CT The lost pilots and scenes from the Endor space battle in Return of the Jedi

Given that so much of the SW 1977 trench run was inspired by The Dam Busters, wouldn't a more natural choice of model for the Y-Wings have been the Avro Lancaster bomber used in the film (and the real life WWII raid)?

 

I know this one is cited a lot (still have to see it, though) but the ill-fated Devastator torpedo bombers in Midway were facing heavy fire from the anti-aircraft artillery from the Japanese ships, were taken down by the Japanese fighters and didn't score a single torpedo hit - that's pretty much the same we saw happening to the Y-Wings and the first X-Wings in ANH.

Another parallel is the story of George H. Gay, jr. (sole Midway survivor of the Devastators) which seems to have inspired ESB. His rear gunner had been lethally wounded and he crash landed behind the Japanese carrier. Reminded me a lot of what Luke went through...

 

Also keep in mind that the Y-Wings were originally played the role of the X-Wings as the "hero ships" in the 1975 second draft of SW. At that stage the craft had three different crew positions: Luke was the pilot, Wedge Antilles was the tail gunner, and Artoo and Threepio together manned the bomb bay.

 

Another detail from the Midway film, which looks like a collossal coincidence (I didn't mention earlier):

The ill-fated US Navy Torpedo Squadron 8 (the Devastator torpedo bombers from the USS Hornet) was led by John C. Waldron, according to the film his call sign was "Red (Fox) Leader" (same as the Y-Wing call sign in the original ANH screenplay before it became "Gold").

And the call sign of the fictional (and successful) squadron leader Matthew Garth played by Charles Heston was "Blue Leader".

Midway was released on June 18, 1976, but since Lucas had already written the screenplay drafts featuring "Red" and "Blue" Leader earlier that year, it has to be some kind of strange coincidence.

Nevertheless, the premise of Midway was about the US Forces in the Pacific Theater to keep the Midway Atoll as a base of operations and to defend it. I find the accidental parallels to ANH rather intriguing.

 

(briefly) Someone comment on the change from story blue to story red as a function of blue stripes on prop X-Wings not showing up against blue screen. When did this misfortune occur inside this timeline of the coincidence of red v blue real life analogue call signs?

 

http://www.makmodeler.com/?p=951

I don't recall the exact timeline of events. Guess I'd have to take a look into The Making of Star Wars. I also saw an image - believed to be genuine - of a Y-Wing with red stripes.

"Lucas: We had 800 shots to get through. They’d spent a year and a million dollars and had one shot—a cannon going boom, boom, boom. I said, “OK, at least we’re on our way.” This was in August 1976. The film came out in May 1977." https://www.wired.com/2015/05/inside-ilm/

 

George Gay wrote a book called Sole Survivor. I have an autographed copy. Recommended reading. As for the Dambuster raid, I strongly recommend Brickhill's The Dambusters and Guy Gibson's Enemy Coast Ahead.

 

After WW1. Cutting submarine cables was considered a war crime. After WW2 bombing dams was considered a war crime.

 

Amazing! Do you know where photos of the original "Blue One" X-Wing and "Red Jammer" Y-Wing models can be found?

 

http://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.com/2014/03/ilm-classic-image-living-in-box.html

This was built and shipped out early to serve as a scale reference for construction of Yavin IV hangar sets.



http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/T-65B_X-wing_starfighter

 

I always like it when toy companies put out merchandise based on pre-production designs that aren't actually used in the films.

Shame there don't seem to be any good photos of the Blue One X-wing on the Internet, though...

 

And already in the UK they painted the Y-Wing 'gold' and the X-Wing 'red', so the colors were changed while in the UK.

 

Lt. Hija
Rinzler Making of Star Wars p38:

See also: "Are the Y-Wings in ANH ex Republic or a new model entirely?" , http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ex-republic-or-a-new-model-entirely.50038469/
So with these color changes, the Battle of Midway had red (real).
The earliest intention for SW77 was Y-Wing for hero shots plus three-character interaction.
The intention for SW77 was red (Y) and blue (X).
At some point in the drafts Luke migrated from Y-Wing (directly porting WW2) to the X-Wing (a more deft obscuring of sources).
At some point the reality was that blue (anything) was not yet doable on blue screen.
The authentic red of Midway (if this was Lucas' source) carried over with Luke to the X.
And so I am guessing... Gold (yellow/last available primary color) was a non-historical last-minute adaptation. Gold Anything appeared in GFFA the instant they could not film blue X-Wings. Right?

