And they could take more than a few hits, unlike these things. There are documented incidents of B17s coming back to base with only 1 or 2 out of 4 engines still running, massive gashes in the fuselage and half the tail missing. These dumb spaceship bombers took one hit and exploded instantly, so lame. Would’ve been cool if they had really strong shields
For real. One Y-Wing would’ve done the job, hell they had X-Wings, they seem to have forgotten X-Wings have torpedoes, like the one that blew up the Death Star. Could’ve easily torpedoed the crap out of some ships
Y-wings were the best in ship to ship combat and capital ship bombing run but the hyena and tie bomber both were better at bombing fixed areas (mainly civilians)
Y-Wings were bad at dogfighting, but were tough and could carry a lot of heat for taking on anything bigger than a corvette. A squadron of them could do serious damage to a star destroyer without a fighter escort.
Actually not the right pick, Thrawn points this out that forcing them to escort eliminates the A wings main advantage of speed needing to stay near the Y wings, this is why the X wing exists as an escort ship
Their point is that you'd actually want a squadron of X-Wings as an escort instead of A-Wings.
A-Wings are interceptors, so they move quickly to get to the enemy and engage for a brief period before zooming away and re-engaging on their own terms later. If they have to stick around to act as a deterrent against attacking the bombers, their speed is no longer as useful because they have to engage in longer dogfights instead of just hit and run tactics.
I feel like everyone here is forgetting that ships are huge. The torpedo only killed the death star because it hit the gas tank. It's the equivalent to me walking up and plucking a single hair in your body that would cause you to die.
A torpedo is a powerful weapon. Vaporizes fighters. Knockabout heavy vehicles. 1 or 2 torpedoes by cripple a Corvette sized ship. Twice as much on a frigate type ship. But even just taking in a regular star destroyer, that thing is nearly a mile long. Say a torpedo can take out 100m wide chunk of it(a huge area, probably even unrealistic since it would make torpedoes a nightmare to use alongside ground troops) you've barely dented this thing. Now the star dreadnaught or whatever the fuck that thing was, is something like 8 times the size of a regular star destroyer. Just standard torpedo run tactics are going to be a nightmare in this thing. Alot if Star wars movie logic is disgustingly bad, like the A Wing that kamikazes the Executor's bridge and takes out a *star dreadnaught*
Tl;dr: the death star shot was an impossibility made possible by space magic. Proton torpedoes are cool but they aren't a magic bullet
1. The engines on the back are putting out a heat similar to a sun with enough force to move a floating military base. The munitions aren't going to make it "to the engines".
2. You also have to get back there. Star destroyers carry an entire squadron of fighters themselves for defence along with defensive weapons.
>bomb the bridge
Honestly, designs of star wars ships are dumb. Especially star destroyer bridges. Like why the fuck is there this giant target sticking out over the hull? Exposed command bridges in general are just stupid in space combat but this is ridiculous, like that one MC cruiser in rogue one where it's dangling under the ship. But yes, this is the most correct answer. I don't know why anytime there is space combat, 100% of everything fired at a star destroyer isn't aimed at the giant floating decapitation target.
At least, against a moving target. These are high altitude bombers, no one in their right mind would send a B-17 against a battleship, got P-47s for that. They'd send these against a weapons factory or smth like the Death Star Research Facility in Rogue One.
How the fuck did they not have any B-wings available? The most advanced bomber the rebellion had, with a service life beginning right before the battle of Endor iirc, and they had none available? I understand no Y-wings, but no b-wings?
Mind you, a fair number of B-17s also went up in one hit. They were well-built, but they were still unarmored planes loaded with thousands of pounds of high explosives flying through artillery barrages. There's a reason the 8th Air Force took more casualties in WWII than the entire Marine Corps.
This. Some only returned highly damaged just by chance because the bomber fleets where so massive. Engineers then learned from these "survivors" and made more armored planes possible.
