Has anyone done a Death Star Battle with 30 Rebel ships? What kind of opposition do you think would be fair? Also turbolasers? How many, different types etc?

30 ships, at roughly 25 points each, would put you in the neighborhood of 750 points, so opposiition would have to be in the same range. I'm sure someone has come up with rules and point costs for turbolasers, so just add that into the calculation. You'd need a good deal of tablespace for this battle, though and some inventive way to move the ships.

32

Trench run was done with:

12 in Red Squadron

7 in Gold Squadron

Followed by the Millennium Falcon

The remaining ships performed a diversionary tactical attack on the main gun of the Death Star with:

Blue and Green squadrons mixed X-Wings, Y-Wings and Spearheads(which almost look like A-Wings).

Battle of Yavin

++++++

As for the Imperial side, you have Vader and 8 Tie fighters; plus, Thousands of Turbo Lasers,Laser cannons and Ion cannons.

Death Star in the Additional information section.

This is the Death Star game you are looking for: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/936170/deathstar-trench-run-singapore-24-02-2013-with-a-b

Lets' see, I know that Luke, Wedge, Biggs, "Porkins", Garven and "Dutch" along with Han Solo were named pilots that flew, along with the droids R2-D2, R5-D8, R5-K6, R2-F2 in... someone's ship (Biggs?) and an astromech for everybody flying (I'm assuming), plus everyone carrying a torpedo, not to mention any possible upgrades that were on any of the ships flying. So aside from named pilots we have 6 Gold Squadron Pilots, 7 Red Squadron Pilots, and the other 10-12 fighters that made up Blue and Green Squadrons.

On the Empire's side, we have Vader, who'd probably use Squad Leader and in Rogue Leader he has cluster missiles on his ship, alongside Mauler Mithel, Backstabber, Dark Curse and 5 Black Squadron pilots.

...Sorry, how did this all come down to Luke again? The logistics seem much more favourable for the Rebels in the first place. Black Squadron and the gunners of the Death Star must have really pulled off something amazing off screen to make it come all down to him.

What I never understood is how a space station the size of a small moon couldn't scramble enough fighters to overwhelm the attackers. Is this explained in the EU at all? I mean surely the Death Star had more than 30 TIE Fighters to simply overwhelm the rebels right?

As far as the movie is concerned, the whole sequence is awesome nonetheless.

What I never understood is how a space station the size of a small moon couldn't scramble enough fighters to overwhelm the attackers. Is this explained in the EU at all? I mean surely the Death Star had more than 30 TIE Fighters to simply overwhelm the rebels right?

As far as the movie is concerned, the whole sequence is awesome nonetheless.

Quoted from Star Wars wiki:

"The station commander, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, dismissed the attack as futile and refused to deploy the station's vast TIE squadrons. But Darth Vader, realizing the material threat, ordered his personal fighter squadron to scramble on his own authority. The TIE fighter squadron attacked the Rebel forces soon after they realized that their laser batteries were failing. An order was passed on, to stop all turbolasers from firing, letting the TIEs do the job, and to avoid the risk of Imperial fighters being shot down by friendly fire^. The Rebels engaged in duels with the starfighters, destroying several to clear the way to the trench.^"

My understanding is that, the Death Star had a whole ton more fighters. Grand Moff Tarkin didn't scramble them because he didn't believe the rebel fighters posed a threat and was basically target fixated on destroying Yavin. Without his authorization, Darth Vader could only scramble a small fraction of the forces (basically his honor guard).

Something similar has happened in real life. The Battle of Thermopyle is a good example. Sparta had two kings in those days, plus a ruling council. Persia's invasion was taking place during a time of ritual peace, were none of the city-states of Greece were allowed to wage war. King Leonidas, realizing the threat and unable to convince his city to send the army or to raise the other city-states, 'took his honor guard' of 300 men (plus squires but they were slaves so they don't count) and a few other small allied contingents (total of about 2000-4000 men) to stop the Persian advance while the festival ended and Greece could mobilize. They faced down the 100K+ man army of the Persians and held them off for 7 days (1 for the Persians to arrive, 3 days of negotiation, 3 days of fighting). The fight is quite interesting from a historical perspective.

