CT Was the trench run necessary?

I've always wondered, was there a specific reason that the rebels had to go through the trench instead of flying straight at the hole to fire at it?

 

No. It just made for a cool scene.

 

Wasn't it something like the defenses around the Death Star (specifically turrets and ****) made it too dangerous for a direct flight to the exhaust port?

 

To reach the port from above, you have to fly straight down above the port at a speed slow enough to allow you to pull up before you hit the station. The AA turbolaser batteries would easily lock onto any ship flying such a straight course and blow it away with flak. And trying to just hover over the port and start blasting would be even worse, since your ship would be a stationary target. And trying use some sort of homing signal on the torpedo to allow it to take a long-range, remotely-directed course isn't effective either, due to the heavy signal jamming around the battle area. A flat, high-speed trench run is the best, if highly dangerous, way to go.

And, yes, it does look a lot cooler.

 

But there was also turrets in the trench it self.. Although they proved to be a total non threat..

 

Ineffective/much less heavy fire, perhaps

 

Spartan Kobe wrote

I've always wondered, was there a specific reason that the rebels had to go through the trench instead of flying straight at the hole to fire at it?

Gigoran Monk wrote

No.

Yes, there was a specific "in-universe" reason why it had to be done the way it was done, but we just don't know the exact reasons, perhaps there was too much electromagnetic interference above the trench that would have screwed up the computer's target distance calculations (although looking "cool" is most likely the reason from the film maker's point of view).

 

I myself have also interpreted the Rebels preferring the trench that the threat from turbo lasers would have been lower there, as there were relatively few of them compared to the surface. Also, inside the trench the Rebels probably felt safer from TIE fighters. Above the surface a practically unlimited number of them could have shot the much fewer Rebels fighters down, while in the trench only a very limited number of TIE were able to follow at a time.

 

The reason given is that a direct hit in the exhaust port is required. So the fighters need to fly head on towards it, from a distance that gives them enough time for a targeting computer lock.

So we must assume that they don't have guided missiles suitable for the job and that their targeting computers do not operate very quickly.

Thus, George has his own Dambusters raid.

 

I've always found that since the Death Star Was made to defend from a "Large Scale Assault" that that not only included defense from Capital Ships but from anything in general probably much more turbolaser batteries if they went by the surface vs trench. Also, I thought going through the trench made it much easier to hit the exhaust port and or so less Tie Fighters could follow starfighters in a narrow trench. And the complaint of why the empire sends so few tie fighters after the rebels is it's own discussion...

 

This is turning away from the harder question that Spock would address. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Or does the life of one Rebel pilot outweigh the lives of the next planet that the DS shall visit after it has destroyed Yavin IV? It is easy and perfunctory from the western standpoint to assign a madness to the strategy of the kamikaze. Some kind of way of life, that some kind of people seemed to enjoy or find structurally sound enough to continue and maintain, was under enough threat that some kind of young person asked this Spocklike question in reference to their many. Then they had tea.

DS as a port of nuclear weapons and WMDs was a new thing to the conception of the time. (This is me not giving a rat's ass what fan came up with some other superweapon prior to the DS.) It's a strong position to take that the Rebel pilots would value their lives so highly in the face of what happened to Alderaan. Dodonna said factually, the approach will not be easy. He did not say, we want you to take it easy so that you come back alive, and we'll try again tomorrow. Biggs does ask after Luke's eternal soul, will you be able to pull out in time. But Biggs, history reveals, has motivations to highly value Luke's life apart from the valuation he places on a fellow soldier in a dire cause.

 

Strangely though, that exhaust port can NOT be approached head-on from the trench. Remember that it's located at the bottom of the trench, not the wall. So the Rebels had to try to get the torpedoes in at a 90 degree angle instead of firing straight ahead. In the movie we clearly see the torpedoes actually making a turn or fly in a curve before going in. This is something I never really understood. What good were all the targeting computers when the missiles themselves DO seem to have some type of independent propulsion? What else could have made them fly in a curve in vacuum? The Death Star's gravity maybe?

 

The missile's ability to "home" is limited - it needs to be dropped in the right place, using the targeting computer, for its own homing ability to take it the rest of the way.

 

But the approach will not be easy. You are required to...