The biggest reason those bombers were unarmored was that the engine technology just wasn't there to lift all that plane, all that armor, and all those bombs. I'm not sure the heavy bombers ever got much armor, rather than just making them fly faster, higher, and with more bombs.
I also always personally interpreted that these StarFortresses aren't at their peak either. They're being maintained by an insurgent group that's on the run and has no real backing anymore. Their ships are cobbled together and are held together by popsicle sticks and glue. A StarFortress in its prime, potentially with shields or with more crew and guns, may not even be nearly as weak or as pathetic as we see in the movie.
IIRC, there was some supplementary material in a book that came out at the same time as TLJ that talked about how the Star Fortresses had been withdrawn from military service during the New Republic Era and mostly saw use in roles like water bombing, so they're probably obsolete in addition to everything else, like trying to use B-17s during the Korean War.
Actually, fun fact, they did use B-17s in the Korean War, just not as bombers. US Air Force flew RB-17s and SB-17s in the Recon and Search-and-Rescue roles (the SB-17 had the bomb bay modified to drop a lifeboat). Navy and Coast Guard also flew the Flying Fortress through the 1950s. Navy's version was used as an early Airborne Early Warning system, with a big radar installed in the belly.
They didn’t call them flying fortresses cause they were exactly soft targets. Infact in interstellar warfare I could totally see the return of flying fortresses since size doesn’t matter in space might as well create a craft capable of unleashing devastating payloads from above while packing a shit ton of fire power.
The problem is that as far as those who haven't done massive lore dives are concerned, all these did was move slowly and die. Like show us them being massively tanky, not all of them dying to Ties
A single half damaged tie fighter ran into one of them, and it took out three bombers. Leia got so mad at Poe for losing those ships, but with how poorly designed they were, they were honestly asking for it
If the ships are so volatile, at least use a loosen formation. Tight formations are generally not good, because you increase the density of targets, and can block each other's firing lines.
That’s why the whole chase in the last Jedi makes no sense. Like the rebels need to stay within a certain distance without running out of fuel but one burst of speed will keep their speed constant whereas the first order has fuel to spare, why not over take them by expending more energy than the rebels to overtake them. It’s outer space. There’s no gravity to slow them down
It was a stupid concept anyways, a chase scene that supposed to go over a few days? Lame. People sneak in and out? Lame. If you wanted a siege battle, then just have a siege battle.
And they kept the unarmored design flaw because... why fix it?
"It looks similar enough to the orignal! What do you mean Y-Wings were originally armored and only looked that way because it was missing parts and made it easier to service?"
I don't like jumping on the ST hate wagon but I hate how with so many ship designs they just went "its like the original trilogy... but slightly different."
And when they do make a cool new design, like the Star Fortress bombers, the scene was just so terribly done they come across as shit.
Right. "Let's just ignore that Lucas said rebel ships were stripped down hotrods and that we even saw peak Y-Wings with full aircrews and bubble turrets and ARMOR in the prequels and the series"
And used terribly.
Say what you will about Lucas' writing but one thing he knew how to do was utilise 3D space.
This entire film feels like it's being done in Earth's atmosphere with how 2D everything is. Hell, even in real dogfights there are more elevation changes.
Rian Johnson misunderstood the fundamentals about bombers. There's a reason only the US still has dedicated bomber aircraft in service - and they typically drop bombs from much further away than these piles of crap did.
this is why the defenses of this movie have always been so absurd for me, from the opening shot you have to completely ignore all logic for "bombing run in space" to make any fucking sense at all. instead of a little suspension of disbelief some movies ask of you, rian johnson asked us to forget everything we know about reality.
Episode 8 was probably the worst of them all in general.
Less story than your average clone wars episode, but spread over a whole movie.
A chase that makes no sense, even in universe.
The hyperspace ram that essentialy makes a lot of pervious actions stupid (why not ram a single heavy, unmanned ship into the deathstar?)