Jfitz1431,

just chalk it up to Imperial Hubris and a short engagement/reaction time. The Empire thought that they had the element of surprise (having jumped in, supposedly unobserved, using the planet Yavin to mask their arrival) and that there was really nothing the Rebels could field that would pose a creditable threat to the Death Star. The Imperial commanders decided to send in the Death Star unescorted (despite the presence of other Imperial Naval forces in the vicinity) on the grounds that the Death Star was essential invulnerable, whereas fighters and lesser starships would actually provide targets that the Rebels could actually damage. Unfortunately, they were unaware that the plans the Bothan spies provided to the Rebel Alliance revealed a fatal flaw in the Death Star's design, a flaw which the Rebels successfully exploited. By the time the Imperial commanders realized the true threat, it was too late to scramble more than a handful of fighters.

...And the rest is history... (err... cinema...)

Personally, I'm beginning to favor the "conspiracy" theories espoused in other posts on this site.

Or perhaps, everything unfolded just as the Emperor had foreseen...

Chris

Jfitz1431,

just chalk it up to Imperial Hubris and a short engagement/reaction time. The Empire thought that they had the element of surprise (having jumped in, supposedly unobserved, using the planet Yavin to mask their arrival) and that there was really nothing the Rebels could field that would pose a creditable threat to the Death Star. The Imperial commanders decided to send in the Death Star unescorted (despite the presence of other Imperial Naval forces in the vicinity) on the grounds that the Death Star was essential invulnerable, whereas fighters and lesser starships would actually provide targets that the Rebels could actually damage. Unfortunately, they were unaware that the plans the Bothan spies provided to the Rebel Alliance revealed a fatal flaw in the Death Star's design, a flaw which the Rebels successfully exploited. By the time the Imperial commanders realized the true threat, it was too late to scramble more than a handful of fighters.

...And the rest is history... (err... cinema...)

Personally, I'm beginning to favor the "conspiracy" theories espoused in other posts on this site.

Or perhaps, everything unfolded just as the Emperor had foreseen...

Chris

The Empire doesn't think our fighters will be any threat or they would have a tighter defense."

Much of the EU stuff I have read indicated that the Empire underestimated fighters in general until the Battle of Yavin.

Though there is no reason why a moon size space station couldn't house a gazzillion fighters, but there isn't much indication that it did.

Even the fighters that the Falcon encountered were either Picket ships (on the ay out) or what appeared to be a scout ship.

My understanding is that, the Death Star had a whole ton more fighters. Grand Moff Tarkin didn't scramble them because he didn't believe the rebel fighters posed a threat and was basically target fixated on destroying Yavin. Without his authorization, Darth Vader could only scramble a small fraction of the forces (basically his honor guard).

Something similar has happened in real life. The Battle of Thermopyle is a good example. Sparta had two kings in those days, plus a ruling council. Persia's invasion was taking place during a time of ritual peace, were none of the city-states of Greece were allowed to wage war. King Leonidas, realizing the threat and unable to convince his city to send the army or to raise the other city-states, 'took his honor guard' of 300 men (plus squires but they were slaves so they don't count) and a few other small allied contingents (total of about 2000-4000 men) to stop the Persian advance while the festival ended and Greece could mobilize. They faced down the 100K+ man army of the Persians and held them off for 7 days (1 for the Persians to arrive, 3 days of negotiation, 3 days of fighting). The fight is quite interesting from a historical perspective.

Well, that's not entirely true. The Spartans narrowly missed the Battle of Marathon in 490 because of the Carneia (a Spartan only observance), but there was nothing preventing the remaining poleis from waging war at Thermopylae and Artemesium during the second Persian Invasion. If you read Wikipedia, the information is partially misleading - the 'truce' observed by Greeks during the Olympics pertained only to the Olympics themselves and the Olympic competitors. The Greeks did not abstain from war during the Olympics, least of all against outside forces.

The numbers are also highly debatable. The number 300 was special to the Greeks for some reason (and the Peloponnese in particular: see the Battle of the Champions), and any historical account attesting to that specific number must always be taken with a grain of salt. There may have been more Spartans (or Spartiates, as distinct from Perioiki and helots), or there may have been less - it's always difficult to know for certain when dealing with the sources, especially the later ones like Plutarch. Herodotus, the greatest (and first) Greek historian claims some 4,000+ Greeks squared off against 3,000,000 Persians (The Histories, 7.202 and 7.228.1). Modern numbers are mere estimates, educated guesses at best, and they range all over the place.