From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...by-hour-how-the-Dambusters-raid-unfolded.html

I will quote the highlights relating to altitude constraints:

So if one can imagine the deciduous tree heights of Germany, and imagine flying below them, then the historical precedent, itself, already offers up a constraint that is trench-like. Flying below radar would be analogous to flying below turbolasers, for, radar acquires firing solutions. So there is an analogue to 'flying below' the level of a specific threat. The valleys themselves, that the dams physically occupy, is an analogue to a trench. These factors were alllll in play when Lucas was using Operation Chastise as a template.

It so happens that Colin Cantwell, in his late years, has recently, -until I hear that he made these claims earlier in life, and these claims are backed up by physical record- claimed that the idea for the trench run in the climactic sequence originates from him. His claim is that he suggested to Lucas that Lucas could add a trench to his climactic battle in order to increase the tension. The evidence Cantwell points to as a motivation for this statement is that when Cantwell was contracted to produce a physical model concept / prototype model for the Death Star, the plastic material he used shrank ever so slightly at the edges, leaving two hemispheres that did not quite join up in a perfectly spherical sphere. They joined up in a sphere with a gap around the seam. Colin Cantwell can most absolutely claim to be the (accidental) originator of the immortal equatorial trench of the Death Star. The physical evidence backs that up.

If anyone has period behind the scenes reference material demonstrating the connection between Cantwell and the trench of the climactic battle sequence, I want to see it. Period means Cinefex / BTS / VFX industry magazines of that time, 1975-197n.

 

The equatorial trench is vastly wider than the trench with the thermal exhaust port in. I think the novelization made a point of saying at that the thermal exhaust port trench was somewhere near the Death Star's north pole.

 

Flippin' eck!

 

I. Iron_lord
Yes. You and I both recognize that the equatorial trench is much wider than the trench of the climatic battle. I also do vaguely recall the point about the novelization saying the target shaft trench was in the northern hemisphere. It is a reasonable thing to expect that if there was >a< reason, no matter what that >a< reason was, for there to be an equatorial trench, then in-universe, there would be another >a< reason to have a trench somewhere else. So it shouldn't be shocking to have a small trench when a large trench is present. Whoever stamps their foot that a small trench exists shall then must stamp their foot that a large trench exists.

II. Lucas' original thinking does not give great support to the idea that the final target was protected by geometry. Pilot attrition is by flak. There are no enemy fighters. The following passages are from The Star Wars First Draft, July, 1974. Colin Cantwell was hired in November, 1974. The first attack turns to the south. The word “transformer” takes on the role of the target of opportunity. The target is not recessed, but “jutts”. Other transformers are valid targets, but there is a particular boss (“main crosslink”) transformer that is the best target. “A” “main” transformer target *is flanked by objects. The script says “solar towers” but that does not necessarily mean flak towers. They then identify “the” “main relay” transformer. (It is possible, however unlikely, that Chris Weitz and Gary Whitta found a weak line in this script, and exploited it.) Careful, leisurely analysis in preparation for the second attack reveals that the leaders have identified and thoroughly analyzed “the” transformer, sin qua non, that will end the story. (One character appears to suggest that a boarding party might be a valid, desperate measure. The other character deems that a boarding party would well be suicide.) In the final attack, the pilots go after “prime power terminals”. This is different language from “transformer” and “main relay” and “central system”, and the section with the final attack also does not mention “south” in any way, but we know that the two leader characters were referring specifically to these pilots with respect to this attack. So the final attack should be interpreted as equal to targeting the “central system” transformer, sin qua non, that will end the story.

 

There's a problem with the idea of the pilots deliberately going for a suicide run from the outset: what if they miss? You need to be alive to try another run and, hopefully, a successful shot. You don't go purposely flying in at a suicidal trajectory unless you're down to your last shot and there is literally nobody else around to follow you. Besides, this was by no means going to be the last battle of the war, and it would be better if the pilots were able to return to fight in the next battle.

As I understand it, the current canon is that the TIEs in the battle were from Vader's personal squadron, rather than from the station's own forces. Supposedly, the DS command staff didn't think it was necessary to send up their own forces, thinking the Rebels weren't a threat. Vader disagreed, so he ordered his own group out into the battle. I'm pretty sure that's in the Death Star novel, though that may have been retconned.

