CT Analysis: alliance fighter losses at Battle of Endor

HA! Smaller than a SSD that is. The best thing about the shot of the fleet is that it does have a left "edge" and doesn't just fill up the whole screen. The minimalist in me likes that. Makes it easier to swallow that there may well have bern 37-ish Imperial capital ships.

 

Hernald: it is interesting, isn't it, that the SE has almost doubled the potential size of the Alliance fleet whilst leaving the Imperial fleet untouched. Even though I would contend that Ackbar would feel a little jittery at the prospect of pitting 20 Mon Cal Cruisers against 36 SD and a SSD I wouldn't say he was completely outmatched at least not until the DS2 started firing.

 

Topics I am not aware have been addressed:

I. Why does Lucas present / depict the survivors / remainders of the Alliance fleet as occupying the space between the DSII and the Endor moon? The visual poetic license is certainly his to take. At one point I figured Endor represents two of the trio, Leia and Han, the DSII represents Luke, and there is now a poetic line that contains every hero - an emotional continuity. But is there any strategic or tactical reasoning that can be overlaid on top of Lucas' poetic license?

II. How does one consume the numerical odds that Ackbar faced, and the victory, from a military perspective? In this sense the fan theory that the Emperor blah blah and then when the Emperor died blah blah is not precise or helpful. It is not separately reproducible, exists outside the senses, and depends upon compulsion or credulity. For me to analyze the numbers involved, which is the 1983 Alliance census vs the SE Alliance census vs the SE Imperial census will take plenty more reading, particularly of military engagements that were very unbalanced. Alliance and Imperial forces are of course of the same order (same powers of ten). 1983 Alliance census vs the SE Imperial census is quite imbalanced in terms of apparent number of cruisers and large ships.

III. What percentage of the total surviving Alliance fleet is represented by the Endor moon snapshot? As much as Lucas' poetic license prioritizes an emotional continuity (I talked about this in the Lost Rebels thread), there are still limits to the violations of temporal and spatial continuity. I.e., how did the Alliance fleet get from where it was, 90 degrees away, where the SSD crashed, to here in the space of a few movie seconds? Violations carry a cost in terms of the total weight of the suspended disbelief the consumer must bear. If the scene works, and delivers the emotional impact, then the consumer has been paid more than the costs of the suspended disbelief. And then these considerations of locations, timings and numbers attain the desirable status of refrigerator logic. In the case of the final Alliance census, there should not exist, I don't think, some logic that demands that all Alliance vessels be accounted for in that census snapshot.

IV. Just to test out prioritizing spatial and temporal continuity, in a way that does not violate Lucas' emotional continuity, how about: That Endor moon snapshot, that includes two Home One class, does *not include Home One-actual or the other Home One class in the lower right, because Home One and the other are still, in movie time, near the site of the SSD crash. That would then indicate five unique Home One class ships that have attestation in the film.

-Home One with Ackbar
-The other Home One when the SSD crashes, which with highest conservation of logic and of period canon BTS materials, should have Crix Madine
-The Home One class that was destroyed by the DSII, with recent name proposal of Nautilion
-The upside down Home One class closer to frame center
-The upside down Home One class closer to frame right

Independence is not specified, and could be seen against Endor moon.
Defiance is not specified, and could be seen against Endor moon.
And one of these has some other Admiral, that isn't Ackbar or Madine, and could be present against Endor moon.
It is a far better thing to not think of Admiral Ackbar upside down.

V. Tector. If I attempt to address Tector it turns into a series of long paragraphs. In one line: Did Lucas authorize it? Was Lucas consulted in any way? Hard, verifiable sources.

 

1. Poetics aside I believe the fleet is moving to put Endor between itself and the explosion. If the fleet is unable to go to hyperspace (Interdictors?) then it makes sense that you try to hide behind something. The fact that they havn't made it is not really an issue except for them. They're making haste, as can be seen by the speed at which vessels enter the frame from the Wedge to the Lando shot.

2. Tie casualties I believe. This is my Midway-take on the battle of Endor. The empire has lost battles, even Death Stars, to pesky rebel starfighters before and their only serious protection against them are other starfighters. The Empire deems a small one-man-fighter to be the greater threat. When the Imperial fleet sends all, or many, of its Tie-fighters against the Rebel fleet these overwhelm the alliance for a moment but are then systematically swatted from the sky by alliance starfighters, gunships, laser cannon armed medium transports and Corellian Corvettes, just about all of them made for that purpose. By the time the shield is lowered the Alliance is just about out of starfighters themselves but so are the Imperials. Then they watch as the flagship is taken out by starfighters and their fear for the simple rebel snub-fighter is realised and they run. My Midway simily is not 100% but basically Yamamoto "knew" that he could not go forward with the operation without air-support and the Imperials see that they will be destroyed without Tie-support.