I'm looking forward to dispatch the complete Black 8 Squadron in epic mode battles.

I think Lord Vader could sense the immidiate destruction of the death star - but had no explanation for Tarkin. So he decided to get into his personal prototype fighter to seek close combat with the attackers - to his surprise he found a force user amongst the rebel attackers - but it was too late. Somehow Vader managed to waste his actions with target locking and Squad Leader Orders like 'stay in close formation' ... and he was like he wanted to yell: "I really need a FCS in this advanced ...." but then Han shot Mauler Mithel or Backstabber ... and all went ill. Vader decided to never use his useless fighter again and got his own fleet of star destroyers with a very huge star destroyer as his new personal ship.

"What good are stunt fighters going to be against that?

The Empire doesn't think our fighters will be any threat or they would have a tighter defense."

Much of the EU stuff I have read indicated that the Empire underestimated fighters in general until the Battle of Yavin.

Though there is no reason why a moon size space station couldn't house a gazzillion fighters there isn't much indication that it did.

Even the fighters that the Falcon encountered were either Picket ships (on the ay out) or what appeared to be a scout ship.

"Excuse me sir, but what good are snub-fighters going to be against that?"

"Well the Empire doesn't consider a small, one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense."

Small point of order: it's "snub fighters," not "stunt fighters". Snub fighters in Star Wars are one-man fighters which are secondary to their larger cousins, the gunships. Technically, all small ships present in the game are snub fighters, with the exception of the HWK-290.

And there is evidence that the Death Star carried hundreds, or even thousands of fighters. Han Solo ran into one of the TIE hangars when he chased down a group of stormtroopers. This hangar had at least one fighter in it, but it was easily large enough to house six. Looking at the waist band trench, there are hundreds of tiny lights, each one a hangar (they're much too large to be mere windows). Even if a large number were cargo depots, they still would have many fighter hangars.

There's also evidence in Imperial design philosophy with the large hangars of the Imperial Star Destroyers. They are cavernous, with many launch bays along the sides. Obviously they must launch and retrieve a great many ships, but it wouldn't make much sense if it were just captured Rebel corvettes. Besides, no navy would be complete without decent fighter screens to provide a wide reach and increase their presence, and this practice should apply even more so to battle stations, which wouldn't be nearly as mobile as Star Destroyers and would need defenses besides its own defense turrets.

One thing I've never understood was why the Rebels tried level bombing a 3 meter target when coming in from above and dive bombing it would have been much more accurate? I know why cinimaticaly it was done but militarily it doesn't make sense to use the less accurate attack.

Which in-game imperial pilots were there?

The rest could be filled in with Black Squadron pilots, they're my favorite.

My understanding is that, the Death Star had a whole ton more fighters. Grand Moff Tarkin didn't scramble them because he didn't believe the rebel fighters posed a threat and was basically target fixated on destroying Yavin. Without his authorization, Darth Vader could only scramble a small fraction of the forces (basically his honor guard).

Something similar has happened in real life. The Battle of Thermopyle is a good example. Sparta had two kings in those days, plus a ruling council. Persia's invasion was taking place during a time of ritual peace, were none of the city-states of Greece were allowed to wage war. King Leonidas, realizing the threat and unable to convince his city to send the army or to raise the other city-states, 'took his honor guard' of 300 men (plus squires but they were slaves so they don't count) and a few other small allied contingents (total of about 2000-4000 men) to stop the Persian advance while the festival ended and Greece could mobilize. They faced down the 100K+ man army of the Persians and held them off for 7 days (1 for the Persians to arrive, 3 days of negotiation, 3 days of fighting). The fight is quite interesting from a historical perspective.

Well, that's not entirely true. The Spartans narrowly missed the Battle of Marathon in 490 because of the Carneia (a Spartan only observance), but there was nothing preventing the remaining poleis from waging war at Thermopylae and Artemesium during the second Persian Invasion. If you read Wikipedia, the information is partially misleading - the 'truce' observed by Greeks during the Olympics pertained only to the Olympics themselves and the Olympic competitors. The Greeks did not abstain from war during the Olympics, least of all against outside forces.

