CT Could TESB have been the end of the rebellion if the Empire hadn't been so arrogant?

I used to think the Empire was only stupid and arrogant in ROTJ.

But now I think about it...

What was there to stop them from literally ending the rebellion once and for all in TESB?

Think about it: The Imperial Fleet discovered the rebellion's main base on Hoth. They had the Executor for crying out loud, the most powerful ship in the whole GALAXY. And six Star Destroyers.

What did the rebels have? A few poorly armed tiny cruisers and a small number of fighters. As far as I know, aside from the shield grid protecting Hoth and that Ion cannon, they had nothing else at that point.

Yet...when the Empire begins (from their POV) their 'police action against the rebel terrorists', they only use one Star Destroyer! And it gets disabled by the Ion cannon...then the rebels escape.

So, two questions:

1. Where on earth was the rest of the Imperial fleet during the assault - the Executor and the other five Star Destroyers? Why didn't they position themselves to prevent even a single transport from getting away? What were they doing? Playing cards and drinking Alderaanian whisky?

I can just imagine it.

Piett: Fold. Waiter, another shot please!

Needa: Hit me. Why are you drinking on duty, sir? And why do we have waiters serving shots and cocktails during a military operation to crush a dangerous insurgency?

Piett: Because I was only promoted to Admiral five minutes ago and so I'm celebrating! Besides, that one Star Destroyer we sent is more than enough. The rebels don't stand a chance. If even one* of those rebel transports escape, I will personally apologise to great Lord Vader for not respectfully suggesting to him that we use the entire fleet in this attack.

Needa: Fair enough sir.

On Hoth...

Veers: Those lazy b*stards! I'm down here in the ice and goddamn snow trying to crush the rebellion for good, and I bet most of the fleet is just having a party! Oh well...at least I get to kill some rebel scumbags.

*A few hours later, in Vader's chambers...

Piett: My lord...I know this seems besides the point now, but on becoming Admiral as I had always dreamed, and much respect to you for giving me the position sir-

Vader: While you are a good officer, Piett, you got the position primarily because Admiral Ozzel felt the icy hands of death seize his throat due to him being an idiot, and due to me being...mildly irritated. It's a deserved position, but don't be too smug about it.

Piett: Of course sir. Anyway, you remember how we only sent one Star Destroyer in orbit to blockade Hoth and prevents the rebels from escaping?

Vader: Yes...

Piett: And how it...didn't work? Because they escaped anyway? And how we literally didn't even place the rest of the fleet into a formation to blockade every exit in the entire system and prevent the rebels escaping - even though we could easily have done so - just because we couldn't be bothered, and we were more interested in partying? And while all this was going on I and the other officers aboard the Executor were just playing cards and drinking whisky?

Vader: So?

Piett: Surely you must blame me and my junior officers for...well, being lazy and arrogant, my lord?

Vader: Oh! Hmmmmm...no.

Piett: But my lord, I feel guilty for this! We literally just assumed one Destroyer would be enough to blockade the entire planet, it was hit by the Ion cannon and disabled, then before we could even react or move any of our other ships into range the rebels had gone into hyperspace!

Vader: I see. Well, I honestly don't blame you, Admiral. After all, it was I who inferred that a full scale blockade was unnecessary. But, if you must punish yourself, then I suggest you flagellate your body with a pack of cards for twenty hours while observing me in my meditation chamber...at all times. Even the dead of night.

Piett: (horrified) Uh...can I pass on that one, my lord?

Vader: Yes.

Piett: Thankyou Lord Vader! (hastily leaves)

In all seriousness, what was the rest of the Imperial fleet doing while that one Star Destroyer approached and was then disabled? Was there any genuine, actual reason for them to not form some sort of blockade to prevent the rebels escaping? I can't see why they wouldn't.

The way it plays on film, it looks as if Piett was arrogant enough to think one SD was enough to prevent any transports from escaping, so they left the rest of the fleet further back - but not in a formation to prevent the rebels from escaping, because they thought that wouldn't necessary - and, by the time they realised that hadn't worked and that one SD had been disabled, because Imperial capital ships are so huge and move so slowly, they couldn't move into formation quickly enough to block off the rebels' escape route.

But...in order for that to be true, they'd have to be...well, really arrogant and stupid.

If I were Vader after this battle I would be enraged at my entire staff for gross incompetence. The Ion cannon disabled one Star Destroyer. Just one out of six - plus the Executor! Why weren't the other ones in position to stop the rebel transports? How come the other Star Destroyers and Executor weren't positioned in the system in such a way as to prevent even a single rebel transport from escaping? It doesn't make any sense!

