Why did Vader kill Ozzel?

This is my first post in this forum. I spend most of my time at the EU forum. I have seen the classic trilogy more times than I can count. I just thought maybe somebody could answer this for me.

General Veers says that they have detected an energy field protecting the 6th planet of the Hoth system and that it can deflect any bombardment. Vader retorts that Admiral Ozzel came out of hyperspace too close to the system. In a vain attempt to cover for the admiral, Veers says, "uh, he felt surprise was wiser..."
Vader cuts him off with "He's as clumsy as he is stupid," implying that Ozzel should have come out of hyperspace earlier and used sublight engines to approach the planets.

So, wouldn't the Rebellion's sensors have picked up this huge fleet of SDs "creeping" at sublight anyway? It seems to me that Ozzel's plan is viable. Come in as close as you can to the planet and allow the Rebels the least amount of time to prepare for an assault. Although you are certain to be noticed, it seems better than coming in farther out and giving the Rebels tons of time to prepare. Is this just Lucas' way to kill Ozzel (and show Vader's brutality) or can somebody give me a viable reason for Vader's reaction?

I suppose I am also overanalyzing the situation as well....

thanks

 

I think Vader knew the Empire would win with sheer force. However, the fight would now be longer, thus giving Luke more chance to escape. Also, Ozzel had already proven his incompetence by missing the probe droid's message about the shied generator.

It's kind of ironic but it wasn't all Ozzel's fault. The rebels knew the empire was coming anyway after Han and Chewie destroyed that probe droid.

 

Ozzel was fat and ugly, and has always been on Vader's bad side. The Dark Lord of the Sith was only waiting for a good excuse to retire the Admiral for good.

 

Why would the fight be any longer now? My issue is with how Ozzel returned to realspace from hyperspace. Should it have been done closer to the system as Ozzel did or further as Vader indicated? The issue is not that the sheild went up and a ground attack was needed, but why the sheild went up. Vader said it was Ozzel's fault and it was because he came in too close to the system. I just want a reason why too close is worse than too far?

 

Well, if the fleet went subspace further away from the planet, they'll have more room/time to manuver into blockading positions. And so the Rebel iron cannons won't be able to target the ISDs and their transports won't be able to flee. After the planet is securely blockaded, Impieral Army can lesurely take down the shields. All in all it was much easier to capture Luke Skywalker if Hoth was properly blockaded, then if it is stormed (like what Ozzel planned).

But like I posted before, Vader was really just looking for any excuse to retire the admiral, so he can get a new, more efficiency driven one.

 

Jet-eye. Your opinion on what Vader wanted regarding capturing Luke is interesting but not valid here. Your argument about properly deploying the fleet would be good if the Rebels sensors could not detect anything but hyperspace disturbances. If I had sent the fleet into the system later than Ozzel and then gone sublight engines from there, the Rebels would still have had time set up there sheilds.

I would think the closer you get to the planet itself the better equipped you are to set up a blockade of the system in order to capture Luke. Vader made it sound like Ozzel was stupid for "coming out of hyperspace too soon." It seems contradictory....

Please enlighten me...

 

Jet-eye. Your opinion on what Vader wanted regarding capturing Luke is interesting but not valid here. Your argument about properly deploying the fleet would be good if the Rebels sensors could not detect anything but hyperspace disturbances. If I had sent the fleet into the system later than Ozzel and then gone sublight engines from there, the Rebels would still have had time set up there sheilds.

I would think the closer you get to the planet itself the better equipped you are to set up a blockade of the system in order to capture Luke. Vader made it sound like Ozzel was stupid for "coming out of hyperspace too soon." It seems contradictory....

Please enlighten me...

Like I mentioned in the last post, Ozzel was thinking very much like you in that he wants to storm the Echo base, that's why he brought the fleet as close to Hoth as possible... and that's why the Rebels was able to disable some of the vanguard star destoryers with ground based iron cannon fire.

As for proper blockading techniques... you'll need to look no further than the British royal navy during the Napolean wars and WWI. They formed a line of ships far from the coast so they can be safe by being outside the range of the batteries there.

ISDs carry lots of TIEs... with sufficient time to launch these space superiority fighters, the Empire may be able to disable any and all Rebel transport trying to escape before they entered hyperspace. TIEs don't have hyperdrives, so they cannot be depolyed before the fleet enters the Hoth system. Dropping the fleet dead into the sight of Echo Base's defensive batteries is not a safe way to launch TIEs. Basically, such tactics assumes too much of the enemy's weakness, and are generally refers to as blunders.