 

Keep in mind too that the three-person version of the Y-Wing (from the 1975 second draft where there aren't yet any X-Wings) doesn't look like the craft we know and love, but rather the early Colin Cantwell design seen in several Ralph McQuarrie paintings.

 

That image has given me a ton of reading to do.

 

Lt. Hija wrote

I've just done a frame by frame and I would not arrive at that conclusion from a clean sheet analysis. {Just a dash of soap box - The X-Wing is taking clear hits on the superstructure and the bridge / conning tower domes are still quite intact.} Then the white fireball comes from left off screen in a downward direction. The scale allows me to think it's a destroyed fighter. Now frame up a bit, and the A-Wing comes from left off screen below it, and heading in an upward direction. One might make a strained assertion that the A-Wing has done extreme banking maneuvers after firing the torpedo, or, the torpedo is doing extreme banking maneuvers of its own, off screen, to get a bead on the dome. The latter assertion is less strained, and I'll just let it percolate and see if it is satisfying. But, at the scale of the dome, and at the location at the dome's base where the white fireball lands, it must be a sizeable object. The proton torpedoes from SW77 did not have such an appearance as to be so large, about as large as a fighter, or half a fighter. The micronarrative I would devise to explain that white fireball is that it was a rebel fighter doing exactly what that X-Wing is doing, attacking the conning tower, but it got destroyed, but it certainly was on target.

Some other thoughts on the A-Wing. While there was Green Leader heading up an attack on the SSD's bridge / conning tower, there was an X-Wing behind it. So I don't think one can assign that the A-Wing under Green Leader has a capability that the following X-Wing does not, considering that the X-Wing's proton torpedos have destroyed an object much larger than a SD. There is a scene ("She's gonna blow") where two X-Wings take out a SD's conning tower dome. So the role of taking out the SSD's conning tower domes, achieved by A-Wings, cannot be exclusive to A-Wings. I did for good measure do frame by frame on the A-Wing attack on the SSD to verify that the VFX artists were sourcing the blasts at the tip of the side cannons, and not from some unseen torpedo ports. It is the cannons. 
There is certainly room for speculation concerning what is the caliber of the A-Wing cannons. They are beefy. There is a lot to be said comparing the caliber, placement and range of motion of weapons on the rebel (and Imperial) craft. The Y-Wing sets have heavier fixed cannon than the McQuarrie paintings, and heavier than the four X-Wing cannon, for instance. To my crude estimate, the A-Wing weapons are very businesslike and are each more powerful than any one X-Wing cannon. Twice as powerful? Does an A-Wing pack as much total punch as an X-Wing? Does it have same total punch but greater thrust because of its beefier engines? That's a story for another time. We have evidence that it required two X-Wings to attack an SD dome, and one of those X-Wings was destroyed. We have evidence that it required two A-Wings to attack a SSD dome (maybe it's larger? maybe same size) and the evidence leads one to assume they peeled off and survived. So, per fighter, the A-Wing had some special sauce that the respective X-Wing did not, at that time. Does that mean A-Wings are designed or intended to take out SDs? I would argue no, but that's an assignment based on an assumption that A-Wings "actually" best fit an interceptor role, even if it was never asserted anywhere. It requires a consideration of what an interceptor does and does not do. At this point, I have not ruled out that an interceptor can destroy a ship. More reading necessary.

But the economic interpretation of that McQuarrie painting is that the A-Wings are available, and there are no TIEs in the vicinity, and as nearly every time in warfare, something available is called on to perform some task it was not expressly designed for. Dedicated interceptors existed in the early Cold War, but the interceptor role is in other times distributed among many roles, called 'multi role'. And so one can draw a distinction between an interceptor as designed and interceptor as assigned. (I'll expand on this in a future post.) In the circumstances depicted in this painting, a small craft taking on a large vessel, I would say one can draw a distinction between bomber as designed and a bomber as assigned. The A-Wings are what's there. They showed up. They are less expensive than a cruiser. They go do what they can.

One last bit on the assignment that A-Wings are intended to handle SDs and DSII - Lando ordered the A-Wings back to the surface to draw TIEs off the lead fighters/MF. I would economize and say, the A-Wings answered the call to go in, the A-Wings answered the call to go out. They performed their assignment, as did the trailing X-Wing that covered and took a hit for the overall attack group. (As did Sila Kott in drawing away TIEs from the Liberty-type beneath, I propose. She performed her assignment.)

