Bingowings said:

That kind of doesn't make sense either.

There's not a lot about the whole battle makes any sense. For starters, where's the air cover? You gotta have air superiority before you send in the ground pounders.... A few Tie fighters would have knocked all those pesky speeders down in no time, and some Tie bombers could have knocked out all the turrets/ground defenses, etc... A big atmospheric battle between Ties and Xwings as a prelude to an aerial bombing attack/ground assault would have made a lot more sense in military terms...

And the rebel pilots are morons. Absolute and utter morons! You're attacking a slow moving target with an extremely small arc of fire, limited to just a few degrees left and right of center, (slightly better vertically) so what do you do? Attack from the sides/behind/above/below where they ludicrously have absolutely no defense of any kind? Of course not! Go charging straight in head on every time and get the crap kicked out of you! Yay rebels!

And the space blockade. Did it actually stop anybody from escaping? Again, where were the fighters? Tractor beams? Anything? What a bunch of clowns.

The battle of Hoth is my very favorite moment of the whole series, it still gives me a tingle, but when I stop to actually think about it, the whole thing falls apart. The secret is: never think.