Star Wars is Bullcrap Lies Science Fiction taught me about Strategic Planning.

 I shamelessly cribbed this off Angry Staff Officer, He likes to use Star Wars as a training tool to reflect current or potential United States Army Doctrine.  My Friend Mack actually met the guy and told me that yes the guy is pissed all the time, LOL.  I guess being stuck working as a Staff weenie would make me angry all the time too.

POSTED ONSEPTEMBER 27, 2020 BY KR PAUL

Star Wars is Bullsh*t! – Lies Science Fiction Taught Me About Strategic Planning

The Star Wars saga is iconic, whether it’s the original movies or the much deliberated prequels and sequels. Love them or hate them, each movie has iconic scenes that ensnare the mind. I was too young to see the original trilogy in theaters, but I saw the prequels and sequels in theaters and all nine movies sold me a tale of heroism and bravery. But they also sold me the idea that battles and wars were won by a handful of General Officers sitting around a table making detailed decisions about the war.

What a crock of shit.

Sure, Generals and Admirals drive the conflict. They have the big, overarching vision of how the war should go. That said, they aren’t tacticians and Star Wars lied to me!

It’s not the Generals and Admirals, resplendent in their perfectly pressed uniforms or artfully crafted Rebel style, who write strategy. No, it’s some poor neglected Rebel equivalent of a staff weenie making best guesses in the back of an Empire cubical farm of Rebel hangar deck.

The Lie: The Generals/Admirals stand around a big sand table and hash out their grand plan. Maybe one heroic intelligence officer/spy arrives with the critical piece of information, just in time to seal the deal.

The Reality: Five underpaid, unappreciated Rebel staff weenies frantically try to pull information from other bases about supply lines, X-Wing maintenance rates, and transport pilot availability. There are no intelligence officers, they’re making best guesses as they go, and are probably all considering joining the Empire if it means a bed that isn’t a pile of blankets on a crate. By the time the plan gets to the Generals and Admirals, they give a quick “yeah, looks good” and waltz off to their meeting. At the meetings, they spend 5% of the time listening to the others for conflict and 95% of the time wondering if they’re eligible to retire and “how hard out it really be to run a dive bar on Canto Bright?”

The above is a very basic outline of The Lie but it can be seen in each set of trilogies, thus ensuring each generation is duped into believing this outrageous falsehood.

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Case 1, the original trilogy: Episode IV, A New Hope

The Lie: Mon Mothma and General Dodonna brief their plan directly to the pilots.

The Truth: Four harried, grimy, and exhausted people cooked up this plan in a half lit, unused storage room on Yarvin 4. Two  X-Wing pilots and one transport pilot, all too DNIF to fly were joined by one Rebel maintenance officer who bitched about the pilots the whole time, and spent the 48 hours before the battle scanning the Death Star plans. Bleary from lack of sleep, they hand a crudely sketched holo-point to Mon Momtha and General Dodonna, both offensively clean and wakeful, just before the pair walked into the briefing with only a quickly muttered “Exhaust ports, ya gotta hit those. Big boom. Whole thing goes…” before promptly passing out on any available flat surface including a crate full of munitions.

“The Force is real, right?” one pilot muttered later.

“Sure, it’s got to be,” the Rebel maintenance officer told him as he knocked back his seventh shot of liquor, something he’d been brewing in his room with spare parts from the X-Wings and a start cart.

“How’d ya know?” the transport pilot asked, face still haggard from the scanning and planning marathon.

“It must be. Our plan was shit!” the maintenance officer said and promptly passed out into his drink.

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Case 2, the prequel trilogy: Episode I, The Phantom Menace

The Lie: Master Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Obi Wan are sent to a Federation flagship to resolve a trade dispute. Rather than settle things politically, they engage in “aggressive negotiations.”

The Truth: Galactic Republic strategic planners spent frantic weeks secretly engaging with politicians for a backdoor negotiation. The Jedi Order instead sent a habitual line stepper and his padawan. Somewhere a Republic planner is sobbing into a Coruscant Sunrise crying, “These assholes haven’t read Corbett or Dolman once have they? They have no idea how critical a damn line of communication is!”

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Case 3, the sequel trilogy: Episode VII, The Force Awakens

The Lie: Hidden away on D’Qar, Rebel forces decipher the plan of… yes, a bigger, better Death Star, Starkiller Base. General Organa stands around with her top Generals and aides, determining how to attack the Death St– err, Starkiller Base and blow it up.

The Truth: Actually, this isn’t far from the truth. Really, the only difference is that instead of immediately sending Han, Chewie, and Finn off to Starkiller, they would have first made Finn, or the lowest ranking officer in the room, sit down at a terminal. General Organa, with six colonels, would have watched over his shoulder as they typed out the plan for dissemination to all available Rebel forces.

Somewhere in a back room off the main floor, a pair of Rebel soldiers discuss whether joining the First Order “might mean actually getting a real bed to sleep in?”

“What?”

“I mean, I’m not saying I’m defecting or anything but… do you think they get real beds?” one exhausted Rebel officer says to his companion.

“I mean, probably. Those dreadnaughts are pretty big, I’m sure people aren’t more than two or three to a room.” There’s a hopeful air in their voice.

They both stare wistfully into their monitors for a second.

“I mean, I wouldn’t–”

“I’d never–” they say in unison.

But a brief glance at the other, they know perfectly well their companion would sell the entire disorganized mess of a Rebel order out for a hot meal, a hot shower, a warm bed, and some recognition for all the work they do.

Remake of the fight scene from Star Wars Obi-Won Vs Darth Vader..

Sorry about the light postings...I have been working a lot of overtime and studying so it chews up a lot of my time.
    I ran across this by accident and really liked it.  It is to me what the original fight scene should have been with Darth Vader but Alec Guiness was at retirement age and not so spry...and yes I can relate.  

Original version...

It took the people 2.5 years to remake the scene updating it with new CGI and new film angles and updated sound track and sound scores, I thought adding in the words at the end after they fought the first time on the mining planet after Obiwon cut off Anikins legs and arm....and told him that "you were supposed to be the "Chosen one", supposed to bring balance back to the force."

The Remake and it is really neat!

Now something I saw while watching the remake...

Batman Vs Darth Vader

Pretty good

Rebel Safety Briefing on the Ice Planet of Hoth

I shamelessly clipped this from "Angry Staff Officer", I have used his stuff before on my blog, he likes to use Star Wars to make either a humorous point or to drive a lesson home involving Army doctrine and he uses "Star Wars" as a great training aid.  My friend Mack has has actually met the guy and according to Mack, the guy is very angry, LOL.  I remember some of my "Safety Briefings" when I was in the service and they can be distilled into the following...."Don't drink and drive, don't add to the population...don't subtract from the population and don't do dumb stuff like fight the polizei."