The numbers are also highly debatable. The number 300 was special to the Greeks for some reason (and the Peloponnese in particular: see the Battle of the Champions), and any historical account attesting to that specific number must always be taken with a grain of salt. There may have been more Spartans (or Spartiates, as distinct from Perioiki and helots), or there may have been less - it's always difficult to know for certain when dealing with the sources, especially the later ones like Plutarch. Herodotus, the greatest (and first) Greek historian claims some 4,000+ Greeks squared off against 3,000,000 Persians (The Histories, 7.202 and 7.228.1). Modern numbers are mere estimates, educated guesses at best, and they range all over the place.

Everyone should read the Gates of Fire. It is about the battle. IIRC, all told, the greek forces numbered around 5000 against the 100k Persians. There were 300 Spartans, their squires, and household guards (think Knights, pages, and Squires) that numbered nearly 1000, plus another 4000 from surrounding countryside.

One thing I've never understood was why the Rebels tried level bombing a 3 meter target when coming in from above and dive bombing it would have been much more accurate? I know why cinimaticaly it was done but militarily it doesn't make sense to use the less accurate attack.

Of course nothing in Star Wars makes much military sense if you think about it too much.

I like to tell myself that staying in the trench gave the fighter cover from all the turbot lasers except the ones actually in the trench. I don't know if there is some other explanation out there in the millions of words written to explain the Star Wars universe, but I think my explanation is as good as any.

"What good are stunt fighters going to be against that?

The Empire doesn't think our fighters will be any threat or they would have a tighter defense."

Much of the EU stuff I have read indicated that the Empire underestimated fighters in general until the Battle of Yavin.

Though there is no reason why a moon size space station couldn't house a gazzillion fighters there isn't much indication that it did.

Even the fighters that the Falcon encountered were either Picket ships (on the ay out) or what appeared to be a scout ship.

"Excuse me sir, but what good are snub-fighters going to be against that?"

"Well the Empire doesn't consider a small, one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense."

Small point of order: it's "snub fighters," not "stunt fighters". Snub fighters in Star Wars are one-man fighters which are secondary to their larger cousins, the gunships. Technically, all small ships present in the game are snub fighters, with the exception of the HWK-290.

And there is evidence that the Death Star carried hundreds, or even thousands of fighters. Han Solo ran into one of the TIE hangars when he chased down a group of stormtroopers. This hangar had at least one fighter in it, but it was easily large enough to house six. Looking at the waist band trench, there are hundreds of tiny lights, each one a hangar (they're much too large to be mere windows). Even if a large number were cargo depots, they still would have many fighter hangars.

There's also evidence in Imperial design philosophy with the large hangars of the Imperial Star Destroyers. They are cavernous, with many launch bays along the sides. Obviously they must launch and retrieve a great many ships, but it wouldn't make much sense if it were just captured Rebel corvettes. Besides, no navy would be complete without decent fighter screens to provide a wide reach and increase their presence, and this practice should apply even more so to battle stations, which wouldn't be nearly as mobile as Star Destroyers and would need defenses besides its own defense turrets.

Thanks for the point on snub fighters, the reference to stunt fighters always confused me.

As for the Empires use of fighter, what you say makes sense based sound military understanding as well as all those awesome ship diagrams and stuff, but the Empire just didn't use a lot of fighters until the Battle of Endor. We didn't see any fighter when the Tantive was taken, or when two star destroyers were chasing Han off Tatooine. No fighter were sent out to face the rebel attack, until badger ordered it. There were no fighters deployed around Hoth as the Star Destroyers got ionized, and we didn't see fighter chasing Han as he was trying to escape from Hoth.

I interpret this to be because in the mind of the Empire star destroyers were there might. They were the fighting force of the Empire, they were more battleships than aircraft carriers.

Reading some things last night through a few wookie links, it seems there were fighter used in the battles of Yavin and Hoth.. bombers and ties hit YavinIV while some fighters were also used on hoth.. none of it was in view of the movie window frame, if you will. There is also a story about a TIE pilot, Qurl I think, that crashed on Yavin IV and lived off the land for years, then started creating trouble for the Jedi as they trained there in the EU stories.

Reading some things last night through a few wookie links, it seems there were fighter used in the battles of Yavin and Hoth.. bombers and ties hit YavinIV while some fighters were also used on hoth.. none of it was in view of the movie window frame, if you will. There is also a story about a TIE pilot, Qurl I think, that crashed on Yavin IV and lived off the land for years, then started creating trouble for the Jedi as they trained there in the EU stories.

