Deathstar trench run

Someone may have debunked this before but I will ask anyway.

During the death star trench run Wedge says “my scope shows the tower but I cant see the exhaust port. Are you sure the computer can hit it?”

Do you think there was a flaw in the targeting computer and any pilot would have missed anyway. So luke using the force instead of the targeting computer might have saved the rebellion?

Yeah, I feel like the point was that only a Force user would’ve ever made that shot.

The rebellion even attempting this strategy was an act of desperation.

There is two people who could have made that shot, Luke Skywalker, and Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader.

I prefer to think that they could have done it with more bombing runs, or if the Empire was more arrogant and took longer to respond, but they ran out of time and pilots which led to the critical ‘one in a million’ shot.

Unfortunately, the whole trench run makes very little sense in light of real-world technological advancements. Even in the 21st century, precision strike missiles can hit relatively small stationary targets from significant distances away. The latest precision strike missile system from Lockheed Martin claims to be able to accurately hit a target over 400 kilometers away, with a CEP (circular error probable) of about 1 meter. Granted, those missiles are designed to be fired from the ground, but even the much older Raytheon AGM-65 series systems, which are designed to be fired from a moving plane, can hit targets 25 kilometers away with a CEP of about 1.5 meters. So even with current technology, the 2-meter wide shaft on the Death Star would be possible to hit from at least 25 kilometers away. And obviously, the chances of hitting it directly would approach 100% if you fired at it multiple times.

Additionally, these 21st century missiles are designed for precision strikes inside a gravity well and atmosphere, meaning that calculations must account for the Earth’s gravity and curvature, air currents and weather conditions. But none of that would apply in the vacuum of space, so the calculations for a precision strike would be even easier and the strike accuracy would be much better on average. (Presumably the 140km diameter Death Star creates a negligible gravity well.)

Of course, to be fair, we’re not really comparing apples to apples here, because the goal of the Death Star trench run was not merely to hit the target, but to ensure the torpedo travels in a straight line down the shaft, perpendicular to the trench, for around 70 kilometers until it hits the reactor. Since the X-wing is traveling perpendicular to the shaft a few meters above the trench floor, the torpedo would need to follow a perfect quarter-circle arc, or else magically perform a very tight turn. This would require the torpedo to be fired at exactly the right moment. This seems very difficult to pull off even with some hypothetical super-advanced future targeting system, depending on how fast the X-wings are actually moving. However, assuming the torpedo has its own propulsion and maneuvering systems, the X-wing pilot could simply fire the torpedo well before coming into range of the shaft, and allow the torpedo itself to just travel in a straight line parallel to the trench and then make the quarter-circle arc turn at the right moment, adjusting speed as necessary. (Although admittedly that is probably beyond the capabilities of modern precision missile systems.)

But really, all of this demonstrates that the whole idea of a trench run makes very little sense to begin with. It would make way more sense to just fire multiple torpedoes from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, in a straight line directly at the shaft. We can speculate that maybe they didn’t do this because the Death Star’s defensive laser turrets would just intercept the torpedoes. But this explanation doesn’t really work because (A) dialogue in A New Hope specifically says the turrets are too slow to reliably hit the small X-wings, so the turrets probably wouldn’t be able to hit every single torpedo if a barrage of them were fired at once, and (B) even if the turrets could reliably intercept every single torpedo, the Rebels could first fly X-wings along the trench with the sole purpose of destroying the surrounding turrets, and then after those turrets are neutralized, fire a barrage of torpedoes directly at the shaft from a distance.

Of course, then Luke wouldn’t fulfill his hero’s journey, and that would totally suck. So let’s just ignore this entire post.

