Battle of Hoth
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| Major battles of the Galactic Civil War |
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| Yavin - Hoth - Bespin - Endor |
In the movie, the Empire, in the form of Darth Vader's Death Squadron, has found the main base of the Rebel Alliance on the planet Hoth. All parts of Hoth that are seen in the movie are snow-covered polar climates. The only local fauna seen are tauntauns, which resemble oversized kangaroos with ram horns, and shaggy carnivorous beasts called wampas.
Prelude
After the Battle of Yavin, Darth Vader became obsessed with finding Luke Skywalker and the hidden Rebel Base. One of the later strategies he used was to disperse probe droids to a number of systems. One of these made its way to Hoth. Upon discovering a structure on the planet, it reported in. Though it was the best lead the Imperial Fleet had found at that point, Fleet Admiral Kendal Ozzel dismissed it, believing it might be smugglers or some other group. However, Darth Vader overruled his decision, certain that the Rebels were there.The initial assault was met with some misgivings by various Imperial officers. They may have preferred a surprise attack with limited long range orbital bombardment to destroy any spacecraft and the defenses — and then sweep in to capture the survivors. It was this plan which appeared to have the endorsement of Lord Vader, and seemed to be the original battle plan. However, Admiral Ozzel exited hyperspace too close to the star system and Rebel early-warning sensors detected the fleet. The theatre shield protecting Echo Base was activated, precluding any desirable bombardment. Darth Vader executed Ozzel for his incompetence and promoted Firmus Piett, then-captain of the Executor, to Admiral. Vader then changed the battle plan, and ordered General Veers to begin the surface assault.
The Rebel Alliance never planned to actually win the battle — their strategy from the start was to retreat, the battle only intended to buy as much time as possible for evacuation. As soon as the Imperial Fleet was detected, General Rieekan gave the order to raise the shield and begin the evacuation. This plan had been formulated in advance, with tow-cables outfitted onto the Rebel's Snowspeeders due to a prediction that the main portion of the Imperial surface force would consist of AT-ATs. The primary portion of the retreat, as revealed by Princess Leia, was to use a group of Rebel transport ships, escorted by two X-Wings under the cover of planet-based ion cannon shots to clear the way.
Battle of Hoth
The Imperial forces consisted of at nine AT-ATs and several AT-STs as well as ground troops. According to the Inside the Worlds of The Original Trilogy factbook, the force also included a number of AT-AR and AT-PT walkers. This Imperial Force was deployed by 3 Y-85 Titan Dropships. (Though the dropships did not appear in the Empire Strikes Back, they were mentioned in the ITW: OT factbook.) The rebels employed "Snowspeeders" (modified T-47 Speeders), led by Commander Luke Skywalker, and they had trench lines of anti-vehicle artillery and anti-personnel batteries (turrets) to fight a delaying action.The rebel troops discovered that their anti-personnel batteries (turrets) and anti-vehicle artillery pieces were unable to pierce the Imperial armor. The T-47 snowspeeder squadron, also finding their blasters ineffective, used their rear towcables to wrap around the AT-ATs' legs, tripping them up and rendering them useless. Furthermore, in an act that bore out the Emperor's concern of him being a growing potential threat as a Jedi, Luke destroyed another single handedly by grappling up to the AT-AT's belly and lobbing a concussion grenade in its power cells. In the Empire Strikes Back novelization, a third AT-AT was lost when it mortally injured but did not destroy Rebel pilot Hobbie's speeder; he suicidally steered his doomed craft into the command pod of the AT-AT. (There's a discrepancy between this the post-Hoth Star Wars books and comics, where Hobbie-Lukes wingman during the battle-is seen alive and well.) Despite the escape of all senior personnel, the loss in material and men proved a disaster for the Rebel Alliance and this gave the Empire its first major strategic victory after the destruction of the Death Star.
The elite Snowtroopers, part of Lord Vader's elite 501st Legion (Vader's Fist), were designated the Blizzard Force Team, assigned to Major General Maximillian Veers and the Imperial Navy. This Stormtrooper battalion was well trained in combat on snow-covered worlds as well to be able to perform their missions as quickly as possible.
The Imperial assault was primarily aimed at destroying the Rebel's primary power generators. This would shut down the theatre shield protecting the base from orbital bombardment. General Maximilian Veers led the assault and crushed (in some cases, quite literally) the Rebel's defenses and then destroyed the power generators. Once that had succeeded, Imperial forces could use airmobile tactics to deploy snowtroopers into Echo Base itself.
Approximately thirty GR-45 Medium Transports belonging to the Rebel Alliance, along with the Millennium Falcon, managed to take off but seventeen transports were destroyed by the Imperial naval squadron blockading the planet. The Falcon escaped by hiding in an asteroid field.
The battle was not without loss for the Empire: Imperial-class Star Destroyer Tyrant was disabled by the planetary ion cannon, several AT-ATs were destroyed (with most of their troops) by the Rebel defenders and more lost to the treacherous ice floes giving way. Despite forcing the Rebels to flee, they were unable to destroy all of the fleeing ships and Lord Vader failed in what he considered a primary objective, namely capturing Luke Skywalker.
Other media
The full Battle of Hoth explained here showed much more devastating losses for the Rebel Alliance than what was seen in the movie The Empire Strikes Back; particularly since the movie showed none of the evacuating transports getting destroyed.In the Expanded Universe timeline of battles, the Battle of Hoth occurred before Gall and after Thyferra.
In the video game Star Wars Battlefront II, the very last level of the campaign is called Our Finest Hour. The level allows the player to take control of the Empire in the Battle of Hoth. In this level, the Empire destroys the Rebels' last transport, and the Rebels could not retreat. Therefore, the Rebels are destroyed once and for all. The only Rebels that escaped were the ones in the Millennium Falcon, but that was not enough to start a new Rebellion. While this is the apparent ending of the game, it should be noted that during opening montage for the level the storyteller says that the vision for victory "might only have been mirage." This could be interpreted in the way that the stormtroopers only thought they had crushed and believed that order had been restored to the galaxy.
The online film site atomfilms.com has a video entitled "Starwars: Battle for Hoth"[link], which tells the story of the Hoth battle in the style of a real historical documentary, complete with historic qoutes, pictures, interviews with "experts" on the subject, and writings from participants on both sides. Despite the comedic and parody intent of the authors, the video is an accurate depiction of events that took place in the film.
References
- Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels
External links
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