It still confuses me why a general commands a starfleet

@@yarnickgoovaerts Because George Lucas didn't know anything about the military beyond the WWII movies he grew up with, with army Generals being in charge of island-hopping campaigns, usually with Army Air Corps and Marine Corps pilots launching from improvised runways instead of naval aviators launching from the still small number of aircraft carriers in service.

@@leonielson7138 admirals, generals are the same thing. Only difference is merely name. But I do agree was an error on his part.

@@sinisterisrandom8537 An error compared to Earth's paramilitaries or fantasy in general?

​@@yarnickgoovaerts The titles "Admiral" and "General" are just that - titles. They don't have to refer to land vs sea command (or planetary/troop command vs. naval/ship command). It would be up to the political/military entity in question to define these terms. I think that "General" in particular has been used for naval commanders at times. For example, "General Admiral" was used by several navies in history such as the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch among others. "Captain-General" was another term used by various navies and countries for the commander of a field army or navy. The general in question was in charge of forces only on the Death Star. I can see an army/land/planetary rank being used there. The Death Star is a "space station", not a ship. And would have hundreds of thousands of troops on board. Thus having generals on board does make some sense. That being said, @Leo Nielson just might be correct re. it being a potential mistake by Lucas. [warning - some kind of history follows. hopefully accurrate. ignore freely 🙂] Leo is likely referring to Dugout Doug (General MacArthur). MacArthur was the "Theater Commander" of the Southwest Pacific Area in WW2 (is that the correct name of the theater?) and as such had control of the land, air, and sea forces in his theater. Even so, he did not have direct control of the ships - the Navy had an Admiral in charge of "MacArthur's Fleet" (eventually the 7th Fleet). But this admiral was subservient to and reported to Big Mac. In the central and southern Pacific, though, it was the Navy who was in charge of the island hopping campaigns. That was the purview of Admiral C. Nimitz primarily (there were sub-theaters but Nimitz was the overall Naval commander in the Pacific, sans MacArthurs theater). Here the Navy laid out the campaign plans and led the campaigns, with the Marine and Army generals in command of "boots on the ground". The Navy did most everything that it could to assist those generals, but the generals did not command the ships offshore. Disregarding specific shore bombardment and fire support missions of course. I'll note that Big Mac did not have command of any of the Navy's fast fleet carriers nor its primary striking Task Forces. Nimitz and the Navy kept control of those. They would be sent to support Big Mac as needed (and available) but were never attached to MacArthur's theater nor placed under his nor any other general's command. [I will note that I am not considering Operation Downfall and/or Olympic, which were never executed.] Above these 2 were the Joint Chiefs and above those the Combined Chiefs of Staff (combined British, American, et al). These laid out the high level strategies for the war. And seemed to have a majority of generals.

Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, abandoning the Battleship Musashi in WWII.

And that "no life signs aboard", EVEN if it was a cost saving issue, is foolish. Maybe make it more of an authority issue; the gunnery sergeant needs to get permission to fire* on "a lifepod without life signs", and those precious few seconds sends it out of (effective) targeting range- so they make a note and track it. Or, ya know, tractor beams exist. * Since the battle was reasonably over, the ship to ship emplacements would likely stand down from battle stations, and would need permission to engage

However it's a more forgivable if you think of it this way. Sending that super carrier wouldn't be too stupid if those enemy waters are basically the Caribbean island countries or if the Florida Keys decides to leave the US. (And even the US probably would have an escort or 2 just to be on the safe side.) Unlike the empire, we have the "benefit" of having rival powers so you really can't afford to make such foolish mistakes.

