"What Rogue One Teaches Us About the Rebel ..." Topic

…Alliance's Military Chops.

"Ever since the white-armored Stormtroopers burst through the door of Princess Leia's shuttle to open Star Wars: A New Hope back in 1977, military service members and strategy wonks have evaluated the space saga's handling of military tactics. From armored formations on Hoth to the day-to-day lives of Rebel and Imperial staff officers, back-seat TIE-drivers have examined each aspect of war in the Galaxy far, far away in minute detail. Which is why so many members of the military and security community greeted Rogue One with delight: It's basically a war movie. It answers so many of the questions that we've had about how the Rebel Alliance does business, and it's pretty much as we expected: they shoot from the hip.

A warning, there are good number of spoilers ahead.

Out of Order
First, instructors at the US Army's Training and Doctrine Command could use the Rebel way of planning as a cautionary tale to hammer home the importance of the Military Decision Making Process. The Rebels don't have much of one. Rather than a course of action brief, the Rebel council holds a group-sensing session to decide if they should act on the intelligence provided by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones). It's a potential game-changer; her father, who designed the Death Star, intentionally left a flaw in its design which can be found in the Imperial archives on the planet of Scarif. Rebel leaders decline to act, leaving Jyn to solve the problem herself…"
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Amicalement
Armand

You want spoilers? I got some on a Star Wars page at my site.

panzer-war.com/page61.html

One point I left out.
If a star fighter can hyper jump in an atmosphere why can't it hyper jump under the shield? The shield wouldn't be able to extend into hyper space.

Is hyperspace actualy a different place to normal space? From the visuals on the films it just seems to be slang for "going stupidly fast" whereby the ships can travel at the speed the plot requires of them. Theres nothing to indicate they go into another dimension or subspace or anything.

Given that several ships bounced off the front of a Star Destroyer whilst trying to go to hyperspace it seems likely that any physical obstacle can't simply be by passed.

This was true in the old Xwing games as well- you couldn't go to Hyperspace with something in the way.

Strongly implying that if you tried to go through the shield you would merely impact it like a bug on a windshield…

It should be obvious that the only problem with hyperspacing into a planets atmosphere is stopping before you hit the surface.

1. We have seen ships 'going into hyperspace' in an atmosphere starting at only a few hundred feet off the ground and don't burn up.
2. In some other scenes ships burn up as they fall from space. So either their shields prevent burn up going up or when in hyper space itself as opposed to 'going into hyper space'. Going into hyper space is having one foot in regular space and one in hyper space. Apparently the ship needs speed to get to hyper space. A static ship or structure can't jump into hyper space. Though this may not be true of the Death Star.
3. Between any twp points light years apart it would be hard to determine if there wasn't some dust, gas or rock material between them that a ship wouldn't run into.
4. Why can't ships be tracked when using their hyper drive? It seems there should be a trail of some sort of signature left in normal space if the ship was travelling in regular space but at hyper speed. From what I have seen once a ship gets into hyper space it 'gets away' from a ship in normal space trailing them.
5. In Rogue One we see the Rebel fleet appear as if by magic near the space shield door. It doesn't zoom there.
6. The Millenium Falcon doesn't encounter debris from the destroyed Alderaan until it comes out of hyper space.
7. Ships seem to be piloted by the seat of the pants pilots and not some ultra smart navigation system. (Notice all the crashes into asteroids and mountains they manage while just in regular space.) So it doesn't look like they could dodge objects while going many times the speed of light in regular space.

I'm getting increasingly disappointed by how hyperspace seems to work in Star Wars. In the first movie it seems as though it takes quite a while for the heroes to travel from Tatooine to Alderann via hyperspace. Hours surely and perhaps even days. Long enough to get bored and start playing 'chess' and doing light saber drills anyway.

