guarding a coal stack (true). Whilst you're counting see if you agree if the odd-looking bulbous ships with two engines are Mon-Cals or not. Theory goes that they're actually bow-view Mon Cals with a pair of engines painted on for good measure.

 

Thanks Hernalt. I'm practically new here so it's nice to hear that it's not all old news. Just read Wookiepedia's Endor-report and I'm glad to see it doesn't reject anything I've written. Really happy to see a Gold 9 as this strengthens the case for Gold Group having 23 fighters rather than six or so.

 

Thanks for the thread! I got hooked on the briefing room part. I've always squinted trying to work out what's what in there. Now we know! What's interesting for me are the 24 pilots. Too many and wrong types to be my suggested Gold Group. Who do you want present at your all-important briefing? Could it be that the majority are group leaders? Some ARE ordinary pilots we see later who are not group leaders but how many? Anyone?

PS: if you really, really pushed it you could find 18 mon-cal cruiser commanders in that briefing as well... Just saying.

 

The following is my range of censuses using frame by frame. Using the most global logic based upon the tactics of the briefing, the primary mission can be achieved only by fighters. The secondary mission, securing the perimeter against the Emperor’s escape, can be undertaken by capital ships, and would be vastly aided by every additional fighter that can be thrown at it. Up until the discovery of the trap, the fleet is proceeding at all speed to achieve the element of surprise, and most especially the fighters are proceeding at all possible haste.

The total strategic cost of losing a few ships against a shield compared to the total strategic cost of losing the element of surprise recommends all possible speed when coming out of hyperspace. They cannot afford to dally, be seen, and in the worst case scenario, allow the Emperor’s shuttle to get away even if they do manage to take out the DSII eventually. For these reasons, virtually all if not all of the available fighters (baring some tactical reserve which might be brought up later) are in the van and have specific functions to perform once they get to the DSII itself, not all of which is going to be flying through tunnels. If one can capture a cross section of shots during the process of the evasive maneuver, as a sort of visual filter, or visual muster of a column, and one can explain how one shot is not duplicating the representation of a previously represented fighter, one can assign a census count to each time a fighter either ‘goes by’ some arbitrary line in the screen, or, starts an evasive turn.

There are two VFX shots, one stage shot against blue screen, and then a following, third VFX shot that show Alliance fighters taking evasive action. The first VFX shot occurs after Lando realizes the shield is up. He says, “All craft pull up.” The next shot shows a sum of MF, 9 X-Wings, 6 Y-wings, 4 B-wings, 5 A-Wings heading into, executing or pulling out of a hard turn to port. “All craft pull up” VFX shot from port looking starboard:
MF… … … X, X, Y, X, X… X, X, B, B, A, B, B… X, Y, A, Y… A, A, Y, X, X, A… Y, Y (24 fighters: 9 X, 6 Y, 5 A, 4 B)

Immediately following that VFX shot is another that shows six fighters pulling up away from the shield. This view is straight on to the DSII. Evasive turn to off-screen left: X, B, A. Evasive turn to off-screen right: Y, X, A (6 fighters total: 2 X, 1 Y, 2 A, 1 B). Notice that this shot shows no Falcon and no fighters evading other than these six. It could be the first six in the line immediately following the Falcon, except that the order X, B, A does not cohere with the order, the fingerprint, shown in the previous shot. So this interpretation would require a suspension of disbelief in spatial continuity. This could be the six fighters at the tail end of the sequence from the previous shot. But that sequence also doesn’t match the fingerprint (an issue of spatial continuity). What is more, that shot showed a great number of fighters nearly at the limits of visual resolution, whereas this shot does not show any fighters, that have already turned away from the shield, at the limits of resolution.

My method to require (what I think is) the least suspension of disbelief, avoid mis-match of fingerprints, and still tally the fighters as presented is to assign that they were at an extreme tail of the formation and were not seen in the prior shot, and were far enough behind the long first string of fighters that the first string veered off and were off-screen already by the time of this second shot. And so, these fighters are unique and can be added to the census. This method requires waiting a beat or two in terms of timing continuity. The arrow of time goes in a single direction, and a beat or two in elided timing continuity is (I contend) of less weight in required suspension of disbelief than a visible contradiction -fingerprint mismatch- in spatial continuity. (Also, timing continuity, and assumed causality, is a crucial component of a not-universally accepted claim made concerning something later in the battle, but that’s a story for another time.)