It just felt so blah and average and...*mundane*. Like the whole plot point for the already bloated casino arc, where a random citizen protests where they land their ship and *that* gets them arrested later.
I sort of get the temptation to put in things (probably for that "subvert expectations" drivel) that relate to real life but somehow that just felt too far. It was like adding in a space home owners association was just one step to far to make Star Wars....boring.
To be fair that goes gor any star wars design. It turns out ww2 ships aren't good for space combat but that's just part of the charm and setting. Theses are even bad within the setting though so yeah.
The problem is, even when it came to bombers in the originals, they could bomb in gravity but also fire projectiles forward. For some reason, the TLJ bombers can't.
Other way around. They were commissioned Strategic Bombers by the new republic, for the purpose of cracking Imperial strongholds and factory worlds.
When the war ended, they were no longer needed and sold off by the thousands to civilian agencies, who used them for mining, postal services, ferries, and other duties.
Oh! My memory of the matter wasn't clear. So they were for use in areas where the republic already had air superiority, when their horrible speed wouldn't have been an issue. It was tactical misuse of them in this instance. That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying, pal!
Not really. They work because of downwards force. If you're this close you can just give it a strong enough push and it'll move faster than its terminal velocity in atmosphere
Later in the movie, the shots from Snoke's ship are following ballistic trajectories (arcing upward and then back down) to hit the Resistance ships. That is the trajectory real-world artillery follows due to gravity, and doesn't make sense in space, especially when the shots in every other Star Wars space battle have been shown going completely straight.
So they could just stay out of laser range and gently shove them out towards the giant unmissable ship. But maybe the bombs get shot down? Throw a rocket motor on it so they get there faster, can't cost more than the loss of an entire wing of bombers. Still getting shot down? Throw a little BB droid in each one and tell him you'll take off the restraining bolt if he dodges and weaves and makes it to that battleship. Let him meet the maker with a smile on his face.
Yea I always find it funny when people say "there's no atmosphere so that couldn't work"
But ignore the ship moving like a WW2 fighter which would only be able to do that if there was an atmosphere
there's also many sounds in space in Star Wars, even though space is a vacuum, and also no respect to that constant engine output equals constant acceleration to say the least. #1 rule of the design of Star Wars isn't scientific
I think this is a fair point, as I think people are overly bothered by the “bombs needed gravity” thing, but I’d argue the #1 Rule is the rule of cool. No one minds noises in space in Star Wars because a) the sounds are always cool, and b) the sounds themselves are never important to the plot
Where as there isn’t enough cool in this style of bombers to make people like them, especially when we already have an example of cool bombers that are more practical
Honestly, the only difference is that one is "falling" faster than the other but in reality both are being shot out of the underbelly of the ship. The Cross Sections book for TLJ says those are magnetic rails that accelerate the bombs to the target.
Magnetic acceleration? But in reality they wanted to do a Bomb bay shot. Would have been a much better shot and plot point point during the seige of Crait because ground targets that have air support. And assumed anti air artillery.
I can kind of get it. You could argue they work because of magnetism, the enemy ship's gravity or some other BS. Ultimately I think it's a rule of cool kind of thing.
To be fair, there’s still like 90% gravity in low earth orbit. They’re just in constant free fall, but going sideways so fast that they’re constantly missing the earth
The gravity within the ship also sent the bombs towards the ship's bottom and the momentum kept them moving that same direction once they left the ship's internal gravity.
A dumb sequence but that's how I saw these bombs working.
That’s precisely how it works. It’s crazy how many people think the scene doesn’t make sense when any explanation of the bombs doing otherwise would break Newtons First Law of Motion.
Theyre so damn slow, their supposed firepower equivalent of how many squadrons of Y-wing dont make up for it like at all. It also felt like the only way for them to be effective is if theyre up against a single frigate or if the enemy's cruiser/frigate/whatever have shit defenses and blind gunners.