Another analogy would be sending dreadnought battleships somewhere to shell a facility that had air cover. And not sending fighter protection for these ships. (I am not thinking of US battleships later in WW2; these had almost enough AA firepower and fire control to defend themselves.) Or maybe into areas with destroyers and torpedo boats w/o escorts for the battleship. Perhaps the Japanese sending battleships to shell the airfield at Guadalcanal would qualify. Or the Yamato to Okinawa. Or the Yamato, Musashi, et al sailing towards Leyte Gulf w/o sufficient air cover. The Fuso Yamashiro coming up the Surgaio Straight during the the Battle Leyte Gulf might qualify for the torpedo boats scenario. Or the Austrian battleship that was sunk by torpedo boats in WW1.

We see the starfighter proton torpedoes hit the surface of the Death Star and it accounts for like .00000000001 percent damage. Tarkin wasn't worried about the damage a thousand fighters could inflict in something the size of a small COUNTRY on Earth. He understood the firepower and the solidity of the Death Star's passive defense. He also understood if fighters ever inflicted any significant damage to some vital system, the Death Star could always just hyperspace away and be put back online at a protected port like Kuat in a few weeks at most. Only Krennic, just before his death, realized what Galen Urso had done in making one of the thermal exhaust ports a direct gateway to the main reactor core. And he never got a chance to tell anyone. Apparently someone in the Death Star's engineering department realized the exhaust port was somewhat vulnerable: "We've analyzed their attack, and there is a danger ..." But by that time, Tarkin was like five minutes from destroying the main rebel base and securing the Emperor's undying gratitude , and he wasn't in the mood to believe his ultimate weapon was going to go down because of a handful of fighters when most of the Rebels had already died trying to make a successful attack.

If the only way to destroy this supercarrier would be to get a torpedo into their exhaus tube, repeat: EXHAUST as in blow the stuff out, not suck it in, why would it need any sort of escort?

Kenle,your statement doesn't explain why not a single turbolaser opened up on the incoming targets at the ranges the turbolasers were designed for(probably because Lucas didn't think of cool shots involving flying towards flak blasts like bombers flying high above Germany during WWII),doesn't explain why the 7000 star fighters on said station just sat there the entire time not doing Jack Squat(probably because Lucas didn't actually think about how many were on it until after),doesn't explain why they didn't have forward scouts,LIKE THE ONES THAT RAN INTO THE FALCON,as they approached(more Lucas oversight),and doesn't explain why,when Darth Vader finally got off of his leather coevered cyborg arse,only his squadron was launched despite the overwelming doctrine that was in place(Lucas!). In short,George Lucas wasn't exactly a military commander,and this resulted in everysingle Imperial officer on the Death Star being quite lacking,there's also the tech limitations they had when making the movie,but these simply feed into the aspect of later adding huge numbers to the station when they didn't actually show them on screen.

That would have solved many issues for the empire.

They did sent 3-4, which blasted away by the dozen missiles upon contact.

@@weishi9804 So how about 100?

Not only that- I didn't see an Interdictor deployed with the DS1... what were they going to do if some of the Rebels fled Yavin IV?

Tarkin probably didn’t care to send out the standard TIE sentry ships since he was rushing to blow away the rebel base in half an hour. He must have thought the rebels were evacuating anyway and would have been complete fools to attack the station.

The Fortressa!

Still good reason

Gunners on turbo lasers that were too ponderous to track snub fighters?

In short: nothing good.

Which is probably, subconsciously, another reason he'd never abandon the station.

"How come this asshole couldn't shoot down some farm boy?"

“What the hell is an aluminum falcon?…Who’s THEY?”

@@MrSrhammer1 You must smell like leathery burnt bacon...

Thrawn's absence certainly didn't help the program.

The TIE Defender would have helped. But unfortunately, it would still end up being squandered by incompetent officers who are more interested in polishing their own brass instead of acknowledging effective policies just because it was suggested by a rival officer.

The compromise would have been shielded TIE interceptors and more production of Skipray blastboats. Another cheaper alternative is the Imperial Navy buying licenses of Sorosuub Preybirds to counteract the X-Wings while mass producing shielded TIEs and Defenders.

