ST Space chase/ Crait plan discussion thread

Forgive me if this was already posted, I think it explains a great many things....

 

I like how he points out the potent effectiveness of fighters as strikecraft in the video and leaves open the massive flaw that the First Order's fleet contained many squadrons of fighters that could have torn apart the Raddus within a matter of a few hours at most.

Oh, so I just got a somewhat accurate measure of the fleets capabilities. While it says that there were an unknown number of fighters, The Supermacy holds a complement of 8 star destroyers total. Keep in mind that the Resurgent-class, the First Order's newest model, has a general complement of two starfighter wings (a single wing being composed of about 12 squadrons which amount to 72 fighters). Given that, consider how large of a complement the Supermacy is capable of holding at any one time on top of the rest of the fleet's usual complement prior to the Supremacy joining the battle.

The Raddus should have been overwhelmed as it had no active countermeasure against this large of a force comprised of fighters.

 

Snoke still has the expectation that Skywalker will show intervene in the Resistance's slow death march, and has no desire to snuff them out too soon.

 

I think the tactics of the F O in TLJ make sense if viewed thru the eyes of the officers involved.

Having come up with a plan to wipe out the Resistance with minimal losses to their own forces and understanding what would happen to them if they failed it became a case of "don't screw this up"

 

In the novelization Poe asked Leia about why Holdo didn't tell him The Plan and she said that it was best as few people knew about it as possible. So I suppose that is "the explanation" for Holdo being so secretive about The Plan.

Also there was a sentence somewhere in which some FO officer had reasoned there was no reason to risk lives by sending the TIEs when the Raddus would run out of fuel eventually anyway.

 

I am glad to see that my reasoning was more or less on target for these points.

 

I still don't think they are good explanations.

Also, Holdo does not address morale, which is in the novelization and Poe is noticing how it's declining. The novelization also noted how they had to have more people monitor the escape pods as time went on because more crew were trying to desert. So really the criticism of Holdo and not doing anything about morale, stands.

As for the FO, it remains that not using their TIEs cost them. But it seems they all had this arrogant lazy attitude, and were lazy in their thinking too.

Poe seems to be going through a psychological crisis. It's like he's in this hell he can't get out of.

 

Holdo sucks at being a leader, we all agreed on that... especially when compared to Leia.

But she was what she was. And the movie wanted us to compare Holdo vs Leia different leadership styles, through the eyes of Poe.

I don't care much if the explanations are considered good or not, only if the explanations are feasible. Which I think they are.

 

This is one of the best videos anyone participating in this thread could watch.

 

I adore Holdo.
She can kick me off her bridge anyday.

 

This is easy to say in hindsight.

Before WW2, the US naval fleet was not ready for the Kamikazes.

There is a first time for everything, and from now on the risk of the "Holdo Maneuvre" will be taken into consideration when defining battle strategies in the universe of Star Wars.

 

Nevertheless. The USN took more casualties from kamikaze than they expected the IJN flying force had the capacity for.

 

And into a David Lynch film?


Get it?


Because Laura Dern

 

How very dern you?

 

I agree with this. If I were JJ/Disney, one of the "not quite" retcons that would be high on my list would be establishing in IX that the "hyperspace bullet" had some kind of significant deleterious effect that was justified solely to the desperation of the moment. If you wanted some politics involved you could actually have it be that the resistance is given a certain amount of side-eye for using a technique that was banned by the civilized forces of the galaxy for that same reason. Even still it would be difficult to create something that makes sense.

 

I like to think that it is just a very difficult maneuver, and this is the reason why it's not used very often.
After all Holdo succeeded only because Hux underestimated the danger.

 

Not in a fantasy movie context it isn't. In fact it's arguably desirable.

The fact remains that USN destroyers and carriers were lost, ultimately, to single aircraft kamikaze strikes. Logically, an egregious oversight of the IJN air force's capacity. By the standards of military prescience that are implied here.

 

The only problem of the hyperspace ram is that, once you weaponize hyperspace, it only opens the question “why didn’t/don’ they do this all the time?”.

It renders space battles pointless.

 

If it's anticipated in those terms, then it's usually compensated for tactically. That could mean not relying on astronautic (for want a better word) combat on that scale altogether. Like when Dreadnought warfare was made obsolete over the course of the naval war of WWII.

 

One thing is battleships becoming obsolete, another thing is timeless tactical decisions. The hyperspace ram is a tactical decision that does make you wonder why it wasn’t employed before, during and after (in case IX doesn’t use this tactic).

 

Necessity? It was only used as a last gasp measure in TLJ.

Strategically, it hasn't been demonstrated as being feasible in any previous engagement that I'm aware of.

As Poe's exploits at the start of the movie demonstrated, the losses from achieving such apparent substantial gains can be strategically significant when there is still so much, proportionately, to lose.

It's why the Raddus's sacrifice was a supreme command decision, and had to be executed personally by supreme headquarters personnel.

It should also be considered that it wasn't guaranteed that the outcome would be so devastating to the enemy. Another reason why it's never been attempted before on this scale.