[Lord Aquaman]

I am proud to say that I managed to get myself the original Star Wars trilogy both in its ORIGINAL theatrical format AND IN WIDESCREEN off of ebay (take that, Darth George Lucas!). I was watching "A New Hope" and when it got the climax with the Death Star, watching all those Rebel wingmen get picked off, I started wondering "Don't they have anything better to do than simply hang behind the leader and get blown to bits by Darth Vader? Why don't they turn around and shoot at Vader and his wingmen before Vader starts shooting at them?"

Is anyone else bothered by that?

[Paladin]

That's what bothered me, too. Remember when Han shot off the two fighters and Darth Vader's ship behind Luke? Why couldn't the rebels do the same?

I guess it might have been a case of tactical stupidity.

[Chefelf]

The only problem is they were flying Y-Wings. If you've ever played the X-Wing game for PC that game out in 1991 you know that your best bet is to just keep on flying with the target in mind. A Y-Wing doens't stand a chance in a dogfight against a TIE fighter, or any other kind of ship for that matter.

[Lord Aquaman]

Perhaps the Rebellion simply picked up the Y-wings due to budget constraints (you know, couldn't afford the REALLY good fighter ships so they just picked a few Y-wings to fill out with the X-wings).

[Chefelf]

Strange though, it seemed that the Y-wings were the ships designated to be the ships that launched the torpedoes to deliver the deathblow to the Death Star. That would imply they are better ships.

I dunno.

[jariten]

why doesnt the Empire just spit out a million ties from the death star and end the fight in about 5 seconds? Hardly anything makes sense in these things

[Garth Vader]

Strange though, it seemed that the Y-wings were the ships designated to be the ships that launched the torpedoes to deliver the deathblow to the Death Star.  That would imply they are better ships.

I dunno.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

overconfidence. vader thought he could take em all. same with the fight at the end of ROTJ. there could've been the whole empire there to make sure the tiny rebel fleet was destroyed. That and there wasn't the technology to show how big the galactic war really was so you have to use your imagination.

This post has been edited by Garth Vader: 13 December 2004 - 05:59 PM

[Xombie]

Not only do they have to fly crappy ships but they don't even get a fuckin' medal for the effort. Han Solo shows up, sees maybe 10 seconds of combat and he gets a whole friggin ceremony along with Luke. All the other pilots who risked their lives and followed orders and gave support during the entire battle...they got nada.

[Lord Aquaman]

Chewbacca didn't get a medal either. To quote Chefelf's critique of the special edition of ANH: "That's wookiese for 'You gotta be shittin' me!'"

[Helena]

Not only do they have to fly crappy ships but they don't even get a fuckin' medal for the effort. Han Solo shows up, sees maybe 10 seconds of combat and he gets a whole friggin ceremony along with Luke. All the other pilots who risked their lives and followed orders and gave support during the entire battle...they got nada.

Most of them were dead, weren't they? Chewbacca should certainly have got a medal, though.

[Radu094]

Don't they have anything better to do than simply hang behind the leader and get blown to bits by Darth Vader? Why don't they turn around and shoot at Vader and his wingmen before Vader starts shooting at them?

Strangely enough, no, not really.

The "Wedge" is a generally accepted defensive maneuver in aerial tactics. And this especially for a long bombing run when, as Chef pointed out, you have no chance to outmaneuver your attacker.
Wingman flies to your 4 and/or 8'o clock possition.This way one of the wingman is protected from attacks comming from his right .. the other from his left, but most importantly the leader has his back-angles covered. The only usefull way of attacking a wedge is from the sides (which is not allways possible).
Try to think of this this way: if Vader would decide to go after the leader (in the middle) he would be targeted by the 2 wingmans. The two wingmans are easy targets though..

Oddly enough Lucas got this one right on the money, and I think the scene is superbly handled.

I do have doubts that Lucas knows much about aerial tactics though, most likely this scene is only there by some sort of accident..