@@jaymikevillanueva1212 The Tie Avenger Existed to fill that roll. It was based off Darth Vader's Tie.

Love it, kinda sad when you remember games like X wing vs TIE fighter and you could see a powerful roster of imperial fighter variants aswell as frigates and assault ships

Maarek is awesome, loved how he used a Tie Bomber to protect Thrawn's shuttle.

Start now. Even 5 minutes of writing each day will add up over time.

The issue with Maarek Stele's plan is that the Empire has a serious internal security problem. Many Rebel pilots were Imperial pilots who defected to the Alliance. The problem with giving all Imperial starfighter pilots hyperspace capable craft is the Empire doesn't fully trust most of its TIE pilots. Many of them could potentially use that hyperdrive to escape the Empire and join the Rebels (or become mercenaries or pirates). So, Imperial policy has been to only give the most loyal and trustworthy pilots access to hyperdrive capable craft. If all Imperial starfighters had hyperdrives, the Empire would need to find a way to limit the navigation computers to accept only authorized destinations, and also protect them from slicing (tampering).

@@timonsolus A lot of that was Tarkin Doctrine as well. The tactical groups would have to be extremely loyal forces to get the best of equipment. The main issue with the Empire was that the military is ATM a big scary Peace Keeping force instead of an actual military fighting force. Once the Death Star blew up and the Rebellion became a true threat, the peace keeping force only really had numbers on its side and that wasn't cutting it well enough. As I said, it would take years for the Empire on whole to adjust, and it only got some decent lip service by the time of Endor.

As your probably aware of, Thrawn never approved of the Death Star in the first place, as it could only project power to one system at a time.

@Mr. Boomguy if im remembering right, in legends the largest remaining squad of tie defenders intact was present and did terrific amounts of capital ship damage.

Or imagine how many Tie Defenders fighters you could build out of the materials used to build a Death Star

LOL Rebel corvettes would've shredded them to pieces. They are especially designed to destroy starfighters, shielded or otherwise.

One squadron against an armada???

If Thrawn was commander in chief of the entire imperial military, the war would have ended in a year.

We'll build a bigger one, then purposefully use it to trigger a battle before it has it's own shields. Of course it won't be finished either, so even light freighters can fly inside. Maybe make a whole planet into a long range Death Star? Alright, hear me out on this one - 10000 smaller Death Stars that are even more explosive. Then for some reason put them in a place where their shields have to be down. And have absolutely no supporting ships at all. I can't wait for the new trilogy, to find out how many Death Stars they build.

How would being evil make them lose?

Being Evil doesn't make you incompetent. Tarkin just had some weird fetish for giant death machines that scare people which made him do some very stupid things.

We mainly see the lawless outer rim. People in the core worlds might have welcomed the added security. Just look at all the gated community's in Florida .

@@dabuff1319 Being autocratic does make you incompetent in the long run. Tarkin was able to push his doctrine because the Empire is ruled by a single person, which is coincidentally also the reason the Empire is evil, as that person happens to be a Sith.

@@p_serdiuk sith gets shit done 👌🏻

Also, with the bigger ships, make them smaller and sturdier

It makes perfect sense if you want to remove the best and brightest from your military to prevent a coup. Step 1: Make the TIE fighter pilot corps the most prestigious section of the Imperial armed forces Step 2: Get the best and brightest into the TIE fighter corps Step 3: Ensure massive casualties in the TIE fighter corps in any time of conflict No more competent veterans getting the idea of a mutiny during a conflict

I chalk it up to the Sith success of mass production via the Star Forge in the last great Jedi - Sith War