In fact, the only way the space-based part of the Imperial attack works is if we assume the Empire is so arrogant that they believe 'the puny rebels' can't even escape from a single Star Destroyer. Like in my humourously intended scene above.

And my second question: Not much later on in the film, how about how the whole fleet can't so much as make a dent in the Falcon? Are we supposed to believe that a single daredevil madman, his lady friend, a giant hairy beast and an annoying semi-sentient hunk of metal in an old cargo freighter can outwit and outrun seven of the most powerful ships in the whole galaxy plus untold hundreds of tie-fighters?

Essentially, the Empire spends the whole film playing a cat and mouse game with the falcon and the rebels, and although it doesn't lose, the mouse still escapes. Both times.

Other than arrogance, I see nothing that would have stopped the Empire from completely destroying the rebellion at Hoth. And as for chasing the Falcon...boy, that fleet must have had the worst tie fighter pilots and most arrogant and slow-witted captains in the navy. Either that or they just didn't take chasing the Falcon seriously enough and spent more time playing cards, drinking and talking.

Quite seriously, without going into too much detail, does anyone here know enough about the military to answer these two questions:

1: Exactly why the Empire didn't use their entire fleet to cover every part of the star system and thus prevent any rebel transports from escaping, regardless of how that one Star Destroyer was disabled...and if there is any plausible military reason why they didn't except for arrogance...

And 2: If one madman and his equally crazy co-pilot in a single fast ship - a fast ship with some malfunctions, let's not forget - with two passengers - could ever, realistically, outrun and outwit an enormous military force with hundreds of smaller ships, six huge capital ships and one unbelievably humongous capital ship?

Thoughts?

 

The rest of the Imperial Fleet was probably out doing other stuff. It's pretty hard to coordinate a naval attack within hours, the Rebels had already begun their evacuation, they had no time to wait they had to go with what they had.

 

Imo,
1. Same reason the Enterprise is always the closest ship...script
2. Same reason Jhn Matrix could take on an entire private army...script (and JMs one liners rocked...lol)

That said, it's a movie. Just like in real life, stupid things happen all the time, including wars.

 

Well, I'm not sure if this is actually the case, but I always assumed they were spread out, which is the reason why the Rebels meet only one Star Destroyer instead of all of them. If the Star Destroyers all bunch up on one side of the planet, the Rebels can just sneak out the back door. The Rebels picked a spot, with one Star Destroyer, and chose that as their escape route. They hit the ISD with an ion blast to disable it and ran past.

What you're saying doesn't even make sense, you can't cover every part of the system, yet have multiple Star Destroyers in the same space at the same time.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason was time, budget, special effects limitations, that sort of thing. One drawback of those practical special effects is that they are extremely time consuming.

Was that a question?

If so, then the answer is yes. Han went through a damn asteroid field, landed inside a space slug, stuck to a Star Destroyer like a magnet, his madness had method. I thought he was brilliant, and there's little shame imo for losing to such brilliance.

Sometimes one small thing is actually very hard to catch, and the more pursuers, the more they get in each other's way.

There's a saying among fighter pilots that goes something like this:

Only one fighter at a time can be on your six.

The battle of Hoth certainly has its problems. I still have no idea what Vader was trying to do when he claimed Ozzel screwed it up. I don't know why the X-Wings weren't used against the AT-ATs. Blah blah blah, but I don't care.

I don't see the rebellion's escape as a result of the Empire's arrogance, I highly doubt they were meant to just be sitting around doing nothing while the Rebels escaped, I highly doubt that's the intention.

 

Space is big. Really big. Huge. Enormous. Also, it's 3 dimensional. Blockading a planet means you have to spread out the fleet to cover as many escape routes as possible. Therefore, the SDs were too far apart to support each other. The ion cannon disabled one SD, so the rebels chose that direction as the weak point in the blockade, and most of the rebel ships fled in that direction. By the time the other SDs moved to intercept, the Falcon was nearly into the asteroid belt.

As for the TIEs, I'm going to say they were busy chasing and dogfighting the X-wings that we saw taking off.

And even if the Empire wiped out the entire base, they still wouldn't have found the rebel fleet.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by CT867; what he said.

 

I'm sorry if i'm having too much fun with this but the entire Hoth battle sequence is the most idiotic/illogical thing in all 6 SW films for me...

1. New toys
2. The Snow Speeders were the James Bond vehicles of the Rebels. Equiped with something completely ludicrous (aka a cable) that just happened to be totally by chance the exact ''weapon/device'' they would need to defeat the enemy...

