ST Military Tactics In The ST

Let me start by clearly saying that I’m not a “hater” nor I’m I “trolling”. I do not mean to give offence to people that love TLJ, rather I ask those people to help me understand some aspects of the film.

During the opening movie during the evacuation see see these very slow moving bombers advancing on the imperial fleet. Why were those ships depicted as being so slow? Why couldn’t the Star Destroyers simply blow them to pieces? Furthermore, why didn’t those Star Destroyers launch their TIE to form a defensive screen?

One bomber destroyed an entire Star Destroyer. If they are so easy to destroy then what is the purpose of them?

My second question relates to the lightspeed attack. If one can simply point a ship at a military target and just jump to lightspeed why are both sides not employing this tactic on a regular basis?
What use is the imperial star fleet if the resistance can just launch starfighters or old cargo ships into it?
In fact, why even go that far, why not build big metal boxes, fill them with explosives and strap on a hyperdrive and point them in the right direction?

 

@TheNewEmpire , there's a huge thread here discussing the hyperspace ram: https://boards.theforce.net/threads/admiral-holdos-hyperjump-in-episode-viii.50050388/

 

Your explanation makes some sense but why does the resistance need that particular kind of slow bomber?

Why are they so slow? And why do they need to be positioned directly over the target?
Why not fire them horizontally?

 

Hopefully I can recall correctly because I don’t feel like watching that sequence again.

It’s done for dramatic effect. It’s obviously supposed to be like a WW2 B-17 bombing run, but there’s so little distance between the Resistance cruiser and the FO Dreadnought that RJ has to slow them down to a snail’s pace, which just looks ridiculous and badly overdone.

They don’t fire missiles because that wasn’t the idea RJ had, the idea of WW2 bombers which dropped bombs.

Poe destroyed every last point defense turret the Dreadnought had.

The Dreadnought did launch TIEs, and the TIEs tore all of the bombers but one to pieces.

The rest of the Star Destroyers never participate in anything, for no reason. The FO fleet is badly handled.

It is an effective argument to discontinue their construction, but this was always true in Legends EU, where starfighters could always destroy Star Destroyers, and with the destruction of the Death Star by a single fighter, the same argument likely always applied to the movies.

I consider it very bad continuity that clashes badly with the setting.

Follow the link posted by Sarge for more discussion.

 

As a vehement TLJ critic, I think that the bombers are a good concept because they mostly follow the “rules” of WWII weaponry which is the basis for Star Wars tactics. The problem is that Rian Johnson didn’t go the next level in thinking about how they operate in universe because they are so slow that they would get blown up during their own bombing run since they can’t outrun the explosion. He wanted to recreate the dramatic visual of bombers flying through waves of flak and getting shredded but he got carried away in exaggerating their awkwardness to the point of parody.

Another strange decision regarding tactics: when Leia orders Poe to back out of the attack and he refuses, why doesn’t she order the bombers to disengage as well? They were very far from the Dreadnought, so it’s not like it was too late to call off the attack. It seems weird that she would just defer to him as soon as he disobeys an order, like the Resistance admirals can’t give orders to their own pilots? She could have straight up told him the attack is over and you need to come back because you’re all on your own. Again, Rian Johnson was trying to build drama without thinking through how the battle actually plays out.

As to the hyperspace ram, it just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a mistake, like if Rey were to toss her lightsaber at the miniaturized Death Star battering ram cannon (another questionable element) and it blew up.

 

People usually focus on the bombers, but what about everything that happens before that moment? Nobody has ever explained to me why Hux decided to attack the base and the Raddus with the Dreadnought only, rather than using also the TIE fighters and the Star Destroyers. It was the slowest attack I have ever witnessed in a SW movie. The dynamics of the battle is completely different with respect to what we usually see in the other movies, Compare it to what happens in RO. Vader suddenly arrive with a LS jump and starts a massacre. He destroys something like three ships in 2 seconds.
Virtually none of the strategic decisions taken in the movie by either the FO or the Resistance make sense to me.

 

I mean, it doesn't seem very logical to me for one star fighter to be able to take out an entire SD's defenses like that. I understand that They are for targeting larger ships and TIE's are for defense against just this thing, but why not launch any until the bombers showed up?

I would think standard procedure would be to launch a TIE squadron as soon as an enemy fight comes in range...

I agree. In principle the bombers work, but in practice not so much. The battle just wasn't adequately thought out. It's strange to me that Disney can spend millions on these movies visual effects, but can't afford a pencil and notepad.
Maybe going forward they should have someone like Timothy Zahn or an navy person to consult with?

 

Do *any* of the battles in the prequels or originals make real-world military sense though?

Notsomuch. Fairytale.

Might as well be throwing barbs at Narnia over medieval army thought.