[Just your average movie goer]

Well, as someone rightfully said earlier, the dialogue in the scene is stolen word-for-word from The Dambusters. I haven't this myself but my brother told me this a while ago. However, I wondered... if the dialogue was taken from that film, could the formations have been borrowed too?

[azerty]

No, because there were no "formations" in the dambusters raid. Also there were no enemy fighters. The bombers had to fly in low across the lakes to drop the bouncing bombs, and all the enemy fire was comming from the towers on the dams. The bombers couldn't maneuver because they needed the right angle to the dams and a very low altitude to keep the bombs from breaking up when they first hit the water. A lot of guys died in those raids, but they did manage to break three of the five dams I think. It's quite an interesting story actually, and worth a look. The movie is older, but it is not bad either.

As for flaws in ANH, and stupid wingmen. I always assumed that Princess Leia knew the homing beacon was aboard the Facon, but flew to the rebel base anyway. Sooner or later an attack would have to be made on the Death Star. If the Death Star came to the rebels, it would all be so much easier. (This is of course, back when small fighters couldn't get deep into space,etc.) Also, Alderaan had just been blown up, and who knew how many more planets would be blown up for each day that went by? The death star had just become operational, Leia's plan was to blow it up as soon as possible.

The rebels strategy in the trench wasn't bad; send one guy down the trench fast, with a couple of guys behind him going slowly to keep the dstance between the enemy and the bomber as great as possible. The only other option was to wait for the enemy fighters to drop in behind the bomber and then drop in behind the enemy fighters and everybodybody shoots everybody down. But the point of the mission was to give the bombers time to fire the torpedo, not just to shoot down tie fighters. A lot of guys were going to be sacrificed so that one guy could fire that torpedo, no matter what strategy they used.

As for medals for Luke and Han; those guys did a lot more than fight in the battle. They saved the plans, saved the princess, and fought in the last battle. Without them, the rebellion would have been over. They deserved them. And so did Chewie!

This post has been edited by azerty: 15 December 2004 - 02:11 PM

[Lord Aquaman]

No, because there were no "formations" in the dambusters raid.  Also there were no enemy fighters.  The bombers had to fly in low across the lakes to drop the bouncing bombs, and all the enemy fire was comming from the towers on the dams.  The bombers couldn't maneuver because they needed the right angle to the dams and a very low altitude to keep the bombs from breaking up when they first hit the water.  A lot of guys died in those raids, but they did manage to break three of the five dams I think.  It's quite an interesting story actually, and worth a look.  The movie is older, but it is not bad either.

As for flaws in ANH, and stupid wingmen.  I always assumed that Princess Leia knew the homing beacon was aboard the Facon, but flew to the rebel base anyway.  Sooner or later an attack would have to be made on the Death Star.  If the Death Star came to the rebels, it would all be so much easier.  (This is of course, back when small fighters couldn't get deep into space,etc.)  Also, Alderaan had just been blown up, and who knew how many more planets would be blown up for each day that went by?  The death star had just become operational, Leia's plan was to blow it up as soon as possible.

The rebels strategy in the trench wasn't bad; send one guy down the trench fast, with a couple of guys behind him going slowly to keep the dstance between the enemy and the bomber as great as possible.  The only other option was to wait for the enemy fighters to drop in behind the bomber and then drop in behind the enemy fighters and everybodybody shoots everybody down.  But the point of the mission was to give the bombers time to fire the torpedo, not just to shoot down tie fighters.  A lot of guys were going to be sacrificed so that one guy could fire that torpedo, no matter what strategy they used.

As for medals for Luke and Han; those guys did a lot more than fight in the battle.  They saved the plans, saved the princess, and fought in the last battle.  Without them, the rebellion would have been over.  They deserved them.  And so did Chewie!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So the question I should be asking is: why didn't the X-ring pilots go and help the first set of Y-wing pilots when the Y-wing pilots were being shot down by Darth Vader and co? You had at least six X-ring pilots, so why couldn't one group of the X-rings gone to the aid of the Y-wings?