Do we know if A-Wings have torpedoes?

 

Interesting points.

I take the view that an A-Wing does not pack the same punch as an X-Wing. Without having one each of the exact ships from the archives in scale it is hard to say precisely how the size of their blaster cannon's measure up, but it seems to me that the X-Wing's are much longer though more delicate, especially at the forward end. How this would impact their power/damage capacity is hard to say.

I like the A-Wing as an answer specifically to TIE Interceptors and enemy fighter's in general, with the X-Wing filling a more "all purpose" role. Sort of seems to be the standard Lucasfilm and their licencee's (i.e. FFG) are going with and I'm good with it (I do think the films take precedence, however, and like to see these sort of discussions!)

 

A wings do have forward facing slits though it is difficult to tell if they are torpedo ports or not.



X wings only had two torpedoes, I doubt the smaller A wings had more than that.

I

 

I don't immediately recall where in the OT or period reference materials it has been established that an astromech is required to use hyperspace. Isn't that a West End Games era (1987) contribution?

I'll try to find that movie. It's a very fair point to complicate the Y-Wing with the real life source's predecessors. At this point I'm wondering if the early SW77 scripts involved any rebel capital ships, so that there could be a complete thread between a Pacific theatre, carrier based torpedo bomber (otherwise unimpressive?), and the Lancaster bomber they borrowed real life exciting from.

Regarding Luke crashing the snow speeder in ESB, I found some uncanny events in this short clip:
Stalingrad : Battle Against T 34 Tank In The Snow (HQ)

 

AFAIK, none of the scripts for SW 1977 involved capital ships on either side during a battle - just the Death Star, really. The 1974 rough draft did have some captured Imperial starfighters used by Wookees (sic), who repainted them with wild colorful designs in the style of Chris Foss' SF novel covers.

 

Do we have any details about what was originally going to happen with the Y-wings as the "hero craft"?

The most obvious potential shift for me would seem to be that Lucas wanted to include more dog fighting prior to the trench run and the Y-wings seem less suited to this. With the tail gunner as originally planned I can imagine the trench run being much more of a battle rather than Vader and co picking off rebels at will. Perhaps R2 being taken out is a holdover from Luke's tail gunner being taken out or incapacitated??

 

Hernalt quoted

"George wanted the Y-Wing to be like a World War II TBF Torpedo Bomber," Cantwell says, "which had a gunner in the belly, facing back to cover the tail, and on top behind the pilot, and then the pilot facing forward. So the Y-Wing could have that kind of interaction between three people on it."

It's interesting that Lucas specifically named the Grumman TBF Avenger as a design source, but admittedly it was the only plane manned by three people:



(there's an interesting WWII anecdote of the first Japanese fighter encountering it, mistaking it for a Wildcat that suddenly started shooting at him from the rear canopy...)

The one thing I can't wrap my head around was what Lucas intended with the rear guns of the Y-Wings. One might argue that during VFX production he abandoned any plans that these might fire back, because Midway already featured extensive footage of the (Dauntless only) rear gunners desperately trying to take care of the Japanese fighters (and that would have looked too obvious and/or derivative). But then, again, the footage of Y-Wings taking off from Yavin IV, shot earlier in the UK, only featured single seated Y-Wings.



Hernalt wrote

I've just done a frame by frame and I would not arrive at that conclusion from a clean sheet analysis. {Just a dash of soap box - The X-Wing is taking clear hits on the superstructure and the bridge / conning tower domes are still quite intact.} Then the white fireball comes from left off screen in a downward direction. The scale allows me to think it's a destroyed fighter. Now frame up a bit, and the A-Wing comes from left off screen below it, and heading in an upward direction. One might make a strained assertion that the A-Wing has done extreme banking maneuvers after firing the torpedo, or, the torpedo is doing extreme banking maneuvers of its own, off screen, to get a bead on the dome. The latter assertion is less strained, and I'll just let it percolate and see if it is satisfying. But, at the scale of the dome, and at the location at the dome's base where the white fireball lands, it must be a sizeable object. The proton torpedoes from SW77 did not have such an appearance as to be so large, about as large as a fighter, or half a fighter. The micronarrative I would devise to explain that white fireball is that it was a rebel fighter doing exactly what that X-Wing is doing, attacking the conning tower, but it got destroyed, but it certainly was on target.