Scene: Squad bay, Rebel Alliance, Hoth. The First Sergeant stands up:
“Okay, listen up, quiet down. I said quiet down, you lot! Louder than a Bantha breeding barn in here. Just because we’re Rebels doesn’t mean we can’t have discipline. Now, because of recent…incidents around Echo Base, we’ve been directed to give a good safety brief. As you may know, Commander Skywalker is currently in MedBay because he, uh, got a little bit off course, and, uh, kinda got a bit frozen. Don’t think I don’t hear your giggles going on about officers and land navigation, Sergeant Hollis, cut that right out. Anyways, thanks to Captain Solo, Commander Skywalker is alive.
But that being said, we’ve got a pretty damn bad spot here on this blasted ball of ice, so let’s go over a few safety pointers. We don’t want to get lax out here, it’s already hard enough to live with these damn Imperials hunting us. So – remember what I always say, one troop down is one less blaster on the firing line.
Alright, so, let’s begin right here in the maintenance bays, we’ve got snow speeders, X-Wings, and all sort of flying crap all over the place. One of those could easily fall down and squash ya, so watch your step. Want to be careful around the droids as well – no telling when one of those old buckets of bolts is gonna flare up and explode, and you don’t want to be around for that mess. Not saying that maintenance company isn’t doing their PMCS, but better safe than sorry.
Okay, and speaking of hazards inside the building – well, you may have noticed that Captain Solo and our own Princess Organa have been having, uh, discussions in the hallways around here that get fairly…shouty. So, if you get caught in their wake as they’re…talking…energetically, we’ll just call it – well, just stay out of the way. We’ll all be happier that way.

It was never comfortable to be a trooper going about their duties to be caught in between these two quarreling/flirting. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

Now then, operating in the cold means we’ve got to layer up when we go out. Patrols shouldn’t be out in the elements too long. Shouldn’t be longer than ten minutes between stations – take shelter at a turret, stay inside the trenches, get out of the wind. Keep the exposure down and maybe we’ll actually have a few troops left alive to fight this thing out on this frozen hell-hole.

“Trooper, stop complaining about the cold, you were just bitching the other day about Tatooine.”
(Lucasfilm Ltd)

Ok, so, for mounted patrols – we want to avoid wampa caves, those are bad. Ensure that you’ve got working comms – that means testing them before you go on patrol, remember.  Check in with Major Farr’s S-6 section for daily COMSEC, otherwise you’re only going to be talking to yourself. And patrols will be done with a minimum of two troopers each; yes, I know, squad leaders, you don’t have enough troops on hand because I keep stealing them for KP duty and blaster inventories. You can curse me out later, but both I and Lieutenant Alder from the scout platoon are in agreement on this one.
Right, so: if you get trapped in the elements on your tauntaun, well – don’t, because the cold will kill you both. But, if you do, you can use your own tauntaun as a heat source. Yeah, I know, it’s loathesome and smelly, but it’s better than being dead. Make sure you’ve got a knife on you to cut open the belly so you can use the heat inside your mount. Don’t look at me like that, I know it’s bad. This info is courtesy of Captain Solo, who swore heavily at the pilots who picked them up and said he’d shoot the first person that put a tauntaun near him again.

A counseling from Captain Solo usually came in the form of swearing, blaster-waving, or statements about whether or not he would see you in hell. He would. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

Right, so, we’ve covered typical accidents here in the bays, cold exposure, what to do if you get lost, and how to survive in cold weather. Before I let you go, we’ve got one last thing to cover: weapons discipline. I swear to the Force that if one other person flags me with their blaster one more time, I’m putting this whole company on sentry tower duty for a week. Stop running around with your damn worthless fingers in the trigger wells, you know these things don’t have safeties. Last week someone from 1st Platoon – one of yours, Corporal Blin – nearly put two holes in Captain Solo’s freighter – and if you know Captain Solo, you know that if that trooper had hit the Falcon, then Captain Solo would’ve put two holes in him or her. So. Weapons held at the low ready, finger only on the trigger when firing, only point the thing at something you want to kill. Back to basics, everyone, I really don’t want Sergeant Major Callum poking around the company anymore than he needs to.
Any questions? Good. Get back to your duties, I’m going to go talk to Captain Valdez to see if he can talk to Colone Firest to coordinate for some air cover on our flanks in case this thing goes hot. They’d be idiots not to bring in some flyboys in X-Wings to pot some Imperial tincans should they be dumb enough to make a landing. Of course, if they don’t give us some air support, then you all need to be keeping up with your physical fitness because you all know as well as I do that light infantry can’t do much against enemy armor other than offer nice targets. So, be speedy targets that get away. Dismissed!”

I again shamelessly clipped this from "Angry Staff Officer", Like I have stated in the past My friend "Mack" turned me onto the guy.  Well anyway the Military and some civilian organization used the "Mentor and Mentee" process to groom future leaders and officers.  If Properly utilized, it is very effective in passing down the knowledge from the old to the young in the preparation of turning over the "Reins" to a new generation for the purpose is to preserve the organization and in turn grant a bit of immortality to the senior member.   ASO uses "Star War" references to make a point, Star Wars is a great training aid for military organizations and other large groups

When the Force is Not With You: Mentorship and Star Wars

We talk a lot about mentorship in the military, but for most of us, we don’t have a good example of what that even looks like. It’s not as though there are mentors dropping from the sky to deliver words of wisdom whenever we need them. No, we’re more likely to end up Googling our questions when we get into a bit of a bind, which can often cause more harm than good.
“Siri, should I tell my battalion commander that I can’t find those NVGs or just wait for it to come up during the next inventory?”
So, with no good real world examples of mentorship, we’ll do what we always do in these situations: turn to Star Wars.
And at first glance, the Star Wars universe would seem ready-made for delivering lessons on mentorship given that both the Jedi and the Sith have based their entire leadership principles off the master-student relationship. Surely we can find some nuggets of wisdom in here to help struggling Army officers figure out how to find or be a mentor.
You’d think so, but instead we find a cautionary tale on the dangers of mentorship when the overarching system of belief is deeply flawed and rife with opportunities for mismanagement. So, operating under the philosophy that one can learn just as much from poor leadership as from good, let’s take a look at how not to be a mentor.
Communication and Integrity
We can just hit this one right out of the gate. For all relationships between mentors and mentees, open and honest communication is key. Both need to be able to trust that the other is going to share the truth to them, even if it is the truth to the best of their knowledge. Without trust, the relationship has no foundation. Which is why the Jedi relationships always seemed to break down. Whether it was Qui Gon Jinn lying to the Jedi Council about Anakin, Anakin lying to the Obi Wan Kenobi about what he was up to, or Obi Wan and Yoda lying to Luke about his paternal background, truth was usually absent from the room if there were Jedi in it. Mentors and mentees need to build a solid foundation of trust and open communication.
Mutual Trust and Respect
Following up on integrity is the concept of mutual trust. It has to go both ways for mentorship to be even remotely effective. If your mentee suddenly takes off in a spacecraft to run after every threat that surfaces and ignores all of your weary advice, well, no amount of mentorship in the world will resonate with them (also, they might just be opening up to the Dark Side). With no respect between parties, you’re going to find that there can be no growth – only resentment from one party towards the other. Resentment can lead to broken relationships, the death of the Younglings, and basically the overthrow of the entire Galactic order. So, be careful.
Experience
For effective mentorship to happen, the mentor needs to have a certain level of experience or education that exceeds that of the mentee, otherwise the whole thing is pointless. Which is why assigning Anakin Skywalker a Padawan apprentice was just a horrible idea; it was like assigning a second lieutenant another second lieutenant as a mentor. Sure, Anakin had “experience,” but most of it came at the cost of common sense and high levels of risk, disguised as “opportunistic adventuring.” Similarly, the type of experience is important. Yoda had been absent from actual field operations by the time that he mentored Luke, so it was a bit like the Army Chief of Staff reaching down to tell a private how to clear a room.
Commitment
No matter what, both the mentor and the mentee need to be committed to the relationship. Whether that means taking the time out of a very busy schedule or committing to not force choke the military officers under your command, commitment is vital to the success of the endeavor. That also means overlooking the mistakes of those that you mentor, realizing that mistakes will happen on the road to improvement (refer back to not force choking people). For example, if you sense darkness in your apprentice, maybe don’t stand over them while they’re sleeping with your light saber activated. Instead, talk to them about it in the morning when you’ve both had some coffee and can confront the family secret of grandpa being a mass-murdering Sith lord. As one does.
Control
While a mentor and mentee are most often of differing ranks, there should not be an element of control in the relationship. After all, the mentor is simply sharing lessons learned and life experiences. The minute that they attempt to use their rank to influence their mentee, then the relationship has been compromised. The Jedi Council operated entirely on the principle that as long as they could control their members, then they could control the Galaxy. This flawed assumption led to their ultimate downfall. Similarly, the Sith mentor exercised total control over their mentee. However, since there could only ever be one master and one apprentice – due to arbitrary rules from Sith Human Readiness Command – this more or less worked out until one or the other got killed. This had a tendency to backfire, however, when the apprentice became emotionally involved with someone else. When Emperor Palpatine tried to exercise full control over Vader against Luke, Vader killed him. When Lord Snoke tried to get Kylo Ren to kill Rey, Kylo killed Snoke. So, basically, don’t try to control your mentee.