Yeah, the Rogue Squadron games fill in a lot of blanks of TIE attacks. Imperial bombardments of Yavin after the first Death Star was destroyed were very TIE heavy, and Bombers were used quite extensively to attack the escaping Alliance Transports.

One thing I've never understood was why the Rebels tried level bombing a 3 meter target when coming in from above and dive bombing it would have been much more accurate? I know why cinimaticaly it was done but militarily it doesn't make sense to use the less accurate attack.

It's the same reason torpedo bombers came in low in WW2 to attack enemy ships: to avoid AA fire. Turbolasers can only track them accurately if they're above the trench, like when one got Porkins. Skimming the surface of the trench allowed them to avoid the heaviest batteries. They didn't count on TIE Fighters swarming them (or at least it wasn't part of the briefing), because they knew Imperial military doctrine of heavy firepower versus precision. They also probably overestimated the turrets' ability to hit them considering how long they lasted in the trench under AA fire, but they stuck to the plan nevertheless.

Besides that, there's no real reason to attack from above when the torpedoes can make a 72,000g snap-turn into the exhaust port. Just skim the trench and let the onboard targeting systems of the torpedo do your work for you. Of course, heavy jamming prevented a lot of accuracy on the part of the Rebels, but Luke was able to use the Force to circumvent the jamming, something Red Leader wasn't able to do on his run (he got **** close though, even with the jamming).

Was it Luke using the Force or the Force using Luke when he managed the most unlikely ... and this without jedi-training.

The reason why some of the rebels flow high and attacked the flak towers was to attract fire and possible TIE Fighters - and to cover the attack plan as long as possible.

Once the Y-Wings entered the trench, the Imperial tacticians soon figures out what the rebels had in mind. But Tarkin was a pure pragmatist and don't belived in the Rebel's chances nor in the might of the Force. He didn't even hear what his analyst had to say about the rebel attack. Clearly no Captain Picard

What makes me wonder a bit is why Vader is under Tarkins command. Shouldn't he be the 2nd in command after the Emperor, in the Episodes V and VI nobody but his master dares to give Vader orders.

Was it Luke using the Force or the Force using Luke when he managed the most unlikely ... and this without jedi-training.

The reason why some of the rebels flow high and attacked the flak towers was to attract fire and possible TIE Fighters - and to cover the attack plan as long as possible.

Once the Y-Wings entered the trench, the Imperial tacticians soon figures out what the rebels had in mind. But Tarkin was a pure pragmatist and don't belived in the Rebel's chances nor in the might of the Force. He didn't even hear what his analyst had to say about the rebel attack. Clearly no Captain Picard

What makes me wonder a bit is why Vader is under Tarkins command. Shouldn't he be the 2nd in command after the Emperor, in the Episodes V and VI nobody but his master dares to give Vader orders.

During the events of the Clone Wars, Anakin developed a respect for Tarkin, that and Palpatine said so...

I think that once the Death Star was destroyed, Palpatine put his fist down, "Let there be no mistakes from here on out Lord Vader, kill them if you have to".

Luke used the Force in the sense that he just relied on his instincts and did it manually. I've never interpreted it as him moving the torpedoes themselves.

Was it Luke using the Force or the Force using Luke when he managed the most unlikely ... and this without jedi-training.

The reason why some of the rebels flow high and attacked the flak towers was to attract fire and possible TIE Fighters - and to cover the attack plan as long as possible.

Once the Y-Wings entered the trench, the Imperial tacticians soon figures out what the rebels had in mind. But Tarkin was a pure pragmatist and don't belived in the Rebel's chances nor in the might of the Force. He didn't even hear what his analyst had to say about the rebel attack. Clearly no Captain Picard

What makes me wonder a bit is why Vader is under Tarkins command. Shouldn't he be the 2nd in command after the Emperor, in the Episodes V and VI nobody but his master dares to give Vader orders.

This goes back to how military command structures work. In the Navy, Admirals outrank Captains, but on board a ship the Captain, not the Admiral, is the one that has absolute authority. The Admiral may give a Captain orders about what to do, but the Captain may choose to disregard them for a number of reasons and has the ultimate decision and responsibility for what happens.

If the Empire were working with the same structure, Vader does outrank Tarkin and may give Tarkin orders, but the ultimate authority for what happens on the Death Star rests with Tarkin. If Tarkin doesn't give the order to launch the TIE swarms, then they don't launch, no matter how much Vader may order otherwise.