The next shot occurs aboard Ackbar’s bridge looking out onto the DSII. Both Home One and fighters out the viewport are evading to port. For Home One this accords with its initial placement when it drops out of hyperspace, on the left flank of the fleet, away from the forest moon. Evading to port is the easiest maneuver, and its makes its fleet position seem masterful or clairvoyant in terms of tactics. For the fighters that are evading to port in this shot, a short footnotelike narrative can suppose that for every fighter evading to port there is roughly one fighter evading to starboard, using the symmetry of evasion, three and three, of the previous shot. In this shot, the sequence of evasive maneuver to screen left is: X, Y… Y, B, X… X, B. (7 fighters total: 3 X, 2 Y, 0 A, 2 B) (So this would be ~14 total, if adopting symmetry as demonstrated previously.)

Next scene shows Home One, from outside, turning hard to port. #Assuming Ackbar’s bridge is the forward dorsal observation stalk, which is an assumption that can be bolstered by the fact that none of Home One’s dorsal fore section is actually seen in its viewport, and which is by now pointing well to the off-screen right, there are still a few fighters that have not yet executed their own evasive turn. In counterclockwise order from the positive x-axis, on the first frame, they are: X, X in upper right; at 12:00, a Y-Wing *shape that is not being advanced and so appears to represent a larger ship and not a fighter; A, Y, A, X, Y, X in upper left quadrant; A, X in lower left quadrant; and a single X that goes from just about dead center of screen (just about the origin), hidden against Home One, and enters the lower right quadrant. (11 fighters total: 6 X, 2 Y, 3 A, 0 B)

(11 fighters total: 6 X, 2 Y, 3 A, 0 B) (4th shot)
(07 fighters total: 3 X, 2 Y, 0 A, 2 B) (3rd shot)
(06 fighters total: 2 X, 1 Y, 2 A, 1 B) (2nd shot)
(24 fighters total: 9 X, 6 Y, 5 A, 4 B) (1st shot)

In order of least conservative to most conservative count:
Total fighters presented or implied during all four shots of evasive maneuver phase: MF + 24 + 6 + (7 + 7) + 11 = MF + ~55 fighters (20 X, 11 Y, 10 A, 7 B + ~7 indeterminate)
Total fighters presented during all four shots of evasive maneuver phase: MF + 24 + 6 + 7 + 11 = MF + 48 fighters (20 X, 11 Y, 10 A, 7 B)
Total fighters presented during first three shots: MF + 24 + 6 + 7 = MF + 37 fighters (14 X, 9 Y, 7 A, 7 B)
Total fighters presented during first two shots: MF + 24 + 6 = MF + 30 fighters (11 X, 7 Y, 7 A, 5 B)
Total fighters presented during first shot: MF + 24 fighters (9 X, 6 Y, 5 A, 4 B)

An argument in support of the ~7 indeterminate fighters, turning right/starboard, is a subsequent scene that is most easily, most economically interpreted to represent a Home One class Mon Cal ship that turned to starboard. It is the second Mon Cal cruiser to be destroyed by the DSII weapon. the poignance of that (for me) recommends that starboard was not a ‘fake’ or ‘wishful’ direction for an additional ~7 fighters to have gone to when |7| were shown evading to left/port.

To avoid any whiff of wishful favoritism that might occur due to fingerprint ‘mismatches’ *not being mismatches, because of shuffling of fighters on their flight path vectors, some slowing down while others speed up and so forth between shots (for elisions in timing continuity is by #Assumption, or admission, the least weighty suspension of disbelief), the census with the most rigor is one from the first shot, MF and 24 fighters. And it’s probably winning the battle of rigor and losing the war of sense.

One other shot that can be used to calibrate or make arguments as to what constitutes the ‘limits of visual resolution’ is the famous scene/shot where the incoming TIEs overwhelm the Alliance fighters. The TIEs get very small. The shot took several weeks if I recall the youtube video on it. So as a consumer, I feel entitled to hold the VFX technician to the same standard of image saturation as the VFX technician demonstrates on their highest standard of shot. That is to argue, if they could represent fighters at great distance and small size for the TIE scene, then they “would have” done it for any scene where there was an overlap of individual fighters from shot to shot, or, a potential fingerprint mismatch.