Star Wars "Rebel Insurgency"

I was doing Boy Scout stuff this weekend, I will talk about it a bit tomorrow during my "Monday Music" segment.

I shamelessly clipped this from "Angry Staff Officer", he uses Star Wars references to make a point to the people in the Army and other lesser branches.  Star Wars is a huge cultural reference and easy to understand and is a great graphic training aid to make a point.  Like I have said many times, My buddy "Mack" turned me on to this guy...and so I blame him for it of course. 

OCTOBER 12, 2018ANGRY STAFF OFFICER

The Rebel Alliance is going to lose, not because they are outnumbered, but because they have no model on which to base plans for their campaign. There are essentially two kinds of insurgent campaigns: city-out or countryside-in; Leningrad, or Yorktown. The Rebel Alliance is fighting both of them wrongly, and has few chances left before defeat and dissolution.

The First Order, for its part, is not a foreign force; they are fighting a campaign of imperial consolidation (think: the Union side in the US Civil War, or the British side in the Boer Wars or the War of Continental Independence) not a conquest from outside. As such, they fail to seize most of the advantages of supply and maneuver their better trained, better equipped, larger force offers.

Angry Staff Officer is right: most of the strategic errors on both sides are at the level of command, top to bottom, failing to understand the nature and goals of the war. At the bottom, we see squadron Commander Dameron trying to win in decisive battle when he ought to have withdrawn his forces in good order. This is the same strategic error repeated time and again by Nathan Bedford Forrest and Benedict Arnold, tactical officers so good they often did win, at the sacrifice of resources needed elsewhere for more important objectives. In the First Order, command is so poorly integrated and joint services so insensibly divided that the overwhelming naval theater dominance of the First Order is often caught unprepared for otherwise minor tactical maneuvers by the tiny but well-coordinated Rebel military. Time and again the First Order’s fighters remain in their bays until well after the Rebel assault has taken shape. Only their numerical advantage saves them, with otherwise-unacceptably high losses, as was frequently the accusation leveled by McClellan against “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

Alliance command seemingly mean to initiate a Mao- or Giap-style insurgency from the hinterlands of the Outer Rim, yet are stymied by broken lines of supply and communication, lack of outside assistance from the coreward worlds, and internal dissent over whether accepting defeat in the former strongholds of the Republic represents strategic defeat. A hinterlands-in campaign depends on being able to hide from concentrated forces, isolate and strike strong points, and relies on the rural populace for its supply and places to hide. Unless and until the Princess/Commanding General can quell the squabbling in her own ranks over which type of war they are fighting, the Rebel Alliance cannot possibly hope to sustain an insurgency long enough to convince non-aligned worlds and civilian populations to support or tolerate her forces’ presence, much less to recruit and supply a critical mass of fighters for Phase III of Mao’s (and Washington’s) war plan, counter-conquest of the Order’s core worlds.

The countryside-in model of insurgency offers essentially two branching variations: the classic Maoist model, with unified command lying concealed in the hinterlands of the Outer Rim until sufficient and reliable support both monetary and material flows from an Outer Rim politically united against the core worlds of the First Order to begin massing troops for larger-scale confrontation, or the Ngo Nguyen Giap/George Washington model, relying on outside support for money and materiel, with recruitment and political support coming from within both the Outer Rim and the core worlds, in hope of eventually uniting the populace politically behind the Rebel Alliance as a more legitimate government than the First Order.

In the inverse model, the city-out campaign, exemplified by V.I. Lenin and Krim Belcacem, the Alliance lacks unity of command or internal lines of supply sufficient to sustain an independent navy adequate to protect smugglers and privateers who might convince unaligned factions (such as Incom) to sell or lease the Rebels weapons of greater magnitude than the Alliance’s small internal manufacturing base is able to produce or purchase. While Alderaan had a vibrant economy, it is as unavailable as Yavin as a base of recruitment and sustainment for the Alliance. Even Chandrila can be relied upon only to the extent that its political leadership feel safe from internal dissent or First Order suppression. Anyone suggesting (like Gen Washington) that recapturing and re-colonizing the core worlds of the Republic ought to be a primary war goal, rather than not losingfor sufficient time to convince unaligned factions and worlds that the Alliance might hold through a sustained conflict, has either to be convinced that is the wrong war model, or cashiered as quickly as practical. The critical step is internal resolution: Alliance command has to have complete buy-in for a model of campaign if the Rebellion is to succeed.

The Rebels have the advantage of a charismatic and competent political leader along the lines of Krim or Castro, but that advantage comes with the risk of internal dissolution if that leader is the only unifying center of gravity. Once they choose the hinterlands-in campaign, which they must, the Rebels may also take on the Sinn Fein/Hamas refinement, divided between public/political and covert/military divisions. It worked in Algeria for the FLN; it worked in Ireland for IRA, and it worked in Vietnam to a lesser extent. In this model, the public, political face of the Alliance treats with outside and unaligned actors while providing government and support services to Outer Rim and unaligned civilian populations gone unsupported by the First Order, whose attention (and funding) are bent on winning the military campaign against the covert military arm of the Alliance. This model enjoys the advantage of building the appearance of legitimacy to civilian populations before any overt military victories have been achieved, which makes it easier to tolerate the significant disadvantage that it relies on outside manufacturing and credit to sustain the military arm.