3: I see good enough narrative reasons why/how Madine and Ackbar have managed to get to where they are on screen. Either pure
speed and then breaking so as not to crash into Endor, or, if we lift a page from the EU novels then one can make a micro-jump with Interdictors nearby at the cost of frying the hyperdrive. I think the Wedge/Lando scene discrepancy shows that ships VERY quickly manage to move into frame. We're already missing two Liberty-types. Saying we also miss two Home-Ones is adding a damn lot of the biggest, baddest ships the Alliance has. I don't like that narrative. As for the missing Liberties my gut says they too are DS2 (or even SD) casualties.

4. I think horsepower is far more a credinle explanation than nearly doubling the number of 3-km capital ships the rebels can front with.

5. I like the fact that people have found other Imperial ships at Endor than the classic Imperial 2 SD and the Executor. But a discussion for another thread perhsps?

 

The (evidence) gas light came on. At least on the matter of Alliance large ships, we are close to the Planck limit on some of the period evidence. Obviously we won’t see individual fighters at the distance of the Alliance census in front of Endor. It makes sense that some fighters would be in that area. It seems too late to me now, but one other frame by frame analysis I did was total Alliance fighters lost by any means. Sila Kott, three X-Wings near Liberty, I'm Hit, DSII last X-Wing, X-Wing following Green Leader, Green Leader (plus possibly two unidentified fireballs which could have been TIEs).

I would say that the discrepancy between Wedge exit and Lando exit is a bona fide accident on ILM’s part, and is not necessary and sufficient cause to support consumer interpretation as if it was by design or as if it confers information about fleet movements. (Your reasoning may, still, be compelling to some persons.) It is useful evidence, maybe, of what the census asymmetries were before and after the SE, depending on whether or not the SE Imperial fleet was a CGI upgrade.

I am unsure what to think about Interdictor and Tector. They are both fait accompli to 99% of Star Wars consumers, which confers the status of untouchable sanctity. A thread might tease out additional insights. I’d say it should only be embarked upon after plenty of time reading up on both types and their origin stories. Prevent circles.

 

Hey boys.

I'm in the middle of Lost Stars right now and came across an interesting tidbit that has relevance to our discussion here.

I think we can all agree that the Rebel Alliance probably had fewer than one hundred capital ships at the Battle of Endor. So to me this means that there were at least two thousand starfighters and support ships (starfighter command ships smaller than 100 meters in length such as gunboats, gunships, blastboats, shuttles, modified freighters, ect.) present at Endor.

 

Sith lords above! Hate it when they write something canon like that. That kinda kills the thread doesn't it...

 

I did a calculation a while ago I was able to get a lower estimate of somewhere upwards of 4,000 TIE Fighter starcraft.

 

How did you reach those numbers? 37x72 plus Executor plus DS2?

 

Ha, ha, I was going off of a memory which did not serve me well. A more correct estimate would be upwards of 2,000 Tie craft.
37x72=2304
It's probably more than this because we don't know how many escort carriers were there if any, how many battle cruisers (length greater than 2,000m) and their compliments, and that the SSD's lower estimate is 144 TIEs.

 

We also don't know how many of the ships that look like Imperial-class are actually the hangarless Tector class (the EU went with 3). One of those Imperial-like vessels could also be a battlecruiser that only looks like an Imperial that's set further back.

I'd agree that upwards of 2000 TIEs is at least in the right ballpark though. Ciena's "thousands of Rebel ships" might be a slight overestimate, allowing for just over 1000 rather than 2000 - if she's eyeballing it rather than having sensors on her ship's console list the number of detected hostiles.

 

I think 2,000 TIE fighters/interceptors is about right for an estimate of the minimum at Endor. 4 squadrons from 30 star destroyers (1,440) and 560 from the Executor and DS2 is entirely feasible.

While the book is pretty clear IMO that Ciena is looking at the radar and computer readouts and so I take the "thousands" at face value, in later chapters the book does seem to minimize the size of the Imperial starfleet. For instance there's an offhand reference to half of the Imperial starfleet being at Endor, along with a few other comments which made me shake my head.

 

Wow, so if the movie is canon and so is the novel then the dreaded Imperial Star fleet contained less than 100 Star Destroyers... Does the novel suggest that the rebels actually outnumbered the Imperials or does it imply vast numbers of Imperial ships?

 

Here's the quote out of the book:

Now I treat this section much differently then Ciena reviewing sensor/computer readouts. We are in Thane's head as he first visually sees the Imperial fleet, and get his first reaction, which I will interrupt as a major exaggeration.

This is because I believe the fleet/military size in Star Wars are generally grossly underestimated and I am interpreting these comments to suit my beliefs.

 

Well, dozens of Star Destroyers is a good fit to that seen on screen

 

That's a good point. However it doesn't sway my opinion, I'll choose to assume "it looked like half the Imperial fleet" to be his initial reaction and "including dozens of Star Destroyers" to be a qualifying statement not necessarily from his point of view.