Ergo, the technical achievement of the toughest VFX scene, and the dramatic weight of the second DSII shot recommends (to me, just me) that MF +~55 fighters is a census with an acceptable risk that someone might come along and arduously demonstrate the possibility of shuffling of flight path and speed to change one shot fingerprint into another. And that number of ~55 does not knowingly or intentionally count whatever it was that Ackbar was referring to when he said “Launch all interceptions” in the Gerald Home script. There may have yet been other fighters (A-Wing interceptors) held in reserve. Alternate totals could be counted such as shot 1 + shot 3 and 4, etc. Statistics could be done. Someone could have gestalt-like arguments over what the total Alliance complexion of fighters looks like or should be, and what the proper proportion of, say, B-Wings to X-Wings might be, etc.

The representation of the Home One hangar, and its own census and role, is a point I’ve never experienced before. I might try to talk about that next.

 

Holy...! I am most impressed by the work you put into this. My first observation is that your count of 24 fighters and their type closely matches the 24 pilots in the Briefing room. If a few of the Y-wing pilots retained their ANH orange then it fits perfectly in fact.

The fleet seen entering hyperspace does not fit perfectly with what comes out or indeed what takes evasive action. Going into hyperspace is the group I've counted on (MF, 5 x, 5 A, 8 Y and 4 B). These numbers are not inconsistent when the fleet first comes out of hyperspace and is still fine up until and including when the fighters deplos their s-foils. From that point forward some x- wings join and some y-wings leave the Falcon's "tail". Why? I will ponder this.

I think your count of 55 is solid but it's damn hard to draw conclusions from it. The different shots make it hard to know if these fighters belong to some formation or not. Behind the fighters we see a variety of Mon Cals and so we don't know from what ships these fighters come or indeed if they represent all fighters present. I concur with the idea that surprise requires the fighters up front to deliver the unexpected blow, but a ratio of less than 3 fighters per Mon Cal cruiser or indeed that the rebel capital ships outnumbered the starfighters doesn't sit solidly with me. What I'm saying is that I don't think the 55 fighters are all that were present but I have nothing solid to disprove it either.

What I do see though, in the frames looking at the rebel fleet, are a whole lot of fighters hanging close to the capital ships Suggesting a lot of close support. It could be that this first group of 24 were (alone) intended for the run on the Death Star.

 

Regarding the Alliance briefing scene (Scene 54). It was filmed on Friday, February 11, 1982. They probably had a cattle call for putting some extras into a set number of flight suits. Call Sheet 25 page 2 specifies one woman for each of orange, green and dark red flight suits, but not gray. The film does not show any B-Wing pilots. A-Wing Sila Kott (first casualty), A-Wing Green Leader, A-Wing Jake Farrell (“Copy, Gold Leader”) actors are not in Scene 54. Those actors did their filming on or about Wednesday March 10, per Call Sheet 41A. Since those were speaking parts they would have had to get through a more involved, more rigorous audition.

The X-Wing pilots, actor Vivienne Chandler(character Dorovio Bold), actor Billy J Mitchell, and actor Ronnie Cush, were not in Scene 54 and did their filming on Monday, March 8. I have a slight hesitation to say that it is Not Timothy Sinclair (Gray Leader *and “I’m hit!”) sitting in the section of Scene 54 with the Gray Y-Wing pilots. But it is probably the case that he of the other actors with Y-Wing cockpit speaking parts are not present in Scene 54. I entertained that the Asian Y-Wing pilot in Scene 54 might be the Asian Y-Wing pilot (name escapes me / “There’s too many of them”), because the helmet matches, but that might be a rare case of extreme continuity to make sure than an Asian actor in Scene 54 was handed the exact helmet that a more extensively auditioned Asian pilot wears for his speaking part one month later. If none of what is said here is clear: the odds of there being a direct connection between color suited pilots in Scene 54 and close up cockpit shots of various Alliance fighter pilots is very low. Wedge/Lando/Nien Nunb are certainly in Scene 54 and in cockpit scenes.