But by Episode VII and now in Rogue One, it seems like hyperspace travel takes only a few minutes or an hour or two at most. The Imperial base gets attacked and in in a very short time reinforcements arrive. This makes the strategic situation very complicated. Strikes can be launched against anywhere on short notice, but reinforcements can arrive very quickly, too.

I'm getting increasingly disappointed by how hyperspace seems to work in Star Wars. In the first movie it seems as though it takes quite a while for the heroes to travel from Tatooine to Alderann via hyperspace. Hours surely and perhaps even days. Long enough to get bored and start playing 'chess' and doing light saber drills anyway.

You are right. It isn't consistent. And it's not as if hyper drives have been improved over the decades because Rogue One happens before the Original SW. And what is with the instantaneous radio contact? That is disturbing. The Empire could muster all their forces when they triangulate the source of the Rebel HQ radio transmissions.

Should there be a spoiler warning in this thread?

" now in Rogue One, it seems like hyperspace travel takes only a few minutes or an hour or two at most. The Imperial base gets attacked and in in a very short time reinforcements arrive. "

To be fair it could just be that the film misses the boring 10 hours of "Are we nearly there yet?" from the back seat- The implication seemed to be that the Rebel fleet (or at least the most gung-go elements of it) had set off from Yavin 4 before Rogue One arrived at the destination.Theres enough ambiguity there that though we see it as one seemless event there could have easily been 50 hours of transit time, or a century or more, and still have both Rogue One and the rest of the fleet arrive a few hours apart.

Given the attitude of several members of the alliance council meeting its possible many of them had already made preperations to do what Rogue One did anyway.

The implication seemed to be that the Rebel fleet (or at least the most gung-go elements of it) had set off from Yavin 4 before Rogue One arrived at the destination.

I didn't get that from the movie. I got that the Rebel X-wing groups took off after they received a call for help or some other communication from the team on the ground at Scarif. What good would the x-wing groups do if Rogue one wasn't able to get through the shield door?

In that case it only took as long as it took Jyn to walk from the landing spot to the buildings and up the elevator to the data access station.

Hmm may have to rewatch it asap…

I thought that the hurried meeting on Yavin4 was about how a call had been intercepted and how some elements of the fleet had already set off after Rogue 1, and that meybe they should get everyone else together and go after them, causing Mon Mothma to get her smirk on as she's getting her own way after all.

Now there were a whole bunch of Xwings lying around but we do know from other sources that the Alliance got hold of a load just before the battle for Yavin4 so its possible that was just these being prepared, and that these would smply replace the losses suffered at Scarif and take part in the battle of Yavin4. After all, we saw Red5 destroyed so Lukes Xwing had to come from somewhere right?

When you re-watch it check the timeline for the go-ahead for the attack on the research station. I'm trying to remember why they sent the rogues to take out Galen and then sent an x-wing raid at the same time. Was the second one insurance? How did the rebels x-wings know where the research station was when the rogues had the pilot?

Hmm…cant recall that bit precisely. Didn't they think the Rogues had been destroyed or something?

Maybe, when it crash landed. Then the time it took to walk in the dark between the crash site to the research base is the time it takes to get from the Rebel HQ and the base.

Hyperspace travel moves at the speed of plot. At least JMS is openly honest about such things.

ENGAGE PLOT SPEED ENGINES!

@Mike Target: They probably had spare fighters and not enough pilots. Callsigns get reassigned. Wedge also isn't in the battle (but will be later when it comes to Yavin).

The alliance in Rogue one was too much like the senate in the prequels. There was no defined leadership, everyone got a vote. I'm guessing some deadwood was trimmed between R1 an ep4.

Chromedog,

Regarding the trimming of dead wood – that would make an interesting one-off story as well.

Regards,
Keith F.

I'm guessing some deadwood was trimmed between R1 an ep4

Possibly, although you're talking a matter of 2-3 days or so.

More likely (and in keeping with the theme of Rogue One), after the Death Star got whacked, suddenly a lot of groups that were on the fence realized they could win and committed to the war effort.