 

I always liked that kamikaze dude. Hope he didn't have a family.

 

His name was Arvel Crynyd. No, I didn't have to look that up; yes, I knew that off the top of my head. Should I go post in the "you know you're a nerd" thread?

 

Sarge

Considering Richard Edlund referred to the kamikaze pilot as "Mad Max" (same as the storyboard), I'm missing the "Max" in 'Arvel Crynyd', guess that makes me even a bigger nerd or geek.

@Hernalt wrote

I. Why does Lucas present / depict the survivors / remainders of the Alliance fleet as occupying the space between the DSII and the Endor moon? The visual poetic license is certainly his to take. At one point I figured Endor represents two of the trio, Leia and Han, the DSII represents Luke, and there is now a poetic line that contains every hero - an emotional continuity. But is there any strategic or tactical reasoning that can be overlaid on top of Lucas' poetic license?

Good questions and food for thought. The shot of the surviving Alliance fleet clearly positions it between the Death Star and Endor. IMHO, what we see here is the fleet aligning to create some kind of rear deflector shield to protect Endor from the anticipated Death Star debris heading its way (another coffin nail for the "Endor Holocaust"?).

However, this doesn't outrule the planetary deflector shield theory, the fleet might just not know whether the planetary shield can deflect the coming debris.

Since the Alliance fleet (and Ackbar) knows that they owe their victory to the strike team on Endor (and to a great extent to Threepio, I should add!), they "stand together" to protect their comrades even if they risk their own well-being (which - from a poetic point of view - is ultimately what the Alliance stands for).


II. How does one consume the numerical odds that Ackbar faced, and the victory, from a military perspective? In this sense the fan theory that the Emperor blah blah and then when the Emperor died blah blah is not precise or helpful. It is not separately reproducible, exists outside the senses, and depends upon compulsion or credulity. For me to analyze the numbers involved, which is the 1983 Alliance census vs the SE Alliance census vs the SE Imperial census will take plenty more reading, particularly of military engagements that were very unbalanced. Alliance and Imperial forces are of course of the same order (same powers of ten). 1983 Alliance census vs the SE Imperial census is quite imbalanced in terms of apparent number of cruisers and large ships.

May I say you made me realize a can of worms that's probably changing my previous approach to the issue, i.e. I now doubt whether the 36 Star Destroyers we saw onscreen really is all there was, IMHO there are just way too many capital Alliance ship survivors (apparently both in the original version and S.E. shot of the surviving Rebel fleet).

1. The “Achilles Heel” of Death Star II was the open superstructure and the possibility of small fighters to fly into it and knock out the Death Star. Since the Emperor wanted to lure the Alliance into a trap he needed to give them a vulnerable spot to get them interested to swallow the bait in the first place.
2. Obviously, judging by the reaction of the Tydirium crew, the Alliance anticipated that the Death Star would also be protected by at least a fleet of Star Destroyers (1 SSD and 5 regular ones according to the ESB definition), so there was some need to bring capital ships into the battle, too, to take care of this obstacle
3. Furthermore, the capital ships were to create a perimeter so that the fighters could fly into the superstructure unmolested by Imperial pursuers. It would also appear that the Alliance pursued a Plan B, i.e. bombarding the Death star (crippling the super weapon’s dish?) in case Plan A would fail (evidenced by the ROJ “videomatics”, corresponding storyboards and explicit descriptions provided in the ROJ novelization)
4. I’m confident the Emperor anticipated as much and prepared accordingly, i.e. withdrawing enough Star Destroyers from the Imperial Starfleet (I’d guess one out of every ten to not arise Alliance suspicion) to have enough to prevent them from escaping.
5. Yet, once the first Alliance Star Cruiser is destroyed by the Death star, Ackbar immediately orders a retreat. It’s a bit odd, that it’s Lando suggesting to move as close as possible to engage the Star Destroyers, as this would have been the inevitable outcome of Ackbar’s retreat order, too.
6. Ackbar states “At that close range we won’t last long against those Star Destroyers”, clearly suggesting that the Alliance fleet is outgunned by this Imperial fleet, where the deciding question is “by which factor”?

This is the big unknown. Ackbar is in a terrible dilemma: Avoiding confrontation with the Imperial fleet he will have to sacrifice one capital ship after the other to the Death Star’s superweapon, hoping the security shield will be down in time so that he can move the remaining fleet closer (with a headstart in contrast to the Imperial fleet) but outside the Death star’s blast radius. Attacking the Imperial fleet he’ll loose the headstart advantage and run out of ships eventually.

Lando’s “we might just take a few of them with us” (i.e. not all) somehow suggests to me that for every single Star Destroyer the Alliance fleet will probably have to sacrifice two of its own capital ships. Ackbar will loose capital ships and crews, he just has to make the terrible decision how.