In brief, the Princess needs to unite the Rebel Alliance cadre behind a coherent (and achievable) model of insurgency, or be defeated by internal disunion before the First Order can manage to get its jackboots on. The Washington/Giap model offers the most practical advantages, while taking into account the disadvantages piled on the Alliance by its lack of mass popular support, internal manufacturing and finance. Adopting this insurgency model explicitly, and instructing the Rebels on its theory and tactical application, is the only plausible path to victory in war, barring a deus ex hyperspace event.

If the Hoth Planet crash was an Air Force Investigation...

I shamelessly clipped this off Angry Staff Officer, Like I have said in the past, he uses Star Wars references due to the cultural implications and uses them as a "Lesson Learned" for the Military.  In this case it was a guest writer and he wrote this from the Air Force point of view and as an Army guy and experience in the aviation field I can see this happen.  "Angry Staff Officer" is an Army Officer who writes to keep from being too angry and my buddy Mack who turned me on to ASO a while back met the guy and he told me.."That guy is always pissed".  So you can blame Mack for letting me find out about the guy. 

If the Hoth Crash was an Air Force Investigation

By Matt Wright

Accident Investigation Board – Rebel Alliance 

T-47 Airspeeder (Field Modified)

Battle of Hoth, 3 ABY

Executive Summary

During the disastrous Battle for Hoth, a locally modified version of the Incom T-47 Airspeeder was engaged in close proximity to advancing Stormtrooper infantry and heavily armored All-Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT) units of the Imperial Army led by General Maximillian Veers. During the battle, the mishap pilot brought the mishap aircraft within close proximity of the advancing AT-ATs and often in direct line of fire of their weaponry. The mishap aircraft was eventually struck and downed, resulting in the death of the mishap gunner and the total loss of the hull.

The mishap aircraft was assigned to Rogue Squadron, assigned to the defenses of Hoth. The mishap crew consisted of a mishap pilot and mishap gunner, both assigned to Rogue Squadron. It was determined that the mishap gunner died instantly, and the mishap pilot was able to escape the Hoth system in an unassigned X-Wing.

The board president found clear and convincing evidence that the cause of the mishap was due to the pilot failing heed sound crew resource management (CRM) principles and ignoring repeated warnings from the mishap gunner regarding failed mission essential systems. Furthermore, the board found other causal factors relating to poor maintenance standards and practices, and contributing factors relating to unsound tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

Mishap Aircraft

The mishap aircraft (MA) was a T-47 Airspeeder, built and developed by Incom and delivered to the Alliance in the base Speeder format. Upon assignment to Hoth, it was noted detachment-wide that the Speeder variant could not perform to designed standards due to the extreme cold weather prevalent on the planet. Inspection of surviving T-47’s revealed that most were modified with locally manufactured heat exchangers in proximity to the power generator units (PGU), as the PGUs reportedly would exceed designed measured generator temperature (MGT) in order to keep essential operating systems at designed temperatures. As this deficiency was not reported through proper channels, no new aircraft limitations or preflight warm-up procedures were implemented, and the effects of the unauthorized modification were not available for operational test & evaluation (OT&E). Furthermore, study into maintenance practices revealed several discrepancies. It was fortunate that the majority of the maintenance records were uploaded to the lead escape craft data banks. Several of the assigned T-47 aircraft that participated in the mission sortie had open discrepancies in their forms, most of which were mission essential items. Additionally, it was noted fleet-wide with the T-47 fleet that laser output, which were local modifications including installation of Corellian Engineering Company (CEC) AP/11 Double lasers, degraded on the platform, reducing the effectiveness against Imperial armored units. Output was sufficient to damage All Terrain Scout Transports (hereafter, Scout Walkers) but insufficient for penetration of AT-AT armor. Hoth Maintenance Group (HMXG) sent engineering disposition (ED) requests to Incom for an enterprise solution, as HMXG lacked the technical guidance and equipment for laser repair. CEC was unavailable to provide technical advice, due to the on-going occupation of Corellia by the Empire.  The EDs provided by Incom, in conjunction with CEC setbacks, granted HMXG the authority to delay calibrating laser output until the next depot maintenance input per speeder. The mishap aircraft itself had several aircrew noted discrepancies regarding electrical faults in the harpoon assembly. HMXG repeatedly refused to repair the assembly, citing the T-47 MESL as listing the assembly as not required for non-cargo movements. The discrepancy was eventually entered into the delayed discrepancies for repair during the next phase inspection. Unfortunately, the flight data recorder was not recovered, as Imperial forces maintained a small garrison on the planet after the evacuation of Echo Base. Due to this, engine and system operation parameters captured during the mishap sortie could not be analyzed.

Mishap Crew

The mishap crew (MC) consisted of the mishap pilot (MP) and mishap gunner (MG). The MP was a highly regarded pilot due to his exemplary performance during the destruction of the Death Star. He had been in Squadron Command for approximately two years at the time of mishap.  He did not have the request requisite hours in a T-47 Airspeeder, but was current and qualified in both the T-65B X-Wing and the T-16 Skyhopper.  Of note, Alliance Starfighter Command senior leadership regarded all three Incom platforms as interchangeable for training purposes, despite the widely divergent mission sets and mission environments.  He was upgraded to aircraft commander and flight lead with a flight-hour waiver endorsed by several high ranking members of the Alliance. Despite his resounding technical competency as a pilot, interviews conducted by the board in the course of the investigation revealed a tendency for the MP to display four of the five hazardous attitudes of a pilot: impulsivity, antiauthority, invulnerability, and machoism. The MP executed the sortie as the flight lead for Rogue Squadron with little to no mission planning, and while executing the sortie within the parameters Attack Pattern Delta, the MP failed to consider alternate methods of attack.

The AIB had considerable difficulty in obtaining and analyzing the flight and training records of the MG due to the loss of critical Alliance Personnel Center records during the evacuation of Yavin IV. During the course of the investigation, interviews from surviving squadron members revealed the MG was technically and tactically competent. Furthermore, it was discovered that the MG repeatedly expressed concerns to squadron leadership about being assigned with the MP over consistent CRM breakdowns between the two. In a hologram interview, the MP acknowledged that the MG expressed concerns over the lack of appropriate approach path vectors for the run-in route to attack an Imperial AT-AT. The MP also stated he dismissed the concerns regarding the approach and continued the run-in, even after the MG stated additional concerns that the harpoon assembly primary fire control assembly had failed and that more time would be required to engage the auxiliary controller. Eventually, the MA was struck by enemy fire while making a head-on pass to engage the legs of the AT-AT in an attempt to bind them with the harpoon assembly. The aircraft crashed in vicinity of the AT-AT, with the MP egressing the aircraft and assaulting the AT-AT on foot, successfully destroying the enemy armor.  MG did not survive the crash, with MG’s remains remaining unrecovered due to the airframe being crushed by an advancing AT-AT.

Findings

With clear and convincing evidence, the board has determined the primary causal factor of the accident to be pilot error. Ignoring several warnings from the MG, the MP failed to break off the run-in for the planned engagement allowing time for the MG to both correct for the failed approach path solution and ensure the proper operation of the harpoon assembly. The MA’s aggressive flying and disregard for sound tactics placed the MA directly in the line of fire of enemy fire with the MG being channelized and heads down in the aircraft during a critical phase of flight, as opposed to being actively participating in the engagement and practicing sound threat clearing techniques.

