LogFAQs > #909871359

Unbridled9 posted...

Neither should a single bomber have had the punch needed; especially when it's payload was what appeared to basically be freaking thermal detonators as opposed to, you know, bombs.

Already pointed out that Star Wars has a long and storied history of small ships taking out really big ones. You can argue whether or not that's logical, but

Also, thermal detonators (even the handheld ones in RotJ, as opposed to the large bomb-sized ones we see in TLJ) are ordnance - there's a reason why C-3PO is terrified of the one Leia brings to Jabba and that's because it has enough power to flatten the entire palace. Even as far back as the 90s these things were in Star Wars stories as ship-based bombs that had an enormous payload.

Unbridled9 posted...

If we were talking the guns meant for ship to ship combat we wouldn't have a problem. Those turrets were anti-fighter ones... that couldn't handle fighters. Rewatch ANH. Notice how the Death Star managed to have turrets that could at least reliably shoot back? There's a reason larger capitol ships have guns like that. Because they're huge targets and if a single fighter could easily harass them just because they couldn't bother with basic anti-fighter defenses they wouldn't last long at all.

First off, no, those turrets weren't anti-fighter and were never specified as such. That's exactly why Canady is saying that they need to scramble fighters, because that's the main anti-fighter defence (that and the ship apparently has armour that is too tough for most starfighters to breach).

As for the Death Star and its guns, no, those turrets could not reliably shoot back. That was the entire point and the reason why they were using starfighters in the first place. Turbolasers, in Star Wars lore, are for ship-to-ship combat, not point defence; they turn too slowly to reliably handle starfighters (and unless I am forgetting something, not a single rebel fighter dies to turbolaser fire in the Battle of Yavin; all were taken out by Vader and the fighters).

And that quip about why starships have anti-starfighter guns? You just spelled out the Rebellion's exact tactics against the Empire. They discovered that while they were significantly outgunned in ship-to-ship engagements, their starfighters were far superior than the Empire's and their best method of attack was using starfighters to engage things like Star Destroyers, which had limited means of countering them (which is exactly why the Empire would eventually develop things like lancer frigates as a hard counter).

Unbridled9 posted...

The Y-wings in ANH were damaged and not at full power due to the prior battle. However the trilogy and EU make it pretty clear that Y-wings are pretty freaking durable.

What prior battle? The ships were all fresh for Yavin. The Y-wings being durable was an EU convention; if you want to stick with that, fine, but in the EU the Resistance bombers are even hardier, so that's not really a point in your favour.

Unbridled9 posted...

Snowspeeders were garbage craft that had the advantage of having been designed to operate in cold weather. The fact that they had, of all things, a TOWCABLE should clue you in to the fact that they were not designed for combat. Unlike, you know, a bomber.

The point is, the rebels had ships that were designed to have multiple crew (and if you're factoring in the EU, Y-wings and B-wings usually had one pilot and one gunner, along with a slew of lesser-known starfighters on both sides).

Hell, why is having multiple crew-members a disadvantage? I'm not even sure what you're complaining about with this.
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