The really odd thing from a storytelling suggestion is the subsequent order of events. When the Alliance attacks the Imperial fleet, the footage suggests heavy losses (“She’s gonna blow”, “I’m hit”). And yet later, while the security shield is still up, the Alliance appears miraculously to be on the same footing as the Empire: The outcome of the broadside exchange between the ‘Nebulon’ Rebel cruiser and the larger Star Destroyer is inconclusive, the Y-Wing Red Two shoots down a TIE Interceptor. And later, still, the Alliance manages to take out the Super Star Destroyer (admittedly after the shield has been destroyed and the Alliance is no longer inhibited in its maneuvering capability).

I therefore believe the essential question remains and what point during the battle the Alliance managed to be on a similar footing like the Imperial fleet to explain the amount of Alliance fleet survivors hoovering above Endor in that particular screenshot. Assuming two Alliance capital ships for every Star Destroyer taken out is a palatable ratio, there must have definitely been more than just 36 Star Destroyers participating in this fateful battle.

 

Came to realize over the weekend, that perhaps the thread title is misleading and perhaps should be "Analysis Empire fighter losses at the Battle of Endor".

As I theorized in my previous post the Emperor must have anticipated that the Alliance would bring first and foremost fighters into the battle to penetrate the Death Star's superstructure in an attempt to knock out the Death Star's reactor.

So he made certain that there were plenty of TIE fighters to take care of the Alliance fighters, hence the Asian Y-Wing pilot's remark "There's too many of them!".

I also remembered this particular performance chart ILM made (in the ROJ sketchbook) which was supposed to tell us how these fighters would perform at the Battle of Endor:



Now, the Falcon may be the fastest ship (not fighter!) in the Alliance fleet, but according to that performance chart it should not be able to pursue a TIE Interceptor or be as maneuverable as one of these (same applies for the Y-Wing).

Interestingly, what we see during the space battle are obviously underperforming TIE Interceptors - http://starwarsscreencaps.com/star-wars-episode-vi-return-of-the-jedi-1983/66/

• Two of these take out Red Three's A-Wing ('Sila Kott') but are themselves destroyed in quick sucession by Red Two (Y-Wing)
• One TIE Interceptor vainly tries to shake Wedge, the one pursuing Wedge is outmaneuvered and crashes into the ventral bay of a Rebel Star Cruiser
• Next, the Millenium Falcon itself pursues three TIE Interceptors and the Falcon gun crews rather effortlessly shoot down one after the other (the TIE Interceptors look like proverbial sitting ducks)
• Later, Red Two shoots down another TIE Interceptor

With the exception of Red Three, we saw no TIE Interceptor shoot down another Rebel fighter, while there were at least three "kills" scored by standard or short-range TIE fighters.

Either the ILM performance chart is severely flawed, or the TIE Interceptor delivered such an unexpected, bad performance during the Battle of Endor that eventually the Alliance fighters got the upper hand in battle and could even attack the Emperor's Super Star Destroyer without meeting a lot of resistance from its fighter escorts.

Fantasy follows fact? The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter had also been designed as an "interceptor" but came along with troubles of its own:

If used appropriately, with high-speed surprise attacks and good use of its exceptional thrust-to-weight ratio, it could be a formidable opponent. It was exceptionally stable at high speed (600+ knots) at very low level, making it a formidable tactical nuclear strike-fighter. However, when lured into a low-speed turning contest with conventional subsonic opponents (as Pakistani pilots were with Indian Hunters in 1965) the outcome of dogfights was always doubtful. The F-104's large turn radius was due to the high speeds required for maneuvering, and its high-alpha stalling and pitch-up behavior was known to command respect.[55] In reference to the F-104's low-speed turn performance, a humorous colloquialism, referred to by F-104 pilots the world over, was coined by a Canadian pilot: "Banking with intent to turn". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter

In absence of other data, that could credibly explain how the outnumbered Alliance fleet got the upper hand at the Battle of Endor, I think the (first time) use of the TIE Interceptor might have played a contributing, decisive factor.

 

Interceptors have appeared in Rebels Season 3 as well.

 

Iron_lord

I didn't know that, yet. Okay, I get it, all the vehicles we see in the OT are now and retroactively "old news" and no new designs were manufactured during the civil war.

Bazinga'd

I was merely looking for a real world analogy that may have explained the rather surprising turn of events on behalf of the Alliance fleet in ROJ, I don't think aerodynamics had anything to do with it but from onscreen events its pretty clear that the (supposed) superior maneuverability of the TIE Interceptor is rather a myth than a fact.

 

The Interceptor is supposed to be the superior craft. It's more compact, more maneuverable, and it has 4 laser cannons (one on each wingtip) as opposed to the standard TIE's 2.