To cover a planet's escape routes 6 SD and 1 SSD would have to be close to the planet, not far.
All the other SDs were nowhere to be seen...
Besides...the rebels flew straight into the single SD in orbit...all 7 should be near that orbital plane and shoot them all down...

 

Good responses so far.

I want to make it clear that I'm not attacking TESB
by being critical, it's my favourite of the films. It's just interesting to me how even though most of what happened rings true, there are always moments that make you think some of the trained military officers in the film are...well, arrogant morons.

CT-867-5309: Very good post, what you said generally makes a lot of sense.

Two things though:

1. Who's to say that the Empire couldn't have covered virtually every escape route, considering that they had six 1 and a half kilometre long ships and one 20 kilometre long ship? You'd have thought they could cover plenty of space and prevent even one rebel ship escaping.

2. About Han: Ok, I can buy that he's smart enough to outwit the Empire. But...why didn't the Executor just blow the entire asteroid field apart with its 5000 turbolaser batteries? I know Vader wanted them alive - how he knew at this point that Luke's friends were aboard I don't know. (Just how did he know that?) But even so, if the Imperial fleet had started destroying the entire asteroid field then surely Han would've had to leave and thus be vulnerable?

 

I figure he'd done the research - between ANH and TESB he'd figured out that Han was Luke's closest friend, and therefore that taking him alive would be a good starting point for Luring Luke To Him.

And trying to destroy the asteroid field, risks killing Han.

 

To answer the OP.

1) The fleet WAS deployed so that no ships were to get of the system, Vader gives a direct order about this.

The had big ships yes but the total volume around a planet is HUGE. To cover all possible escape routes, they would need to spread their ships apart. So this explain why the first rebel transport only encountered one ISD.
Either they concentrate all ship in one small area, but this leaves 95% unguarded. Or they spread out but this would still leave gaps. It seems they did the latter and the one ISD in the path of the rebel ships got totally disabled by the ion cannon.
Also we don't really know how many transports got away. Later in the fight they decide to risk sending two transports at once despite them fearing that they would not be able to protect two at once.

To compare, in TPM, the TF had blockaded Naboo and they had a lot more than seven ships. It looked like at least 30 ships. However for some reason they were arranged in a ring around the planet and not in a sphere. Which makes the blockade kind of ineffective as it leaves about 80% or the area unprotected. And even odder, the Naboo ship decide to fly straight at the blockade instead of the many directions where there are no ships.

Most scifi films forget that space is in 3D and tends to makes battles etc very 2D. Mostly this is in order to make the fights look good and be exciting. To totally blockade a planet you would need to place your ships in a sphere with a radius of about three time that of the planet, if not more. For Earth this give a radios of about 18 000 km. This would give a surface area of that sphere of about 1,3 billion square km. So with seven ships, this gives each ship an area of about 190 million square km to guard.

2) Anout the MF, Vader knew that Luke came to the DS one that ship and left with it as well. The same ship also saved Luke's life at the battle of Yavin. So Vader would know that Luke has a connection to that ship. He could even be on it as far as Vader knows. So even more reason to not risk destroying it.
As for blowing up the entire asteroid belt, the belt is huge. Even with a big ships with loads of guns, destroying every single asteroid would be very time-consuming. If we assume it is as big as the one in our solar system, then we are talking about millions of asteroids spear out over a vast area.

I can name flaws with ESB, the design of the walkers is totally stupid and impractical. The rebels could have stopped them if they just had dug a deep ditch around their base. Also, why are the rebel snow speeders flying at the walkers from the front, where all the guns are? They can fly at them from the rear or the side, where there are zero guns.

But there is an overall strategy that makes some sense. The empire comes in, finds out that an orbital bombardment is not possible. So they spread out their ships to prevent the rebels from fleeing and land troops beyond the energy shield and walk towards the base. The rebels realize that this is what the empire will do and prepares for a surface attack all the while evacuating ships as fast as they can. In the end, the rebels loose their base and lots of equipment and probably a lot of soldiers as well. But some manage to escape. The empire wins the battle but is unable to stop all rebel ships.

In AotC and the battle of Geonosis, I found a total lack of sensible tactics. The tactics being used would be considered old and wasteful even in WW1 and both sides seemed only interested in wasting as many of their own soldiers as possible. No orbital bombardment, little if any use of air forces, just throwing soldiers at each other.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I love the subtlety of that idea. I don't think I ever really realized it until I contrasted TESB against AOTC. Vader has experienced the same pain calling him when his mother was being tortured on Tatooine, he expected his son to feel the pain of his friends and be drawn to it as well. When Han says "They didn't even ask me any questions" it can easily be assumed that the Empire is simply torturing him for fun because they are just that evil, but in reality there was a purpose to his pain, known only to Vader.