 

Actually, it’s very normal for SW to have pre-battle scenes where tacticians discuss the technology, objectives and relative strength of both sides before the fighting starts. This gives context to the battle scene so that we know the stakes and can understand their decisions as it plays out. Yes they utilize technology that is essentially magical, but there are “rules” to how it operates which creates an internal logic to the proceedings.





The problem with TLJ is that the battles employ technology and tactics we’ve already seen many times throughout the saga, but the tacticians utilize it, or fail to, in ways that don’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense that Hux would be chomping at the bit to destroy the Resistance fleet one minute, and then casually decide to take a break the next minute. Nor does it make sense that Leia would order Poe to stand down, but then refrain from ordering the bombers to do the same just because he disobeyed her. Holdo’s plan doesn’t make sense either, when it’s clearly established that Resistance ships can hyperspace away from and back to the space chase without the First Order detecting them. And of course the hyperspace ram doesn’t make sense within the context of the saga.

So yes, SW battles use fantasy elements, but they usually maintain an internal logic that TLJ just doesn’t have, imo.

 

Actually, it makes perfect sense. Your comparison doesn't work at all. This was a capital ship used in a last ditch effort to prevent the First Order ships from firing at the transports, either by forcing the fleet to focus their fire on the cruiser, or by hopefully even destroying them.

Why this sort of attempt doesn't happen more often is actually rather obvious: there rarely is a situation where it would be practical to do so. If you have numerical superiority, you don't have any need to throw away ships like that, because you are likely winning anyway. If you are vastly outnumbered, like the resistance, you really cannot afford to throw away ships on suicide runs, because you already lack firepower anyway. The only time where such an attempt is actually useful, is if it is the only thing that could prevent certain doom for your entire army/fleet. In such a case, having some people survive is more useful than having them all go down. There hasn't been a single situation where such a move would have been useful in any of the other Star Wars movies.

It also makes no sense whatsoever to pretend that a small fighter attempting something like this would somehow be similar. That's like saying a fly crashing into a car's windshield would have the same impact as a deer crashing into the car. The whole thing works with a big ship on a big target because a) you have a a lot of mass and therefore a lot of energy to actually harm a target, b) the size means that you are more likely to hit the enemy with at least part of your ship, and c) because you are going after a big object that is easier to hit. Hitting a very large Star Destroyer with a large cruiser is bound to have a huge impact. Hitting a very large Star Destroyer with a very tiny fighter is unlikely to do much at all, unless you miraculously manage to hit the perfect spot, which is very unlikely when you can't really aim all that well. A rebel pilot managed to take down the SSD in ROTJ by crashing into its bridge. But at that point its shields were down, and the pilot could basically "aim" because he was slow enough to do so.

This is very much true. Fantasy battles are set up to entertain and fro dramatic purposes, not to represent actually sense from a military point of view. Star Wars is full of ships and vehicles that make no real sense (e.g. "lets make giant, top-heavy walkers!"), and combat behaviour that simply makes no sense at all (e.g. the Rebels' approach to the trench run). The heavy bombers of TLJ are just another item in a very long list. They are a very interesting concept, though you have to wonder why the resistance of all people would exclusively have slow and lumbering "strategic bombers" instead of those capable of hit-and-run tactics.


And as for the post above:
just because people hold a meeting and talk about stuff, doesn't mean that their behaviour in battle is in any way logical. None of the larger battles in Star Wars have made any sense from a military point of view. They all picked famous approaches to combat and put them into a futuristic environment. That looks cool, but it doesn't make sense. It's just that generally people don't bother to nitpick like that, because that's not why you watch such movies. And those who do nitpick usually are rather hypocritical about it, because they ignore the same weaknesses in things they like.

 

Right. And that's not even a criticism, it is what it is. This is fantasy fairytale fare, pulp-serial fun, pure and simple. You want strictly-believable, look elsewhere, Lucas isn't your man. He deals in myth, it's why he's great.

 

Please, let's have a conversation without calling "hypocritical" those with different opinions, it leads nowhere.
In the merit of the discussion, I'm with @Glitterstimm on this one. It's not really about nitpicking, but rather having a general understanding of the dynamics at play. I really don't ask very much when it comes to the military strategy of SW. Take the first movie of the OT. What do we need to know? There is the Death Star, which is a massive devastating weapon of the enemy, and there is the plan to destroy it, consisting roughly speaking in creating an explosion in a precise crucial point. Simple, effective and easily understood. Of course, if we wanted to nitpick, there would be thousands of issues we might possibly have. But the main idea makes sense and there is a sort of coherence within the universe.

Our problem with TLJ is that officers take decisions which don't seem to be in line with what has been established in the other movies, at least to us. The structure of the battles is completely different from the one of any other movie, in a way that doesn't look convincing to us.

But even within the fantastic universe there are rules. This is were our issues are. We feel that those rules were ignored in TLJ.