As contributory factors, the board finds that the lackadaisical maintenance culture in the HMXG led to aircraft being launched that were partially to non-mission capable. While the board recognizes this sortie was an all-out defense of the facility, and that all aircraft capable to launch would sortie, had proper maintenance procedures be followed in the time prior to the invasion, the board finds that attrition rates would most likely have been lower. Also noted as a contributory factor were the poor tactics, techniques, and procedures used during the mission. Although technically in compliance with standing doctrine, it should be expected of Alliance flight leaders and pilots to adapt to a rapidly evolving battlefield to ensure mission success.

The Battle of Endor

 I am still getting over what had hit me like a freight train and I am not 100% yet.   I will post my "fisking article on Friday.

I saw this from ASO, or "Angry Staff Officer", He used Star and other cultural references to discuss the Modern Army and the issues facing it.  I have used articles in the past from ASO on my blog.  I consider him creative in his analogies.  My boddy Mack tuned me into ASO a while back so it is his fault, LOL

April 30, 2018 Angry Staff Officer

Warfighter: Battle of Endor

“He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.”
–   Sun Tzu
In war, timing and will are two of the intangibles that are hard to train for. A battle can be all but won when suddenly the unforeseen takes place: Jackson arrives at Antietam; Sheridan rides back to Cedar Creek; the Germans appear out of the Ardennes. Timing is often a virtue of happenstance – but note that it is leaders that consider timing that are often the most successful. The other aspect – the will to win – is even more difficult to gauge. Take the US Army after World War II. By 1950, it the Army was in such bad shape that three divisions got swept backwards through South Korea by barely their same number of North Koreans. The American Army had lost the will to win – or was too used to winning. Both are grave dangers that should give commanders at all levels pause.
So it was in the Imperial military forces by the time of the Battle of Endor. Yes, they had suffered a massive reverse when the Death Star I was destroyed, but in that and subsequent engagements they had winnowed the Rebel fleet down to a fraction of what it had been. And even then, it was nothing compared to that of the Imperial Navy. Similarly, the Imperial Army reigned supreme on land, as the Rebels could do little to oppose Imperial armor without air support. Simply put, they grew used to winning.
Sound familiar?
Which is why the Battle of Endor stands as a lesson against hubris. It’s one we in the US Army could use. While we failed to win recent conflicts – at least by the convention term of winning – we’ve also not been defeated. And true defeat can be terrifying and horrendous. We prepare for victory but we don’t spend much time preparing for a defeat on the battlefield.
But back to Endor. Let’s break this thing down, shall we?

Intelligence

Although the Empire had a wide net of spies and technological collecting devices, their intelligence section categorically underrated the intensity of the Rebel attack. In letting out that he himself would be on board the Death Star II, the Emperor believed that he was using information operations to draw the Rebels into direct engagement. And while the Emperor rightly identified small Rebel military actions in the time leading up to the main battle as a diversion, that did not prevent him from being too preoccupied on his own plan – that of capturing Luke Skywalker – to notice the danger the Empire faced.
For their part, the Rebel Alliance relied heavily on indigenous peoples for HUMINT (Human Intelligence) and ALINT (Alien Intelligence). Most notably, Bothan spies relayed intelligence back to the Rebel Alliance, paying a heavy price for it in casualties. Had the Rebels been able to shield their sources better perhaps they would have been able to maintain a more robust collection network. As it was, the intelligence was enough to provide the Rebel Alliance with the information that they needed to assemble a strike force. That said, Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma should have realized that the intelligence provided information that was just too good to be true: a half finished and not battle-ready Death Star with the Emperor on board. Lacking trained intelligence analysts, the Rebel Alliance was nearly doomed from the get-go.

The Rebel Alliance could – however- conduct large scale briefings, bringing its staff work and battle tracking capabilities into near-peer competition with that of the Empire. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

Neither the Rebels nor the Imperials had the knowledge that would eventually decide the engagement: that the forest moon of Endor was inhabited by Ewoks. The detachment of Imperial scout troopers on the forest moon should have gathered that information had they established LP/OPs, but they never dismounted their speeder bikes during patrols. If the Stormtroopers knew, they may have only seen a couple and probably would have hunted them for sport, given the Empire’s attitudes towards non-humans. It was Princess Leia Organa’s ability to make inroads with the local populace that gave the Rebels a critical advantage that they didn’t know they had.
Which was fortunate, as Imperial counterintelligence was feeding the Rebels everything that they wanted to hear, to include allowing Rebel Corona Squadron to see the Imperial fleet dispersing away from the Death Star. The Emperor permitted this squadron to escape to carry the news back to Rebel Alliance headquarters, masking his Star Destroyers behind Endor. However, his over-reliance on his own abilities of intelligence gathering using the Force methodology caused him to stop gathering data once the battle began to go as he predicted. Blinded by his belief in infallible methodology, he failed to see the fluidity of battle.
Imperial intelligence did, however, preserve one very key advantage: they protected the information that the Death Star II was an operational system.

Movement and Maneuver

Imperial forces were arrayed with the majority of the fleet forces masked on the far side of the planet Endor, in easy reinforcing range of the Death Star II. The Imperials maintained a ground task force consisting of one Legion on the forest moon of Endor to guard the shield generator and the supply dump that was sustaining the Death Star II. This force consisted of some heavy armor which was restricted to the supply dump and command center, light armor of AT-STs which provided perimeter protection for the shield generator, and detachments of Stormtroopers. A scout element ostensibly provided intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to the Imperial task force but it was not used to its full potential. And as mentioned, the Imperials also had the Death Star II with its capability to destroy Rebel capital ships with ease.
The Rebels divided their force into three elements. Admiral Ackbar commanded the fixing force, composed of the capital ships of the fleet whose mission was to bring the Imperial fleet into engagement and provide cover for the starfighter attack. The assault force was a small special operations detachment commanded by General Han Solo, which would infiltrate the forest moon, seize the shield generator, and disable it to allow for follow-on operations. This would then permit the exploitation force of General Lando Calrissian’s starfighter squadrons to penetrate the Imperial defenses around the Death Star II and deliver the decisive blow that would destroy the enemy’s center of gravity.
Solo’s assault force infiltrated the forest moon and immediately made contact with two enemy scout troopers. Rather than bypass and evade, Solo opted to attempt a capture – this failed, and one trooper escaped. At this point, the strike force cohesion broke down as Luke and Leia took off after the trooper. This action indicates that there was little in the way of a pre-mission brief. With no GOTWA, Han and the rest of the strike force moved off to find the two missing leaders rather than continuing the mission – endangering the entire operation. Leia met up with the Ewoks, conducted a Key Leader Engagement, and managed to integrate into their society. Which was vital, as the Ewoks soon captured Han, Luke, Chewbacca, R2D2, and C3PO. Between Leia’s influence and Luke’s ability to exploit the culture’s religious traditions, the strike force leadership managed to get free and made some powerful allies.
The Ewoks, though simple, possessed capabilities across the air and land, with direct and indirect fires capabilities. Irregular forces though they were, they possessed the element of surprise.
On D-Day, Luke began a diversion by turning himself in to the Empire, thereby drawing the Emperor’s attention from the engagement. Since the Imperial forces seldom allowed junior commanders any autonomy, this essentially decapitated their force. It also distracted the attention of Darth Vader, although he would return to the engagement from time to time.

