Death Star Trench

I went searching for a topic on this but found none so I hope someone could help me. Why did the Rebels start so far down the trench only to get shot up.....I mean why didn't they just drop into the trench closer to the exhaust port so they did not have to worry about fighters on their tails. The turbocannons had trouble hitting them so wouldn't this have been a better idea for them.

 

There are probably more guns on the surface farther up the trench. By entering quite a ways down, there was less gun cover, and that made it easier to actually get into the trench.

 

that would mean that the empire knew about the problem with the exhaust port wouldn't it

 

Not necessarily. Maybe they just hadn't had time to put in guns all along the trench with equal spacing. It could have simply been an oversight that there weren't many guns covering one portion of the trench.

 

Not necessarily -- the gun placements might have had nothing to do with it -- but there is evidence that the Imperials figured it out, a bit too late:

Officer: We've analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?
Tarkin: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!

 

Also by going into the trench earlier they could avoid the Imperial fighters that were above them. Granted in the trench they are sitting ducks, it gave them an element of cover easy to miss from above in a dogfight.

 

If they went in later then they'd have the fighters as well as the hundreds of turbolasers to worry about, the turbolasers in the trench weren't very numberous compared to the surface

 

Yep, and we can assume that the guns on the surfact can't achieve the right angle to shoot inside the trench.

 

What's a right angle got to do with it?

 

Because they thought it would be more exciting that way.

Although- perhaps the exhaust port was on the far side of the death star. they had to take the quickest route because the imperials were gearing up for a shot at yavin 4. they didn't have time to take a steeper angle, and went for an immediate, shallow approach, and went down the trench to avoid the laser barrage.

 

The correct angle. They can't point the at the correct angle and part of the trench gets in the way.