Indeed

Nicely said.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Video by KZfaq channel Spacedock specifically compares how Goa'uld and Galactic Empire apply the strategy of "ruling through fear." Goa'uld have been the de facto rulers of Milky Way galaxy for countless generations and have successfully convinced people they rule over, including their own Jaffa soldiers, that they are gods. Most people under their rule are at stone or bronze age. They maintain their rule quite well until Stargate Command manages to gradually expose them as frauds and incite large-scale uprisings. Meanwhile Galactic Empire tries to do the same thing, but to the people who used to live in a democratic nation just few years ago and have access to advanced technology. Tarkin doctrine was generally never going to work. Maybe Death Star could've acted as a sufficient crutch? A New Hope has story/plot convenience take precedence over the political (and physical) ramifications of capability to casually destroy a planet. To me personally this paradigm presents only two planned outcomes, more reasonable being that Empire intended Alderaan to be the only populated planet to be actually destroyed. Rest would fall in line to not be destroyed. However, all it would take is one planet desperate/defiant/foolish enough to not comply and call the entire bluff. Or force Empire to fall back to the second option of destroying every planet that disobeys. This would eventually turn every habitable planet (and moon) in Star Wars galaxy into space debris.

Agree but that's what the Empire gets for listening to an unstable a$$ like Tarkin rather than a brilliant mind like Thrawn... also that's my favourite scene in Stargate SG1 thanks 😄👍

Han Solo showed up on the Death Star hours after Alderaan was destroyed. On his ship he had: Vader's son. Vader's daughter, Vader's old astromech, the protocol droid Vader built as a child, the wookie who saved Ahshoka's life, and Vader's old friend and master Obi-Wan Kenobi, back from the dead! Vader must have been like: "Who the Hell was that guy in the vest?!?!" Then like a day or two later, Han sneaks up on Vader, one of if not the best starfighter pilot in the entire galaxy, in what is essentially a heavily modified 18-wheeler, and shoots him in the ass! ... Yeah I would have tortured him too at Bespin!

@@Grubnar, every father has a moment where they'd love to torture their daughter's boyfriend. Vader was just allowing all of them to live vicariously through him.

@@enoughothis He he, good point! He was just channeling the Force ... a different force!

Its partially an issue of the TIE/X2 & TIE/D being much more expensive on the logistics end compared to the TIE/LN or TIE/IN. More advanced systems means more time the fighter has to stay in a repair bay,which means you have to both buy more spares and more units to maintain the same level of (at least on paper) unit readiness. Which while the TIE/D might only be per unit 3x the cost of a TIE/LN,the TIE/D effectively costs 4-6x more then a TIE/LN when upkeep is factored in. Logistically speaking the TIE LN/IN are effectively the best peacetime airframe. Cheap,easy to maintain,and good enough to clip the occasional pirate’s wings. Good for keeping your aviators flying when you are focusing on long lead time items like battleships and cruisers. If an actual war with a peer power broke out variants like the TIE/D could easily be brought into mass production to replace the TIE/LN in frontline service. Essentially the Imperial military is prepped for fighting the clone wars, and this doesn’t factor in them having to fight rebels with both popular support and better equipment nor, the ideologically enforced incompetency of the officers,and all around post clone wars incompetence of the government.

Its a good answer.

They partied thru the academy on dad's credit card.

Just the TIE Avenger would have been enough.

Zaarin was a filthy traitor, but at least he wasn’t a rebel like Harkov.

Your not wrong.

I mean personally I favor the Z95 but yeah V-wings also work. Or maybe not have any point defense on your capital ships seriously cut down the ISDs heavy battery by 1/3 and have that energy be devoted to point defense

It was like August put himself as bait in German forest with just 2 Legions.

@@weishi9804 And he got killed by Tiberius.

Canon New Republic suffers from plot-induced stupidity. First Order as seen in the movies can't possibly win every battle, they're portrayed as too incompetent.

@@user-yq9im9dk9z EU New Republic was just as incompetent. They would've lost to Thrawn or Dark Empire Palpatine if it weren't for the Jedi or Carnor Jax, and they got more people killed by their incompetence against the Vong (365 trillion) than the Empire did by its outright malice.