Literally no one is facing outward to pull security. Nobody.  This is why you do battle drills, kids. (Lucasfilm, Ltd)

The Rebel assault force then seized the shield generator, overwhelming the small garrison. However, Imperial reinforcements soon recaptured the building as well as the strike force. It was at this point that the Ewoks drew out the Stormtroopers with a diversion and then used audio signal recognition to initiate a general attack. Their first assault with direct fire weapons drew the Stormtroopers deeper into the forest where the Ewoks had established an engagement area. Troops were canalized into ambush sites while AT-STs couldn’t maneuver in obstacle belts. The Ewoks then engaged with close air support and indirect fires. However, because of the inferiority of their weapons systems, the Ewoks risked defeat. The timely capture of an enemy armored vehicle by Chewbacca allowed the Rebels to overcome the counterattack and retake the shield generator.

Ewok close air support. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

It was at this time that the Rebel fleet arrived on station and discovered that the Death Star II was operational. According to plan, the Imperial fleet moved to envelop the Rebel forces. And although the Rebels were taking irreplaceable casualties, they managed to get their smaller ships inside the perimeter of the larger enemy frigates. It was this that permitted an A-Wing single place fighter to destroy the bridge of the Executor, which then lost control of its helm and crashed into the Death Star II. Around the same time, Luke managed to turn Vader who killed the Emperor. The Empire was now leaderless.
The assault force managed to disable the shield and the exploitation force engaged the core of the Death Star II, destroying it. Having lost their flagship and main weapons system – as well as their leadership – the Imperial forces lost all momentum. Suffering heavy losses, several captains were able to retrograde their frigates and escape to fight another day. In this way, the core of the Imperial fleet – their Star Destroyers – formed a force that the First Order would eventually rally around. Space and the ability to jump to hyperspace did not permit the Rebel Alliance the decisive engagement needed to crush the Empire for once and for all time.

Exploitation force closing in on the objective. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

Fires

Aside from naval gunfire being used between ships and the use of the Death Star II as an orbital bombardment platform, there was little use of coordinated fires across the battlespace from either side. Only the Ewoks showed the type of initiative to build and utilize indirect fire projectile weapons. Used in conjunction with ground forces and aerial bombardment, these weapons proved their worth when engaging the more technologically advanced Stormtroopers.

Ewok artillerists opening fire. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

Sustainment

In the Battle of Endor, the Empire displayed the weakness of all conventional forces: being tied down to one area for logistical reasons. With the forest moon of Endor used as a supply dump for building the Death Star II as well as the home for its shield generator, it inhibited the Imperial fleet from completely abandoning the site. As such, the Empire fought a positional engagement rather than one of maneuver.

Mission Command

The Rebel Alliance was greatly aided by having a multitude of skilled leaders who were given the authority to extemporize or innovate where needed during each step of the engagement. This is in contrast to the highly stratified Imperial forces who could only obey orders from the top and only in accordance to the plan. Once the plan fell apart and the leadership stopped sending orders, the numerically and technologically superior Imperial forces were left dead in space, so to speak.
As a sign that the Rebels were learning how to protect their communications, the assault force decided not to use comlinks during infiltration so as to avoid signal emanation. Of course, this caused difficulties when the force was separated but it did allow for covert insertion.

Protection

Protected by its shield rather than anti-ship guns, the Death Star II ended up becoming almost a liability to the Imperial Fleet. Having to hold the strategically important ground where the shield generator was located, they had no room to maneuver. Additionally, the fleet was stuck defending the battle station rather than being able to concentrate their fire on key Rebel ships. The lack of adequate anti-air/anti-ship capabilities hurt the Imperial fleet’s ability to engage single place fighters and bombers, which the Rebel Alliance used to their advantage.
Amazingly, out of all the battles and engagements in Star Wars, only the battle on the forest moon of Endor demonstrated engineer capabilities. The Ewoks – masters of multi-domain battle – integrated log obstacles into their engagement area and covered them with fires. Much maligned, the Ewoks would be the only force out of this entire engagement to receive a “GO” at the U.S. Army’s National Training Center. Which is perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of this.

Pictured: a multi-domain warrior. (Lucasfilm, Ltd)

"Guard Duty on Yavin 4"

I have blogged before about "Angry Staff Officer", and like I have said, you can blame my friend "Mac" for turning me onto the guy.  Well anyway, "Angry Staff Officer", uses Star Wars  references and other cultural icons to describe Military Life.  he also uses it as a training aid, because the movies are understood by everyone who joins the service and it is easy to make a point using "Star Wars". 


Secret Base on [REDACTED]
Dear Mom,
Taking a moment to drop you a line. As you know, life here in the Rebel Alliance has been kind of crazy of late, what with the whole Death Star business and everything. You hear about Alderaan? I’m not even sure if I believe the news, sounds like Imperial propaganda trying to throw us off. Has definitely caused a lot of action here on base. There’s ships coming and going like you wouldn’t believe.
As you know, I took that promotion to sergeant in the Alliance’s military police corps. It’s definitely a different world from the maintenance bays. There, we hardly had to do anything; the droids handled all the work orders and we could just hide out in the hangers playing games or sleeping. But now, we’ve got real jobs to do. We’ve been told that our orders come direct from Mon Mothma herself, which is pretty crazy.
I guess you’re probably wondering what it is we do. It’s not too much to say that we’re the real lynchpin holding this base together. Security is the most important thing, of course. We’ve got patrols and gate guards that handle things on the ground to keep our perimeter safe. Really, those X-Wing pilots couldn’t do their jobs without us, because if we weren’t there the whole base would be overrun with who-knows-what: animals and locals and Stormtroopers, probably. But we keep this place locked down. I served as shift NCOIC for our quick reaction force for a few weeks and that was pretty cool. We only got called out once because there was a malfunctioning droid that was trying to wander off post, but still: an important job.
Now I’m part of the Speed Control and Abatement Team (SCAT) which is a pretty big deal. See, safety is paramount in everything we do. In fact, according to the last briefing we had at the company level, safety is our number one priority. As Lieutenant Porkins says – he’s Red Squadron’s safety officer, by the way – “we can’t fly if we’re all dead from accidents.” And you’ve got to admit, he’s got a point. In the last safety office review, it was found that approach speeds for vessels coming to the landing pad were responsible for 73% of all ship-to-ship accidents. So now it is our responsibility to ensure that those accidents are kept to a minimum. To do that, we use scanners to analyze the ship’s approach vector and speed and if it exceeds the posted standards we ticket that ship’s captain. I tell you what, in the past three weeks I’ve written 15 tickets and there’s been a huge drop in violations. I even got Admiral Ackbar coming in too hot one time. He accused me of a speed trap but the scanner doesn’t lie. The worst chewing out I ever got was from Lieutenant Wedge Antilles, though. I almost thought he was going to draw his blaster on me, but he paid his fine in the end.