Vader made it sound like Ozzel was stupid for "coming out of hyperspace too soon." It seems contradictory....

I don't remember everythings that was said during the movies, but that was not what you said Vader said at the start of this thread.

 

Beedubew, I too picked up on this seeming contradiction in my viewings before, but simply filed it away as a misstatement. I don't think George or any of his continuity watchers expected the analization abilities of fans such as ourselves. There are many such inconsistencies in the films.

 

I can agree with formal/proper blockading strategy, but lets be serious about how many SD's (and as TIEs are not hyperspace compatatible, how many of them there were available to blockade the planet.) were at Hoth. Executor and maybe 5-6 other SDs? Is that really enough to blockade an entire planet, even at a low orbit? Not in my opinion. Ground based defenses appear to have made a difference with one getaway transport, but the rest are not known (outside of T of the NR). Anyway, the base of your argument about Ozzel makes sense to me about not being able to set up a proper perimeter around the planet. If you expand the perimeter around the planet, that increases the number of ships needed to blockade the planet, and I still stand by the fact that the Death Squad did not have enough ships to properly blockade a whole planet regardless of where the fleet came in and where it set up in orbit.....

 

I can agree with formal/proper blockading strategy, but lets be serious about how many SD's (and as TIEs are not hyperspace compatatible, how many of them there were available to blockade the planet.) were at Hoth. Executor and maybe 5-6 other SDs? Is that really enough to blockade an entire planet, even at a low orbit? Not in my opinion. Ground based defenses appear to have made a difference with one getaway transport, but the rest are not known (outside of T of the NR). Anyway, the base of your argument about Ozzel makes sense to me about not being able to set up a proper perimeter around the planet. If you expand the perimeter around the planet, that increases the number of ships needed to blockade the planet, and I still stand by the fact that the Death Squad did not have enough ships to properly blockade a whole planet regardless of where the fleet came in and where it set up in orbit.....

Each ISD in the Death Squad carried 72 TIEs and the Executor carries twice that number. Over 500 TIEs is enough to swoop any Rebel transport trying to get away.

Also, when the Death Squad blockades the Rebel's escape route, they don't need to surround the whole planet. From data sent by the probe droid, the Empire knew that Rebels only occupy the Echo Base. The Imperial fleet thus only need to form a hemisphere with the Echo Base at the center to be able to check all out going traffic. Being further out from the planet not only protects them from the Rebel ground batteries, it also gave the fleet more manuver time in response to situation changes. Remember, ISDs are faster than any of the Rebel's captial ships and large transports. Once the Imperials notice a Rebel transport leaving the Planet they can just simply chased it down before it reached Hyperspace.

 

I agree with Jet-Eye. But that's ion cannon not iron cannon.

 

So why wasn't anyone pursuing Luke when he left Hoth in his X-wing?

 

Because Ozzel is a complete moron. No offense to those who are Ozzel fans. Arguing with Vader should be well known as a major mistake. Vader can read thoughts and Ozzel didn't think Vader was correct. Even after Vader turned and walked away, Ozzel gave Piett the look as Piett shouldn't of said anything because the Empire is going to waist time going to Hoth and Vader is a moron. Little did Ozzel know that Vader is a Dark Lord with incredible powers. I'm sure Vader was well aware of Ozzel's thoughts and was very on very thin ice. So for Ozzel to make the mistake of going out of lightspeed to close to the Hoth system was a clumsy mistake and Vader had enough of the moron.

 

Vader's line was... "he came out of hyperspace too close to the system."

In addition to all the technical posts on military strategy made here, we don't know the range of Rebel planetary/system sensors... obviously if this was to be a SECRET base, they can't have big dishes or some such, in plain view or have satellites in orbit in a system that was devoid of technologically capable species.
It was bad enough the generator gave them away.

Vader saw the Shield Generator in the transmission sent by the Probe Droid.
We don't know what Vader's plan was, but it obviously didn't involve showing up on the Rebels' front doorstep and giving them time to activate that shield/prepare defenses, nor bringing in Star Destroyers within range to be attacked by planetary based weaponry.

Perhaps Vader was going to surround the planet and probe their defenses with TIE Bombers before comitting to ground assault... who knows?

EDIT: I just think it was odd that the Empire didn't clear the forest surrounding their base on Endor or use any kind of air support (at least TIE Bombers) during the battle of Endor!