The TIE's characteristics are based on the Japanese Zero from WWII. The Zero was considered the best fighter plane in the world at the beginning of the war - it was fast, maneuverable, well-armed, and had long range. At the outset of the war, very few Allied fighters could go toe-to-toe with a Zero and live to tell the tale. To get the speed and maneuverability, though, the Zero lacked any armor protection for the cockpit or engine, and lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, which made it prone to burn or explode when hit by incoming fire. The Allies developed both better planes and effective tactics against the Zero very quickly, however, eventually giving them air superiority in the Pacific theater. I see the TIE as the Star Wars equivalent of the Zero - a cheap, mass-produced fighter with great speed and maneuverability, but no shields or life-support for the pilot, making it difficult to hit, but easy to convert into a cloud of expanding gas when you did hit it. We know in retrospect that the TIE doctrine didn't work, just as we know the Zero doctrine didn't work for the Japanese Empire, but that's only with the benefit of hindsight.

The TIE/IN makes sense from the perspective of just having basic, fast, quick-to-build fighters that could take on the basic transports and lightly armed vessels most insurgents would be able to field before the X-Wing. While it does take a while to train a fighter pilot, remember the Empire had recruiting stations and academies on worlds with (collectively) BILLIONS of possible recruits at least. And with huge space industries being "nationalized" many of their trained employees would actually get a better employment deal by joining the Navy or Army starfighter corps. Most potential adversaries aren't going to be able to stand up to scores or hundreds of basic TIEs backed by the weapons on a Star Destroyer. Look at Scariff, the Rebels "won" by taking out two ISD's and retrieving the Death Star plans and causing the Empire to sacrifice their own Intelligence Base. They did, however, lose their only available cruiser-class capital ships, numerous frigates and MOST of their tougher, more heavily shielded starfighters. By Yavin, the Rebels send two reinforced squadrons of starfighters against the Death Star because that's all they have available following the loses at Scariff. I'd say the TIEs acquitted themselves fairly well from the Empire's limited perspective.

Quite the opposite

@@ForestRaptor They can be hired but completely lack the funding for proper training to anything else other than shoot people. Buying a Tie figther is one thing but the pilot need hours of fligth to be effective, same goes with officers and military doctrines.

But Stormtroopers cant fly...

@@waltciii3 You're not throwing them hard enough.

what do you disagree on? Seems like what he is saying is usually facts

What’s up with the meatbag fanboys? Clones are just meat drones, I’m more of a fan of making the standard TIE a droid fighter like in Dark Empire

@@Ragnarok6664 because for some reason SW droids and computers are dumber than meatbags...

You ever see a tug push a much larger ship into dock? Imagine how much easier that would be if there was no water in the way.

he did know, but he had nothing to say realy, even if it looked like he was in charge, Palpatine was the one who was in charge, and what he said goes

Idk, Thrawn trilogy is whole three books! That's not short. It's kinda satisfying reading Thrawn figure out problems.

The sentry TIEs encountered by the Falcon on escaping the DS were also part of presumed standard patrols that created a perimeter around the battle station

Actually, General Dodonna in the pilot's briefing says: :The target is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes." As we see the Clone Wars and other placed in SW, it's much easier to shield against lasers and blasters than physical objects when you have a large enough generator (the Droidekas). You probably couldn't shield an exhaust port for particles (tiny solids) since it had to let them out by design. Lowering particle (solid) shields every time a TIE or utility vessel had to fly across the surface of the Death Star would get pretty unwieldy.

Which makes me wonder why he didn't head to the pilot's ready room and just go "Fly out there or die in here."

@@Sephiroth144maybe he did....just because we dont see it in the movie doesnt mean it didnt happen....i like to think he actually did do it.

@@Sephiroth144 i like to think he did

@@jaws666 "So, why were there so few TIE Fighters deployed, Lord Vader?" "I... might've been a little aggressive in telling them to get to thei-" "You killed them all when one guy asked a question?" "I killed them all when one guy asked a question."

Yes