This is actually me, mom. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

Now, don’t get me wrong, it can get pretty boring up in those towers. I pass my 4 hour shift by counting birds – although the fighter ships have really done a number on those birds with their engines. There’s dead birds everywhere. We actually have to send out details to collect them off the landing pads, otherwise they can get sucked into engines and it makes more mess than a Bantha with the runs.
Other stuff I do when not on tower duty is to do patrols to ensure everyone is wearing the correct safety gear – we’ve got this panel you wear at night that lights up so that you don’t get run over, and it’s mandatory for wear but for some reason people don’t like it. Princess Leia Organa tried to get away without wearing it but we reported her to Mon Mothma. Unfortunately, I don’t think Mon Mothma took us seriously. She will when someone gets run over by a speeder, that’s for sure.
I’m not sure the head shed takes what we do seriously. A few days ago some rogue personnel took off without clearance in a captured Imperial shuttle – no paperwork, nothing, just some made-up callsign of Rogue One. Well, I filed all the correct paperwork, hit them with a 2000 credit fine, but it got all hushed up for some reason. Later that day they scrambled like half the fleet. Still don’t know what that was about but things were crazy for a while: no manifests, no clearances, and no accountability. I don’t know what things are coming to. Blue Squadron never even checked back in.
But mom, get this! Earlier today, a Corellian freighter came in WAY over the speed limit and I saw Princess Organa get off it with some scruffy looking folks and a real Wookie! They totally do exist! And I always thought you were making them up to try to scare me into eating my vegetables. Anyways, the base has been on lockdown since they arrived and I can see a lot of movement on the flight pads. Looks like Red and Gold Squadrons are prepping for something. Wish they’d file their manifests properly.
Damn, there goes that Corellian freighter again! Gotta go, mom, lots of paperwork to do to write that guy up. I don’t know who he thinks he is.
Love to all,
Sergeant Issa Prellian
RA MP Corps
“Vigilance is a Force Multiplier”

The Last Jedi "A Leadership Vacuum" and spoilers

I got this from "Angry Staff Officer", this guy uses Star War references as a teachable teaching tool for new Military officers.  Again, there are spoilers on this and if so, please stop reading if you haven't seen the movie yet.  I don't want to get fussed out for dropping some spoilers on the movie.

Thus is from. "Angry staff Officer, I got turned to him by Mack, so blame him, lol. Angry Staff Officer uses star war references to make a point. people will pay better attention if it is from the popular culture.
Most determine the great struggle in Star Wars to be that between the Light and Dark sides of the Force. But from a military perspective it has always been between a highly regimented Empire and a loosely organized Rebel force. And even within these communities there have been contentions as to how best lead, direct, and motivate the forces under their control. And nowhere is this seen more starkly as with the First Order and the Resistance in The Last Jedi.

     So the film starts out in a nearly perfect demonstration of the dichotomy in the leadership that divides the First Order from the Resistance. The First Order appears out of hyperspace as the Resistance is in the middle of evacuating their planetary base. Multiple star destroyers pop into view surrounding the incredibly vulnerable Resistance frigate that is being loaded with transports. Hoth it is not, as the Resistance doesn’t even have any planetary weapons such as an ion cannon to protect themselves. They are hopelessly outgunned and surrounded.

     So one would think this is the end of the Resistance for once and for all, but yet…
If there’s one thing that the Empire/First Order is good at doing it is at getting in its own way through an overly regimented chain of command. Rather than use his star destroyers to pummel the frigate or to hit the base with orbital bombardment, the First Order’s fanatical military commander General Armitage Hux gives orders for his ships to standby as he brings up a new type of frigate: a dreadnought. Yeah, rather than use his already incredibly useful star destroyers, Hux is intent on dragging out yet another piece of tech – begging the question: where does he get the money for this stuff?
     Literally, the whole Imperial fleet just sits there with no movement. Ship commanders can take zero initiative without the explicit direction of General Hux. It is a massive amount of firepower, curtailed and nullified by one man – and a thirty year tradition of micromanagement and toxic leadership.
     On the opposite side of the house, the Resistance has fighter pilot Commander Poe Dameron who takes gamble after gamble to try to gain a tactical edge on the First Order. Emphasis on the tactical, because Poe does not have a mind for the strategic. Poe goes so far as to disobey a direct order from General Leia Organa to stop a bombing run against the dreadnought and goes full “LEEEROYYYY JENKINNNNNSSS” against the dreadnought. They do destroy the enemy ship, but at the cost of the last two bomber squadrons in the entire Resistance. Which perhaps explains where the rest of the Resistance fleet went if that’s the way that Poe handles resource allocation.
Out of all of this, the First Order loses a dreadnought and the Resistance loses their bombing fleet but is able to make the jump to lightspeed. Of course, the First Order can easily afford the loss of a capital ship while the Resistance is scraping the bottom of the barrel for ships and pilots.
First Order leadership remains static the entire time, only scrambling fighters when it’s nearly too late – as one of the First Order’s bridge officers grumbles under his breath. And this motif remains in place for the rest of the film: rigid leadership with no flexibility. On the Resistance side, Leia finally loses patience with Poe’s insubordination and busts him from commander to captain – something that honestly should have been done a long time ago. Poe is a tactical genius, yes, but has very little capacity for strategy. But since he can pilot an X-wing like no one else, the Resistance can ill afford to treat him badly and so continue giving him leadership roles.

Commander Poe Dameron, a tactical wizard who has no comprehension of anything above his own level and whose failure to think at the strategic level has cost the Resistance most of its forces. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

But really, both sides have leadership issues going all the way to the top. These problems influence the conduct of personnel up and down the chain of command.
There’s this concept in the U.S. military called “mission command.” It comes from the Prussian principle called “Auftragstaktik,” pioneered by Helmuth von Moltke in the late 19th century and it boils down to exercising disciplined initiative. That is, giving junior commanders the ability to seize opportunities as they arise without jeopardizing the entire force or operation. The German army used it to great effect in World War I where their units were able to be more flexible and fluid than those of their opponents. It is a concept that is markedly absent from the Star Wars franchise. The Empire and the First Order operate through the use of rigid command structures, with orders coming from the top down. If those orders are not executed to the letter, subordinate officers are in grave danger of being force-choked into submission. This breeds a command culture of absolute and total dedication to orders, which dooms them to fighting an unimaginative war. This is why Imperial and First Order fleets rarely display the levels of ingenuity in war that the Rebels and Resistance do.
     And further, there is still the battle between the Sith and the military establishment for control of  their military force. The Sith are focused on destroying the Jedi while the military leaders are driven by the ultimate goal of crushing the rebellion. This plays out in Last Jedi, as Kylo Ren and General Hux battle for control of the First Order – sometimes almost openly. With no unity of command – and Kylo Ren becoming increasingly controlled by his emotions – the First Order can only plod along and miss opportunity after opportunity to destroy the Resistance.
     The Resistance – much like the Rebellion – seems to be slowly moving away from “command by consensus” which so hampered their abilities in the past. With command power for all tactical and strategic decisions now held by General Organa, the Resistance stands on the cusp of actually having unity of command. However, because the Resistance prides individuality almost too much, they have lost a significant number of their ships to action with the First Order and so have little to no force left to command. Audacity is usually an asset for military leaders, but it can be taken to the level of foolishness. And in this case, the Resistance has gambled its force so many times that they are left with only a handful of pilots and fighters left at the end of the film.