 

A tremendous amount of the battle takes place in the air. And when the quarters are that close in battle, orbital bombardment would simply lead to a loss of troops on both sides. If your the CIS why risk destroying your own equipment or killing CIS leaders? If your the Republic why risk killing clones or Jedi?

 

First, I wouldn't say that a "tremendous" amount of the Geonosis battle takes palce in the air. The seps have no air force from I can remember. The republic have a few air ships and use them somewhat. But a large majority of the battle takes place on the ground.
What I would have done?
As the republic, make a surgical strike and extract the Jedi from the arena. After that, bombard the droid armies/foundries from above and don't land any troops until much later. Also I would make a priority to take out those TF ships in orbit and try to blockade the planet. Yoda said that they must prevent Dooku from escaping. A blockade would be a good start there. And if they can take out the TF ships then the big droid army made on Geonosis is destroyed. With sensible tactics, Dooku would be dead or captured, same with Nute and the droids made on Geonosis taken out. This could have ended the war.

As the seps, first don't they have sensors? Didn't they pick up the large number of republic ships coming in? Second, once they got most of their ships up in space, they could use their guns and decimate the clones. The ground battle was lost anyway.

Both sides throw massive amount of foot soldiers at each other. Now this type of Zerg rush might work for the seps as they can produce massive amounts of droids quickly. It doesn't work for the republic as it take about ten years to grow a clone. And the republic had about 1,2 million soldiers.
Using this kind of tactics, they would run out of soldiers in about a month.

I don't know if those tech manuals are canon anymore but according to them, one shot from one gun on those republic ships had more firepower than all of Earth's nuclear weapons put together.
One shot would have taken out the droid army, the droid factories and the seps leadership.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Of course. I'm sure the Republic could have used your military genius. Lol I'm not being a jerk I'm just saying your clearly not a military or political expert and there are a lot of holes in your strategy to point out. One being the Republic needed to capture Dooku and the other Sep leaders to hopefully end the war before it started. That would have been impossible through orbital bombardment. Also it is quite difficult to blockade and simultaeneously combat other starships, in fact I would say it's impossible.

 

And do you think using WW1 tactics and sending masses of troops running at each other a good strategy?
Second, at no point was the capture of Dooku or any of the seps leaders stated as a priority for the republic. Yoda only said that they need to stop Dooku from leaving, nothing about taking him alive.
When Obi-Wan and Anakin followed Dooku they wanted to shoot him down but they couldn't as they didn't have any rockets. Why they didn't use the other weapons the transport had is never explained.
Third, the republic ships didn't try to destroy the TF ships OR establish a blockade. I guess they thought "Oh this would be hard so we'll not even going to bother."
As far as I know, those TF ring ships have limited power without their central cores so blowing them up wouldn't be hard. So it depends a bit on how many ships the republic has but instead of sending several ships down with troops, they send one and get the Jedi out. Three or four target and destroy the TF ships, one would be enough to bombard the droid army and droid factories, the rest establish a blockade.
Lastly a blockade might entail combat with other starships so it is very possible. The difficulty depends mostly on how many ships you have and how many the other side have and how powerful they are.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

1) You seem to forget that the Empire send 5 AT-ATs at the exact location of the rebel-base.
They wouldn't need to cover the entire planet. Just the surrounding area of the rebel-base.
Easy to do with 6SDs 1SSD & hundreds of TIEs...

And Naboo was no Coruscant. The Naboo inhabited certain areas of the planet (supposedly the ones near the equator).
Again the TF didn't need to cover the entire planet...

It is funny though how you completely excuse the rebel ships flying straight to the SD and accuse only the Naboo for doing as such, even though judging by the number of TF ships in orbit around Naboo it would be far more possible for it to encounter one while leaving the planet...



2) The Republic didn't even have an army before this and you expect them to have the strategic skills of Julius Cesar or Alexander the Great or etc.. etc...& somehow inherently know the Art Of War by Sun Tzu???

 

And you seem to think that ships can only fly directly up from a planets surface, perpendicular or at a 90 degree angle. Not so, they can fly up at 60 degrees, 45 degrees and they can even fly along the surface of the planet and then up. All of which will greatly increase the area to be patrolled. So if the Empire put all of their ships directly above the rebel base, it would leave at least 95% of the planet unguarded. Something the rebels could then exploit.

Same with Naboo, any ship can simply fly along the surface up to the pole and then go up. Or fly up at an angle.
Also, why would the Naboo only inhabit the areas around the equator? On Earth we have cities all over the place. Not directly at the poles but not far from them.