 

So why wasn't anyone pursuing Luke when he left Hoth in his X-wing?

By that time Vader was concentrating solely on the Falcon. There may have been one or two Star Destroyers left behind, and Luke probably could have easily slipped past them. Vader probably assumed that Luke had escaped on the Falcon initally, and by the time he relaized his mistake, it was too late. So he came up with the plan to use Han and all as bait.

 

I thought of this exact same topic the other night actually.

But then I couldn't be bothered to think up an explanation and went back to the gin bottle.

 

Like someone said earlier, Vader was probably planning on setting up a blockade and spread the fleet around the planet so that nothing would escape. When Ozzel came out of hyperspace closer to the system, the Rebels are now aware that the Empire knows they are there and probably know that they do not have time to deploy the whole fleet around the planet in time.

This gave the Rebels time to activate their shields to keep TIE Fighters and bombers from entering and taking up air supremacy and giving the Rebels time to get their transports loaded. When the transports left, they were heading to a side of the planet that the Star Destroyers were just beginning to set up a blockade and they were unable to deploy any TIEs. So when the ION Cannon fired at the SD that was blocking the Transport, it did not have time to react. Vader knew that there were just too many openings for Luke and co. to leave the planet. So he now has to set up ground attacks and go in personally to track them down.

Yes, I believe Ozzel blundered and Vader was quite upset about it.

 

I think the answer lies in the earlier line "with all the asteroid activity in this system we'll have a hard time detecting incoming ships."

If Ozzel had brought the fleet out of hyperspace far enough away, the Imperials could have drifted into the system, indistinguishable (until too late) from rocks. But because they emerged within the Rebels' sensor range, they were spotted right away.

 

"He is as clumsy as he is stupid."

Should Jar Jar be worried about Vader in Ep3...?

 

DamonD
"He is as clumsy as he is stupid."

Should Jar Jar be worried about Vader in Ep3...?

I think Vader was having flashbacks of Jar-Jar when he made that statement.

 

I think JediHunterCommand answered my question the best. My question was why would the Imperials be any more likely to be spotted coming out of hyperspace close to the system or coming out a long ways and then coming in at sublight? I think the asteroid issue answers that the best. Had Ozzel come out of hyperspace further out and "drifted" in slowly that could allow a Rebel to mistake a ship for a rock, but I still find it hard to believe that you could do a sensor focus on the Hoth base (needed to properly blockade it) and not alert them to your own arrival (Dark Force Rising - Thrawn does not do a sensor focus on that asteroid).

Perhaps I am just not understanding...

 

If the Star Destroyers had dropped out of hyperspace outside the range of the Rebel sensors, they could have launched TIEs and AT-AT landing craft discretely and perhaps been able to catch the Rebels unawares.

Ozzel, however, thought that dropping out of hyperspace right on top of the planet would be better. Vader felt otherwise.

 

Agreed with JediHunterCommand. The ISDs are big enough to be immediately detectable in an asteroid field. If the fleet had come out of hyperspace well outside the system and launched fighters there, the Rebels might not have been able to detect the smaller ships' approach.

This raises another question, though: Since Vader knew Luke was on the surface and wanted him alive, wouldn't he have wanted a ground assault regardless? If a bunch of bombers indiscriminately leveled the base, Luke probably would have been killed.

 

He probably figured Luke would find a way out no matter what, and would prefer blowing the Rebels totally away with turbolasers to a slow and inefficient ground assault which gave the rebels a lot more time to evacuate

But to an earlier statement saying the Death Squadron didn't have enough ships to blockade an entire planet

I think the Executor alone could do a pretty good job, all it would have to do is stay on the side of the planet the base is on and it can blast anything away, its so damn powerful

 

Just one thing on blockading an entire planet. Even if we just do the hemisphere with the base on it, we are talking about a HUGE amount of space to occupy. Let's also remember that this is a 3-d evac route and SDs are not the most nimble ships ever. Even with the full level of TIEs it would still be tough. Plus let us remember that in the movies (ROTJ possibly excepted) all the TIEs are NEVER used. 4 chased down Han, Leia and the Falcon. And the Falcon showed just how easily it could outmaneuver a SD. Do I need to mention the Battle of Yavin and the 15-20 TIEs that defended the Death Star? I am not even sure how many were on board, but I would imagine hundreds, if not thousands. So, it is likely that all the TIEs were not deployed at the Battle of Hoth.