I see your point. And you're probably right, i.e. the proton torpedos later seen fired by Wedge at the reactor regulator feature the unmistakened shape of a proton torpedo which the white thingy traveling towards the starboard dome in the above screencap does not.

It rather resembles the "concussion missile" fired by the Falcon at the reactor or the Hoth ion cannon projectiles in ESB. So is it a burning fighter or a projectile? As a projectile it must have come from somewhere and the A-Wing subsequently entering the image (and apparently on a collision course with the conning tower) looks like the best candidate we have there.

According to the novelization Green Leader participated in the Death Star attack run "Green Leader ... split off and head back to the surface - Home One just called for a fighter, any you might draw some fire off us." That would suggest the A-Wing to register as a "fighter".

Later: ""Firing proton torpedoes," Green Wing advised", so apparently A-Wings do carry proton torpedoes.

The overall impression remains that literally all Alliance fighters are multi-purpose spacecraft. Two Y-Wing torpedo bombers take out TIE fighters during the Battle of Endor, while the A-Wings are running from these...

 

Honestly even with the Y-wing design we finally got I always thought it looked like there could be space for a second person, the cockpit windows afterall do extend along way back plus you have the gun turret ontop. What it doesn't seem setup for is a rear runner as the turret is angled downwards to shoot in a forward arc and as much as I can make out theres no rear window. Still I think you could potentially have space for maybe a secondary gunner/bomber/navigator similar to an F-14.

 

In the movie, the A-wing pilot who responds to Lando's request was this guy:

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

There was another unnamed A-Wing pilot with Farrell & Lando in the attack on the Death Star. The EU fleshed him out as Tycho Celchu. The newcanon has not yet clarified who he was.

This may be why the EU has concussion missiles as standard equipment for A-wings. Though missile launch tubes may be able to launch torpedoes as well.

 

I am interested in the Y-Wing's front nose cannon with respect to their caliber, range of motion/bore sighted, and what they mean for its ability to train them (if bore sighted) onto their target. The McQuarrie Cantwell bubble turret clearly signals bomber. Bomber that is too un-agile to avoid attackers, but capable of increasing the price of attack. But the front cannon do not say bomber, so much. They say fighter-bomber, which means agility to train them. But in BoY the Y-Wings have the priority to drop their torpedoes. The design of the Y-Wing "says" it is capable of dogfighting. Maybe only in the conflicts of yesterday. And it is sensible to me that since they were not superiority fighters, and since X-Wings could still launch equivalent ordinance, the calculus was to use what was available, respectively, in its least worst role (Comparative Advantage). That meant Y-Wings were least worst in dropping bombs. X-Wings were least worst in dogfighting, although they were not bad (I guess) at dropping bombs.

The dogfighting component of the Battle of Yavin ports much generalized air combat of WW2, but the briefing and scramble scene (then dogfighting) tells me that the Battle of Yavin also pretty cleanly ports Battle of Britain. Basically, mechanized threat overhead and you scramble to launch, get to altitude (interceptor role) and neutralize that threat. And so how to delineate the two actions. Operation Chastise did not use any fighter escort cover. It had no dogfighting. Battle of Britain did not have (Allied) precision bombing. Escort fighters (long range Spitfires?) that might hypothetically accompany and protect the Lancasters could not carry the specially designed ordinance. Aside from the turret, the Y-Wing with much of its plating taken off ports the Lancasters that had to have a variety of coverings and hardware removed to deliver the ordinance. The phase change between BoB and OC starts to occur when the Y-Wings order the X-Wings to draw fire away and ends with the last Y-Wing being destroyed, leaving nothing but X-Wings to perform a bomber, OC, role. But the Y-Wings never perform the BoB role; Y-Wings to not get to port 'fighter' in SW77. I can say that the Y-Wing in ROTJ does acquit itself in a fighter role. On two separate occasions a Y-Wing takes out a TIE Interceptor. That lays to rest whether Y-Wings were able only to fight the wars of yesterday (maybe their avionics got upgraded...).

{ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_harmonisation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boresight_(firearm)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
http://www.nss.org/resources/library/videos/ISDC12greason.html (Jeff Greason ISDC talk, start at 20:00) }