     The First Order is not the only force riven by dissension. When Leia is wounded and Admiral Ackbar is killed (we barely have had a chance to mourn him), Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo takes command. A skilled strategist, Vice Admiral Holdo does have one key problem: she does not know how to communicate her plans to subordinates in order to build trust across the chain of command. When Poe and Finn doubt that she even has a plan to save the Resistance, they launch a harebrained scheme of their own that ultimately leads in the destruction of what is left of the Resistance fleet and force.

Vice Admiral Holdo was able to comprehend the real Resistance strategy: survival. But her inability to communicate her leadership vision completely undercut her integrity and led to total mission failure. (Lucasfilm Ltd)

At this juncture, one has to ask: are there any competent leaders anymore on either side? The First Order is hampered by its rigidity so much that nearly removes their tactical edge, while the Resistance takes so many risks that it is almost decimated. Both sides are left with gaping holes in their top-tier levels of command at the end of the film which will surely make the sequel to The Last Jedi more interesting than ever.

Over the course of the Star Wars franchise, we’ve been treated to some epic battles: dogfights between X-Wings and TIE fighters at Yavin-4, AT-ATs on the frozen wastes of Hoth, jungle warfare on Endor, and Rogue One’s epic battles on the beaches of Scarif. The Last Jedi offers no shortage of skirmishes, either. Except this time, the Resistance’s consistently bad military tactics finally catch up with it.
From a military perspective, one thing has always stood out: The Empire, and now the First Order, have nearly limitless ships, equipment, and manpower, while the Rebels/Resistance have scant resources. With every engagement, this band of rebel fighters grows ever smaller while there seems to be no lack of available Stormtroopers. At least previously, though, those engagements ended with the destruction of Death Stars and a Starkiller Base, even if unsound Rebel strategic thinking got them there. Now, those bad choices are playing out more realistically—and tragically—than ever.
Spoilers ahead.
     While The Last Jedi mainly focuses on the Jedi order and its fate, perhaps the most striking feature of the film is that the Resistance has finally played its last card. The Resistance—and the Rebels before them—sought the decisive battle, that one moment that would destroy the enemy’s will to fight, and bring about peace in the Galaxy. That seemed to be the case after Return of the Jedi, and yet somehow in the intervening 30 years, the Republic squandered away all that they had won.
But history shows that decisive battles do little to further a rebel cause. During the American Civil War, Confederate General Robert E. Lee spent years pursuing a decisive battle versus the United States Army. Yet, even after one-sided Confederate successes such as Fredericksburg in 1862 and Chancellorsville in 1863, the US Army of the Potomac remained in the field, inflicting losses that the Confederates could not afford. Lee's search for decisive battle led to his force being winnowed away to nearly nothing. The truly great generals throughout history have realized that seeking a decisive battle only puts one's force in more peril than the risk is worth.
     In The Last Jedi, the Resistance lacks truly great generals. Commander Poe Dameron is a skilled fighter pilot, but hardly a strategic thinker; he's a hammer who sees a world full of nails. He gambles the Resistance bomber fleet on a shot to take out a First Order dreadnought-class star destroyer. Not only that, but he does so in violation of a direct order from General Leia Organa. The mission succeeds in knocking out the enemy ship, but at the cost of the entire Resistance bomber fleet, for which Poe is reduced in rank.
Seeking that decisive battle with the First Order only resulted in dead pilots and lost resources. It solved nothing in the long term. And as the rest of The Last Jedi makes clear, for every enemy star destroyer or frigate the Resistance accounts for, the First Order can replace it without blinking an eye.
Rather than making massive sacrifices to blow up one big ship, the real strength of the Resistance rests in its ability to survive. The presumed heroics of individuals like Poe and Finn make it hard for them to do even that.
In many ways, the Resistance shares that trait with real-world rebellions throughout history. Most are worn down through the sheer lack of resources and through attrition; a decisive battle becomes their best way to make a grand statement.

In The Last Jedi, the Resistance lacks truly great generals.

The successful counterexample, and a model the Resistance would have been better served following, is the American Revolution. George Washington’s genius lay less in his ability to take the fight to the British—although he excelled at that—and more in the way that he prioritized preservation of troops over seeking out a singular moment of triumph. His ability to exfiltrate units from near-disaster mattered just as much as his offensive strategies.
But just as General Organa finally recognizes the importance of preserving her force—too late, one could argue—she enters a coma after the First Order begins its bombardment of the last Resistance Frigate. (RIP Admiral Ackbar.) Command devolves to Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, who recognizes the strategic need to protect their force, but has what proves to be a fatal flaw: She fails to communicate well.
Holdo knows that she can jettison the escape transports and they will be cloaked from the First Order, but doesn’t share the plan with Poe. She instead belittles him, and leaves him eager to take action. Left out of the loop, Poe and Finn concoct a hare-brained scheme to save the last three Resistance ships from First Order bombardment, another all-or-nothing gambit that not only fails, but gets the majority of transports destroyed in the process.

     When what remains of the Resistance lands on Crait, a planet that houses an musty old Rebel Alliance outpost, they yet again seek a decisive engagement, this time with only a handful of fighters and some infantry left. Crait is a terrible spot for a last stand. The rebellion stuffs itself into a cave, with only one entry and egress point, and little in the way of protection.
They're shielded from planetary bombardment, so the First Order lands a ground force. Now you've got massive new AT-M6 walkers facing off against the serried trenches and rusting turret guns of the Resistance.

Sound familiar? Yes, it's looking like we're about to get a repeat of The Empire Strikes Back's battle of Hoth, where resistance fighters just barely manage to escape after suffering grave losses.
Back then, Imperial armor cut through the Rebels’ linear defenses, brushed past Luke Skywalker's head-on air attack with snow speeders, and blasted apart the shield generator. However, the plucky Rebel troopers had managed to buy enough time for the main force to escape off planet, under the protective fire of the ion cannon.

     Fast-forward 30 years to Crait. The Resistance, clearly, has learned nothing in the interim. Their dismounted troopers charge into World War I-like trenches, gamely looking down blaster scopes at armored vehicles they can't even hope to touch. Poe Dameron, while a wizard in the air, can't muster two tactical brain cells as he flies his sortie of incredibly ancient craft directly into the guns of the First Order’s armor.
    Much like Luke Skywalker in Empire, Poe doesn't seem to realize that the AT-series has no firepower on its sides or rear. Nope, it's straight up the middle for Poe, with predictable carnage for the last handful of Resistance pilots that remain. At least Poe, unlike Luke, eventually realizes it's a suicide mission, and pulls back after taking losses.
Of course, they’re not much better off back in the cave. Only the arrival of Luke Skywalker in full Jedi power mode saves the Resistance from being snuffed out in entirety. But only just barely; all that’s left can fit inside the Millennium Falcon.
By consistently refusing to learn the rules of unity of command, communication across the chain of command, and the necessity of preserving their force, the Resistance has fought itself nearly out of existence. If rebellions are built on hope, then they survive through skilled withdrawals—which almost never happens in the Star Wars saga. And in The Last Jedi, that failure has brought what was once a promising rebellion to the brink.