The rebel ships knew that the ion cannon would fire along their path, if any ISD were directly ahead of them, it would get hit and be disabled. So if no ISD were in their path, no problem. If an ISD is in their path, it would get damaged by the ion cannon and not be a threat.
The Naboo ship saw the blockade and since we saw that it was in a ring formation, they had plenty of space above or below that ring. Again space is in 3D.

Take the example of Saturn below.


If you fly a space ship from it's surface (I know it is a gas giant, not much of a surface), the rings cover only a very small area, there is a LOT more space where there are no rings.
Same with the Naboo blockade.

[/QUOTE]

No I would expect them to at least have more strategic skills than General Melchett



And the clones have had several years of training on Kamino. But I guess that training was just "Get your gun and run at the enemy."
And the people you mention would be quite useless anyway as they would have no experience or knowledge of battles with modern weapons and ships and airplanes.

About Normandy, in case you were unaware of it, that battle had massive air attacks and naval bombardment before the troops landed. And they had picked a weakly defended area, not the area around Calais, where most of the German officers thought the invasion would take place.
And despite this, the battle was very costly. In D-Day, the allies lost almost 5000 soldiers if not more and many more wounded. In the whole battle of Normandy, the Allies lost over 50 000 soldiers.
The Republic has only 1,2 million clones, they really can't afford to waste troops like this.

About the asteroids, Vader wants the MF captured and those onboard taken ALIVE, this is clearly stated in the film. Going in, guns blazing could destroy the MF and give the officer an angry Force choke. Vader knows the ship and knows that Luke is connected to it.

About the shield over Hoth, it covered an area of the planet, it obviously didn't go all the way to the ground. It was like an umbrella shield. So the walkers landed beyond it and could then walk under it, simple.

Umm with half or 1/4 the radius of the planet, you have ships BENEATH the surface of the planet.
The radius of Earth is about 6400 km, if you have the ships half a radius above, that gives a radius of about 9600 km. The surface area of that sphere is about 1 billion square km, so the area I calculated before was actually much too low. Just the surface area of Earth is 510 million square km. If we go with that number, that gives each ship about 70 million square km to guard. Quite a lot.
Bottom line, space is BIG.

Bye.
The Guarding Dark

 

-Stopping Dooku from escaping was the entire premise of the final part of the movie.

-A blockade would certainly entail combat with enemy ships. An efficient fighting force can only do one thing at a time, trying to enforce a planet-wide blockade while combatting an equally armed enemy would certainly end a ruin.

 

And you seem to think that ships can only fly directly up from a planets surface, perpendicular or at a 90 degree angle. Not so, they can fly up at 60 degrees, 45 degrees and they can even fly along the surface of the planet and then up. All of which will greatly increase the area to be patrolled. So if the Empire put all of their ships directly above the rebel base, it would leave at least 95% of the planet unguarded. Something the rebels could then exploit.

Completely wrong...they don't need to cover the entire planet, just the area surrounding the base.

I thought i wouldn't have to mention the obvious...
TF ships & SDs have radars and could detect that...they don't rely on direct vision alone...a ship that would fly ex. to the poles would be detected in both cases...
The rebel base on Hoth was what?...1-2square km? 5 square km at best?
6SD and 1 SSD can cover & surround that from orbit very easily.

The Ion-cannon , even if it fired at a complete horizontal direction, would only be able to provide cover at close distances, therefore the rebels can't use it
to provide cover for ships hovering too far from it...
Escaping the planet at 45 degrees or 60 degrees only increases the distance the rebel-ships would need to travel to escape, therefore increasing the danger of them being shot-down.

The Empire would simply need to spread the 6SDs and 1 SSD in a circular pattern in orbit around the base.
Even if the rebels used the Ion-cannon they could not shoot 7 ships with one shot.
Something like this.



Same with Naboo, any ship can simply fly along the surface up to the pole and then go up. Or fly up at an angle. Read above.
Also, why would the Naboo only inhabit the areas around the equator? On Earth we have cities all over the place. Not directly at the poles but not far from them.

The ''best'' climates on earth are near the equators (ex. cities around the mediteranian sea). The most thriving cities in older eras were all around there.
Judging by what we see in the movie we can assume the Naboo mainly inhabited such areas, since we also don't see any overpopulation problems like on earth or Coruscant...

The rebel ships knew that the ion cannon would fire along their path, if any ISD were directly ahead of them, it would get hit and be disabled. So if no ISD were in their path, no problem. If an ISD is in their path, it would get damaged by the ion cannon and not be a threat.