But the point you bring up about 24 is a new one. It is a reasonable speculation that 24 might be a number of fighters that was gauged and positioned for the primary mission of getting into the DSII tunnels as fast as their sublight drives and re-entry points could get them. And then the other fighters had a responsibility to the primary mission if necessary, the secondary mission, as possible, and escort duty to the capital ships as a default, where the capital ships were going to get to perimeter distance anyway. Seems square to me.

I’ve also done censuses of fighters and cruisers going into hyperspace and noticed the difference. The topic of how the fingerprint, or arrangement, or sequence of fighters and cruisers going into hyperspace as compared to the fingerprint coming out of hyperspace is much more subject to arguments of a black box than would be a consideration of two adjacent scenes in subspace. At least in the OT there was never a depiction of more than one ship inside a hyperspace / Cherenkov tunnel, so we don’t have evidence that there is any kind of stasis of position, or, that ships in hyperspace cannot perform small local maneuvers that resemble shuffling of a fleet arrangement.

Going from the aesthetic V formation jumping in to the sprawling mess coming out, I’d guess that hyperspace plays a bit of havoc with absolute positioning systems since it is already tasking the highest powers of navigation computers to simply get the horde to the same basic coordinates. Plus we know that the forest moon orbits a gas giant with a gas giant gravitational well, and Han Solo for all his bluster did in the first movie mention a concern between navigation accuracy and the location of single stars. I.e., single stars matter, i.e., single stars have some effect on what you’re doing, how you do it, when you do this thing called hyperspace.

When the fleet is re-introduced when it is nearly time to jump to hyperspace, the first ship presented is the stern of a Home One class that is not Home One. But the implicit position of the camera is that it is the rear of the fleet. The book also says that Lando flies around the fleet to examine the ships, and this interpretation aids that. Subsequently the Falcon flies by another Home One class that, lo, turns out implicitly to be the most forward ship, and so must / ought to be the actual Home One. But the later scenes of battle show / strongly imply that there is/was/had been a third Home One class. Was it in the same line of cruisers that the Falcon flew by? Was it at some other location and met up at Endor? The easiest assumption is that the Falcon had traversed a very long line, or possibly broad field of cruisers, and that Home One #3 was elided, like was done to any nice full beauty shots of the Mon Cal cruiser that (too many) people call a “Wingless Liberty” or a MC80.

One could make a micronarrative that certain fighters jumped in, very accurately, from some departure point other than Sullust.

There’s way too much material to cover so I’ll stop here.

 

Awesome stuff there. I get the impression of a "wide" fleet dispersement before the jump. There are transports far off in the background and I think other ships too. Certainly Lando is not seen passin 18 Mon Cals waiting in line to enter hyperspace. Also, if the cruisers are to form "a perimeter" then a wide entry would seem more logical than a single spearhead. The fleet is "massing near Sollust" but how it enters hyperspace is not clearly seen. From the way it exits I reccon it's likely that it's an arrangement more like two lines of nine cruisers or three lines of six. Will examine the screen grabs.

 

I watched "shot #4" and I reccon that the Y-wing you suggest might be a capital ship is just one very cool-headed Y-Wing pilot (or he's watching Harry Potter and has put on the auto pilot...)

 

Now I've sat down and analyzed every screen grab of the space battle. I've noted two interesting things: 1) when the falcon is defending the medical frigate and we see the frigate and Falcon from below (fine angle that!) the ratio of ships seen is 1 Mon Cal, 1 Frigate, 1 Corvette and two Transports. When the Liberty is shot by DS2 the ratio is 1 Mon Cal, 1 frigate, 1 corvette, 2 transports. I see trend people! (It appears that they are two seperate types of Mon Cals too so it's not the same group of ships) In a very broad panoramic of the rebel fleet with the DS2 in the background (the really difficult shot with all the Ties flying past the Falcon) I count 20 rebel capital ships of which 4 are Mon-Cals. Ratio 4 to 1. To me this suggests that for every Mon Cal at the battle there was also one frigate analog, one corvette analog and two transports. Home One is seen entering hyperspace with a bigger escort (11 ships) but that's to be expected of a command ship I think. So, if the total number of Mon Cals at Endor was 18 then the sum total number of rebel ships, excluding fighters, at Endor ought to be about 100.

The second thing I noticed is that the Liberty seems to have a small fighter screen of three X-wings. Who knew?

 

Agree.

 

Begs the question what the B-Wings were for though...