Things like sci-fi technology don’t matter when it’s all one giant Damn Busters/633 Squadron knock-off 😉

Channel72 said:

Unfortunately, the whole trench run makes very little sense in light of real-world technological advancements. Even in the 21st century, precision strike missiles can hit relatively small stationary targets from significant distances away. The latest precision strike missile system from Lockheed Martin claims to be able to accurately hit a target over 400 kilometers away, with a CEP (circular error probable) of about 1 meter. Granted, those missiles are designed to be fired from the ground, but even the much older Raytheon AGM-65 series systems, which are designed to be fired from a moving plane, can hit targets 25 kilometers away with a CEP of about 1.5 meters. So even with current technology, the 2-meter wide shaft on the Death Star would be possible to hit from at least 25 kilometers away. And obviously, the chances of hitting it directly would approach 100% if you fired at it multiple times.

Additionally, these 21st century missiles are designed for precision strikes inside a gravity well and atmosphere, meaning that calculations must account for the Earth’s gravity and curvature, air currents and weather conditions. But none of that would apply in the vacuum of space, so the calculations for a precision strike would be even easier and the strike accuracy would be much better on average. (Presumably the 140km diameter Death Star creates a negligible gravity well.)

Of course, to be fair, we’re not really comparing apples to apples here, because the goal of the Death Star trench run was not merely to hit the target, but to ensure the torpedo travels in a straight line down the shaft, perpendicular to the trench, for around 70 kilometers until it hits the reactor. Since the X-wing is traveling perpendicular to the shaft a few meters above the trench floor, the torpedo would need to follow a perfect quarter-circle arc, or else magically perform a very tight turn. This would require the torpedo to be fired at exactly the right moment. This seems very difficult to pull off even with some hypothetical super-advanced future targeting system, depending on how fast the X-wings are actually moving. However, assuming the torpedo has its own propulsion and maneuvering systems, the X-wing pilot could simply fire the torpedo well before coming into range of the shaft, and allow the torpedo itself to just travel in a straight line parallel to the trench and then make the quarter-circle arc turn at the right moment, adjusting speed as necessary. (Although admittedly that is probably beyond the capabilities of modern precision missile systems.)

But really, all of this demonstrates that the whole idea of a trench run makes very little sense to begin with. It would make way more sense to just fire multiple torpedoes from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, in a straight line directly at the shaft. We can speculate that maybe they didn’t do this because the Death Star’s defensive laser turrets would just intercept the torpedoes. But this explanation doesn’t really work because (A) dialogue in A New Hope specifically says the turrets are too slow to reliably hit the small X-wings, so the turrets probably wouldn’t be able to hit every single torpedo if a barrage of them were fired at once, and (B) even if the turrets could reliably intercept every single torpedo, the Rebels could first fly X-wings along the trench with the sole purpose of destroying the surrounding turrets, and then after those turrets are neutralized, fire a barrage of torpedoes directly at the shaft from a distance.

Of course, then Luke wouldn’t fulfill his hero’s journey, and that would totally suck. So let’s just ignore this entire post.

I refuse to ignore this post.

Unfortunately, the whole ‘dogfights in space’ trope is rendered meaningless by the trajectory of current technology. At the very least, drone swarms would be the order of the day, if that day contains technology far in advance of our own.

However, I love a space dogfight. Star Wars has been described as fantasy cosplaying as sci-fi, and fantasy is all about tropes.

I thought Top Gun: Maverick was a mildly entertaining movie. I can’t be the only one who felt it was like an extended account of the planning of and run up to the trench run.

Superweapon VII said:

If Star Wars was the least bit realistic, all warfare would be done by droids. You wouldn’t put a organic being with imperfect reflexes into the cockpit of a fighter and send them to take out an artificial planetoid and sacrifice their life needlessly if you have the technology to build a robot fighter equipped with a strong AI which isn’t limited by the flaws that flesh is heir to.

In the Prequels there actually was an entire army of droids and fighter-ships with droid or AI pilots. But the movies insist that cloned humans are superior somehow. The excuse is that organic/biological beings are better at thinking creatively which gives them some sort of advantage in combat - a pretty dubious proposition.

I guess Jedi pilots might actually be superior to an AI in some cases. Even the best AI can only probabilistically try to predict the future, but a Jedi has actual, supernatural precognition.