Harder to do with 6 SDs and 1 SSD...

The Naboo ship saw the blockade and since we saw that it was in a ring formation, they had plenty of space above or below that ring. Again space is in 3D.

Read above...
btw, what ring formation?
You think that from this distance, all ships should be visible to the ''imaginary camera?''
You could have 1000 ships covering the rest of the planet and they would not be visible to the camera...but anyways...


Take the example of Saturn below.


If you fly a space ship from it's surface (I know it is a gas giant, not much of a surface), the rings cover only a very small area, there is a LOT more space where there are no rings.
Same with the Naboo blockade.

What??? Again the obvious....radars...and the Naboo probably inhabited areas near the equator.

[/QUOTE]

No I would expect them to at least have more strategic skills than General Melchett


Because you say so?

And the clones have had several years of training on Kamino. But I guess that training was just "Get your gun and run at the enemy."

Trainning for combat does not mean strategic concepts and strategies.
That was not their job.
They were clones that would follow orders obediently.

And the people you mention would be quite useless anyway as they would have no experience or knowledge of battles with modern weapons and ships and airplanes.

You're really trying to make this easy...
I said strategic skills of those people...not knowledge or modern weaponry...

About Normandy, in case you were unaware of it, that battle had massive air attacks and naval bombardment before the troops landed. And they had picked a weakly defended area, not the area around Calais, where most of the German officers thought the invasion would take place.
And despite this, the battle was very costly. In D-Day, the allies lost almost 5000 soldiers if not more and many more wounded. In the whole battle of Normandy, the Allies lost over 50 000 soldiers.

You really should watch the movie again if you think there was no air support...

The Republic has only 1,2 million clones, they really can't afford to waste troops like this.

What waste? They completely owned the droid army...

About the asteroids, Vader wants the MF captured and those onboard taken ALIVE, this is clearly stated in the film. Going in, guns blazing could destroy the MF and give the officer an angry Force choke. Vader knows the ship and knows that Luke is connected to it.

So why then were the TIEs chasing the MF and risk it being destroyed?
Contradictions...

About the shield over Hoth, it covered an area of the planet, it obviously didn't go all the way to the ground. It was like an umbrella shield. So the walkers landed beyond it and could then walk under it, simple.

So the energy shield had the shape of a table and not the obvious sphere? Funny...
Even so...why didn't the SDs fire at an angle from orbit that would go below this umbrella?

Umm with half or 1/4 the radius of the planet, you have ships BENEATH the surface of the planet.

What? 1/4 the radius implies 1/4 the radius above the surface...

The radius of Earth is about 6400 km, if you have the ships half a radius above, that gives a radius of about 9600 km. The surface area of that sphere is about 1 billion square km, so the area I calculated before was actually much too low. Just the surface area of Earth is 510 million square km. If we go with that number, that gives each ship about 70 million square km to guard. Quite a lot.
Bottom line, space is BIG.

Hoth was not that big though...It had a diameter of 7200km, aka only as big as Mars.
And again...you don't need to cover the entire planet...
The surface area around the base was quite small. 6 SDs & 1 SSD could cover it easily.

Bye.
The Guarding Dark[/quote]

 

And? Killing him would certainly have stopped him from leaving.
So once the clones had gotten the Jedi out of there, blast the foundries and the army. Dooku, dead, Nute, dead, the droid army, destroyed.
Or why didn't they take the chance to blast him while he was standing on that balcony? He was in full view.

[/QUOTE]

So they are not going to bother doing anything then. No effort to establish a blockade or engage any of the enemy ships. Talk about lazy.
Also, from what I've read, the rings of those TF ships have limited weapons and shields as long as the cores are not there. So it would have been quite simply to blow them up when the republic ships first arrived. One ship gets the Jedi out, one ship bombards the surface, the rest takes out the enemy ships and tries to establish a blockade.

This pretty much is what the Empire did in ESB, land troops while the ships spread out and try to prevent ships from fleeing.

@Darth Schlotkin

You keep overlooking the obvious in that the area in question is still very big.

Taking a single person and assuming a cone shaped area from that person and up. Say 45 degrees to each side and 500 km up. The base area of such a cone would be over 40 000 square km and each ISD would have 5000 square km to cover. Still a lot.

Ex. Geostationary Orbit is about 35 000 km from Earth's surface. GPS satellites are about 20 000 km from the surface.
Take your own picture with those satelites and try and calcuate how far apart they would be.