 

As pointed out in several posts here already, flying below the level of the highest terrain is a very effective way to reduce the threat of enemy defenses. The official term for that in the US Air Force is "terrain masking." If there's a hill between you and the enemy guns, they just can't shoot you.

Defenders can counter that technique by situating guns in the valleys/trenches, but those guns will have limited fields of fire and not be very useful for anything except defending against low level attackers flying right over their heads. Another option for the defenders is to put guns on the high terrain where they can shoot down at the attackers, which is presumably why the dialog mentions some guns in towers. The problems with putting guns up high are that it can be difficult to put them up there, and the guns are vulnerable to attack from many angles.

One of my more interesting combat missions in the C-130 was a delivery run in Afghanistan. Our destination airfield was high up in mountain country in an area where hostiles were known to be using shoulder-launched missiles. My crew decided the safest way to get there was to stay well below the mountaintops and wind our way through valleys to the airfield. We had good terrain maps of the area and our navigator was confident he could guide us through valleys that were wide enough for us. It was a wild ride and lots of the passengers puked, but we got there without any bad guys shooting at us. And when it was over, the pilot said it was "just like Beggars Canyon back home."

 

I enjoy the fact that what you say is a pleasing human truth under the ordinary situation that there is an expectation of a tomorrow. I can cite ROTJ as evidence that there are times, in the human/lifeforms of liberty perception in the GFFA, when there is not a tomorrow. "We won't get another chance at this, Admiral." "We won't last long against those Star Destroyers." "We might just take a few of them with us." I submit this as evidence that lifeforms of liberty in GFFA do have a threshold for change of strategy.

I'm pleased and shocked to hear an item of revision that genuinely strikes me as a sensible explanation for why it was Vader who ordered a TIE pilot to get the crews to their fighters. Motti's "not to this battlestation", Tarkin's "moment of triumph" and Bast's too late "there Is a danger" strongly support it. Vader's "next to the power of the Force", "I sense something, a presence I haven't felt", and "the Force is with him" means he's tipped off to something new in the terrain of the Force. It doesn't go to rest just because Obi-Wan has been vanquished. "The Force is strong in this one" is not uttered in surprise.... Vader was mentally prepared for this trouble.

 

There is a time and a place to lay down one's life for a higher cause. But for most healthy living beings, that is not the place to begin, it is the last resort when all else has failed. By the time the rebels got to that point at Yavin, they were already committed to an attack plan with a chance of survival.

 

It's an interesting puzzle. If one abandons the idea that all pilots were committed to eliminating the DS, and had the option to break off their commitment for reasons lesser than having perished, one has to explain Leia and the other staff staying behind on Yavin IV. Or, at least, one would have to explain why Leia herself stayed behind when she was a minor leader in the Rebellion. The staff were all expendable if the pilots failed, because the pilots relied on status updates from the staff. The staff required some ranking leadership, who would also be considered expendable if the pilots failed. The pilots, if they did complete their mission by destroying the DS, so that it was assured they had a base to return their crippled craft to, would need flight deck crew to service these surviving assets as rapidly as possible, so... the flight deck crew were expendable if the pilots failed.

Perhaps Leia stayed behind because she perceived that there had to be a moral ethical authority shining as an example of confidence in the pilots... But was herself expendable in the larger scope of the Rebellion. Interesting puzzle. The final medal ceremony certainly shows there could have been a high number on Yavin IV that did evacuate. (Rogue One steps in at this point. And Rogue One's contribution is consistent on this point.)

 

Well, since we are way behind Star Wars in terms of technology, but can put a cruise missile through a window from hundreds of miles away, you'd think they would be able to pass throught the magnetic field, cruise above the trench, target the port, fire about 50 torpedoes at the exhause, then break off and jump to hyperspace, but they still had WW2-style bombing sights, so they had to do it "old school".

It's just a case of real-world technology improving faster than moviemakers could have known. For example, in Aliens, the Colonial Marines had these big, bulky cameras and shoulder lamps, but a few decades later we already have much smaller and more efficient devices. Same goes for the payphone in Back to the Future Part 2, etc.