 

The rules are still there in TLJ.

You don't kamikaze with your limited ships because it's not a wise overall wide strategy, not because it's not possible to do. Extreme circumstances.

The FO turret/Poe fighter stuff's a little questionable, but then again...so is some clueless hick farmboy who's never set foot in an X-Wing evading a bunch of Imperial hotshots and blowing up the greatest battlestation in the universe on the tactical advice of a dead guy cooing "Use the foooooorrrceeee Luuuuukkeee..." from the netherrealm.

Fairytale.

 

And yet one of these ostensibly rarely practical scenarios happens only a few minutes earlier in the film?


But even if the situation is so rare that we just haven't seen it, then why don't they put hyperspace engines on large asteroids or empty freighters and use them as droid-piloted missiles? I think we've been over this discussion many times in the designated thread, so I'll just link to that. If you want to specifically address any criticisms I've brought up over there I'm happy discuss.

So you think that none of the battles in Star Wars make any sense? I disagree, I think the whole point of having elaborate set ups to the battle is so that we can understand why each side behaves the way it does. The battle of Endor, for example, wouldn't make any sense *if not* for the multiple scenes where Rebel and Imperial officers explain how they think the battle will play out. And honestly, I don't see my criticisms as nitpicking TLJ while ignoring the rest of the saga. For example, where else is there any instance of an officer like Hux, suddenly deciding that the ships he wanted to destroy only a few minutes earlier should now be left to fly around for 18 hours? That kind of inexplicable inconsistency just doesn't exist in the other films, at least not that I've seen. If you have your own example in mind then by all means, I'd love to hear it.

 

But within the universe it actually makes sense, because Luke had a sort of supernatural power, as we see in the movie. We must make a difference between what does not make sense from a real world perspective and what does not make sense from an in-universe perspective. Hux' behavior in most scenes of TLJ does not make sense to me on a strictly in-universe perspective.

 

Poe's been basically portrayed as Maverick from Top Gun from the start, a ridiculously-capable fighter ace with a bunch of luck on his side. Force-intuition like Luke? Nope. But shouldn't-make-it-out-alive-but-does like Han? Hell yeah.

Doesn't make sense. Doesn't have to. Children's "Good Prevails Over Evil" story. And that's not a criticism.

 

Oh, I can agree on that. I personally don't like the idea of Poe destroying all the surface cannons by himself, but I wouldn't say that it's the best example of things not making sense in TLJ. There are many things in the movie that are way more disturbing and puzzling to me.

 

The point that Star Wars is a fairy tale has been made. Several times. It’s been noted. The topic of the thread has been dismissed. Several times. The dismissal of the thread topic has been noted.

The rest of us are going to continue to actually discuss the military tactics in the ST because we choose to and it’s what this thread and this forum is for. You’ll find similar threads in the PT and OT forums.

At .99c, that fly, weighing a mere eleven milligrams, would create six million megajoules. That’s 10% of the Hiroshima bomb.

 

I don't have any problem with Poe taking out the turrets because it's been explained that he's the best fighter pilot in the Resistance so it's not like just anyone can do it. The issue for me is that Leia's decisions seem weird. She blames Poe for all the bombers getting killed, but she didn't order them to fly back? I think this was an oversight, there needed to be some little mechanic to place the blame squarely on Poe, like he switches off the bombers' radios or something. As it stands, she's just as much to blame as he is because she let's it all happen. Maybe it's just a situation where the officers decide to blame the grunt for their own mistakes? I think that would be fine too, but I get the impression that TLJ doesn't want us to come to that conclusion.

 

I think there are two possibilities:
1) for some inexplicable reason Poe was the only one who had direct communication with the bombers, and Leia had no authority over them.
2) Leia had authority over the bombers but allowed them to attack because she wanted to somehow save Poe's life in this way.

None of them are convincing to me, but I think that number 1 is probably what RJ had in mind.

 

I'd rather hear this sweeping generalization decomposed into a case by case basis, so that the reader can make this judgement for themselves based on the prowess of your argument of absence.

 

I thought of these explanations too but they don't work for me because:

1) It's been established throughout the saga that fighters all have radios which can securely communicate with commanders and each other, so I don't know why it would be different this time, and if it is different then that needed to be shown on screen

2) I think this is the most reasonable explanation, but imo it doesn't really support the "lesson learned" that TLJ wants us to digest. Poe still races off to lead his pilots in near-suicidal attacks, and Leia lets him do it. She tells him that he needs to prioritize the lives of all the resistance soldiers (a lesson that Rose later tries to deliver as well) but when the rubber hits the road he's the only one she cares about and lets him do whatever he wants in the second FO attack and at Crait. She supposedly demotes him because she doesn't trust him to lead his own troops, but the way it plays out, it's more like she just wants him to be closer to her because he's the only one that matters and she needs him alive.