And then the TF/ISD would have to move and if they persist in moving together as one closed group, they would leave big holes everywhere. Say three rebel ships go out in three different directions, should the Empire keep all their seven ships as one or spread out?
The rebels have radar too and if they can see that all seven ships are within spitting distance of each other, they have many ways to exploit it.
So instead, the Empire spread out their ship to cover more area. The rebels saw the ISD, fired the Ion cannon directly at it. This created a whole in the net and the rebels could use it.

The ships we saw were in a ring formation as per your own picture.
And intersting that you bring up visibility. If each ISD was as little as 4-500 km apart, they would be quite hard to see.

The mediteranian sea isn't very "near" the equator. It is something like 3000 km to the north of the equator.

Seriously? Tactics and strategy are not part of their job?
The clones are made to be able to think creatively. That would be quite useless in a battle if they have no knowledge at all of tactics or strategy. And it would also mean they would have to be taught the details of each tactic and strategy when they are deployed. You can't simply say, "we will use a flanking manouver" because they have no idea what that is. Likewise they could wander into any all traps if they have no concpet of such things. In short, this is totally stupid.

Seriously??? For real???
So you think that strategy and tactics have nothing at all to do with knowledge of the kinds of weapons you have, swords, gun, nukes. It also is not dependent on equipment such as horses, tanks, helicopters. Strategy and tactics have remained unchanged for 2000 years?

A little history lesson, one of the reason why WW1 was so costly in terms of soldiers is that the generals used 19th centrury tactics and strategy. But weapons and technology had adanced faster than tactical thinking and so you had infantry charge across open fields directly at machine guns.
Towards the end of the war, they had become more familiar with what their weapons could do and adjusted their tactics.

You really should read my posts again if you think I've said that.

The republic had some airsupport, not a lot. Nowhere near the massive bombardment used at Normandy. Plus they picked a weak spot, they had knocked out communications and so on. In short, the Allies didn't blindy charge straight at the massed German armies so the comparison to Geonosis is not valid.

Confusing a table and an umbrella, that is funny.
And the shield covered an AREA of the planet so how can it be a sphere? If it covered the whole planet yes but it doesn't.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Theater_shield

As for shooting from the side, if the shield stops say 100 m from the surface, the base might be behind the curvature of the planet and thus not in line of sight.

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

If you chuck out EU references - it could be a much more transparent version of the shields we see in TPM and the TCW movie - half-sphere, it goes down to the ground, but, slow moving vehicles can penetrate it.

That would explain the AT-AT usage very neatly.

 

It wouldn't have been the end of the Rebellion. Even the rebellion's near defeat at ROTJ would still be averted as the remaining Rebellion would not have been strong enough to attempt the strike. And the Emperor may not lay the trap at all, as the Luke would be dead and all Emperor's foresight pertaining to him might go with him. The Rebel Alliance aren't a disturbance in the force.

 

@Darth Schlotkin

Except the film shows clearly that they didn't. There are several instances of seeing the whole planet and the TF ships. And those show quite clearly that the TF's don't form a sphere around the planet. Instead they are concentrated around middle of the planet in what looks like a ring formation. We see that the northern and southern hemispheres have no ships over them. Which makes it head scratching why the Naboo ship flies AT the blockade when they have plenty of other avenues of escape where there are no ships. Look at the scene when the Naboo fighter leaves the planet, we see the area below the planet and NO TF ships in sight.

Also, the Naboo ship fly extremely close to the TF ships, I mean less than 100 m away. And unlike the ISD, the TF ship was fully operational.

What does escape velocity have to do with anything?
I have been trying to demonstrate to you that the area above a planet is HUGE. And even with an extremely generous calculation, each ISD still have thousands of square km to cover. My point was that it makes sense for the ISD to be spread out and this explains why we see only one when the first rebel transport leaves. The others are out of visual range.
The dialogue matches this "Sir Rebel ships coming into OUR sector." Clearly, each ISD had been given an area to cover and would engage rebel ships entering their area.
This also explains the rebels tactic, by going towards one ISD, the other ISDs would not move as they would figure that this ISD would handle it. Then the ISD get hit by the Ion cannon and is knocked out. The rebel ship make it though and before the other ISD can move to intercept. in other words, punch a hole in the blockade. It is not clear how long that ISD was out of commission. Maybe hours, maybe longer.

As for radars, where have I contested that the Empire don't have them? They have scanners, that is how they were able to detect the shield after all. So they could probably spot a ship flying across the surface and off to the other side. However since they are further away, in orbit, they have a much longer way to travel and thus the rebel ship would get a head start.
That is why I argue that the ISD's are spread out and not clustered together.

To conclude this, the battle of Hoth was a win for the Empire despite not being able to stop all rebels from fleeing.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Hoth

First, the Clones have their own clone commanders so they are not all "grunts".
Second, the clones got something like five years of training and education and the Kamino people were quite proud of their combat and training program. Five years is quite a long time, enough to get some basic tactical knowledge and way more that the amount of training a "grunt" receives.
Third, having some knowledge of strategy and tactics would be VERY useful for the clones as they can for ex spot what the enemy is doing and prepare a defense.

If, as you argue, the clones have ZERO knowledge of strategy or tactical thinking, they are pretty useless as soldiers.
If you give them an order like "The enemy has a stronghold in those mountains, capture and secure it." The clones would have no idea what to do. They would just run off, gun in hand and get themselves killed. Tactical thinking would include being able to asses the defenses of an enemy stronghold and from where it is best to attack and what kind of attack is most likely to succeed.
Sorry, it makes no sense that the clones have no knowledge of strategy or tactics.

The comparison to Caesar or Alexander is pretty meaningless as their tactical skills are two millennia out of date. You can't separate weapons tech and equipment from tactics and strategy. WW1 showed what happens if you do. And that was just a few decades of tech progression.
Alexander was great at tactics with the armies, weapons and equipment he was familiar with. NOTE familiar. Even if you were to dump two millennia's worth of weapons tech into his head, there is no guarantee that he would be a great tactician with machine guns, stealth fighters, drones or nukes. Add space ships to that and the comparison is even more useless. A comparison to Gen Patton or Eisenhower would be somewhat better if still not very accurate.

As for the Jedi, given the abysmal tactics they used on Geonosis, I don't think they had much idea at all about what kinds of weapons they had. They used frankly retarded tactics and had infantry charge against masses of enemies. That is recipe for massive casualties with modern weapons.
The Jedi themselves admitted that they are NOT soldiers and they demonstrated that clearly on Geonosis. In the arena they were even more brain dead. Instead of just sending Mace to deal with Dooku, Nute, Jango and the rest. They should have sent 4-5 Jedi master with him and had 10 jedi knight guard the corridor. When the droids show, Mace simply puts his sword at Dooku's throat and says "Call them off or die." If Dooku doesn't submit, he dies. War over.
But instead the Jedi stupidly jump down into an enclosed area to engage an enemy with massive advantage in numbers. No surprise, they got cut to pieces.

Some EU sources gives the firepower of those republic ships as being around 200 GT, per shot. So ONE shot from ONE gun has more power than all of Earth's nuclear weapons put together. See now why being "Underground" wouldn't be much protection? One or two shots would totally obliterate the droid foundries, the droid army, Dooku, Nute and all the rest of them. Quick victory.

Towards the end of WW2, the US was faced with an invasion of Japan. This would have been very costly in both American and Japanese lives. So instead, they dropped two nukes and ended the war quickly if not so pleasantly and with a lot of Japanese deaths. The republic ships, as mentioned above, have firepower far beyond those nukes. Or to put it another way, one shot is about 20 million times more powerful that the Hiroshima bomb.
Trust me, if the republic had done some orbital bombardment, being underground would have been of little use. And the TF ships would get blown to bits.

Ok now you are nit-picking the technology. You might as well ask how they can travel at light speed, what causes the lightsabers to only be so long etc.
The shield covers an AREA of the planet, not the whole planet, this is clearly stated. So it can't be a sphere. And EU sources describe it as an umbrella shield. The Imperial walkers landed beyond the energy shield and could then walk to the base. The simplest explanation is that the shield doesn't go all the way to the ground. The other is that it is like the Gungan shield that stops energy weapons but not objects. But the shield had to be lowered to let the rebels ships leave so that doesn't work. Unless we assume that speed is somehow a factor too and slow moving objects can pass through but that still doesn't explain why the Empire just didn't send ships down slowly.

Lastly, it should be extremely obvious that the shield is high up in the atmosphere and not 10 feet above the ground. Say 100-200 km above the surface. No risk for the speeders to hit it.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Mod edit: Time for you to take a break

 

First off: I loved reading this thread, very interesting. I love Vimes' explanations, especially regarding to tactics and math. I just find that sort of thing interesting to read about. What can I say, I'm a military history buff.

Second off: In Scholtkin's defense, he/she is not saying, "Hey, if we literally transplanted Alexander the Great/Eisenhower along with the military knowledge of their time period, they could absolutely conquer the Rebel base!" What he/she is saying that if someone from the Star Wars universe who knew how to win wars, was exceptional at tactics and military strategies, they could've figured out a better way to conquer the Rebels and crushed the rebellion right then and there.