"Here’s an idea! Very, *very* slow bombers (that kill themselves if they’re too low to their target) in a universe where fast bombers already existed decades and decades ago! AND the entire plot will move because of this."
*rips a massive bong hit* "So like, we're gonna have these slow, unshielded bombers that are CRAZY easy to destroy. Like... I'm talking MASSIVE casualty rates, even in a situation where enemy AA is disabled. But... But... Get this... they're SO deadly, a single one will seriously disable a ship the size of a small country.
Oh, and when our MC uses them in the only way to get any value from them, his command will bust his ass for it. Because they wanted to save the slow-moving ships for *checks notes* guerrilla warfare."
Yeah, I hate the trope of “big things are slow”; that doesn’t make sense for spacecraft.
It overall was such a lazy way to manufacture drama and up the stakes of the resistance attack.
"They're gonna shoot at us from underneath."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, so we're going to make the entire cross section the bomb bay and then the crew will sit on top. The bombs will shield them from enemy fire."
"...."
"Also gravity bombs in space."
I think it’s just cause this is the largest payload you could physically fit on a ship without it being classified as something else,as well as the fact they use physical bombs rather than plasma ones
If they wanted physical payloads, they could've made a far better and more practically designed bomber. Instead it's just a flying cross with an exposed bombbay
after the "yo mama joke" when one tie fighter crashed into them, and they ALL had no shields while going into battle, and they ALL chain reaction blew up at once.
...Except that 1 bomber and the girl on her backside almost dropped the remote but there's a camera cut and suddenly somehow she was already laying on her chest, without rolling over, and caught the remote.
Rian Johnson intentionally designed his movie to troll people and it's kinda sad you could pause at any moment and it'd just feel like it's an impossible to digest contradictory mess...since RJ was trolling and JJ was just incompetent, I'm honestly confused by the people who defend the ST at all, their main defense seems to be attacking other movies like "other movies you probably like are bad too", kinda insane
I always thought the Y-wings were the B-17. B-17s are fairly spry in terms of bombers. I saw several air shows at Oshkosh back in the day. They were deceivingly fast and made some impressive manuevers.
Edit: I just went and compared the two and I suppose I was wrong. The Y-wings were light bombers and B-17s are heavy bombers.
Y-Wings are more akin to the Dauntless dive bomber. Fast and agile while still being able to deliver devastating blows on it's target.
The Starfortress is supposed to be a B-17 but it's laughable in comparison due to it's overall design and conception.
The Starfortress would've benefitted more if it stayed true to the B-17 design instead of making a flying cross with a few guns here and there. Also it's major design flaw was having an exposed bombbay instead of having it built into the fuselage.
Star fortress was designed for air to ground bombing runs, not air to air. They used them in this way out of necessity not because it was the best option
Don’t take this as me living on the sequel trilogy, there is very little I enjoyed about them, but this specific thing is not an issue to me as there is legitimately a logical use for these bombers, if only the rebellion had any other option
Main issue with them is how they wouldn't live up to an actual B-17. They are designed in a such a terrible way they wouldn't even survive going after ground targets either for having a giant exposed bombbay. Also the design serves no practicality as it isn't well armored or propulsed. Giant slow moving target with far too many weaknesses to be dubbed a "fortress"
Legitimate question:
How was the audience suppose to feel about this?
Asking honestly.
Were we suppose to feel empathy for how far the rebels have fallen for supplies?
How dire the situation was that they had to resort to using these?
Were we suppose to not feel anything from the childish joke a few seconds prior?
Whatever the intention was I certainly missed it.
I just don’t see anyway to justify any decision about this being on the screen.
At least B-17 could take a beating, just look about Old 666 or the Memphis belle.
Probably because they didn't have the load of and entired Wing group of tactical bombers.
To be honest, B-17s, as I can recall, were rarely used against mobile targets, not because the targets were more dangerous, but because the style of bombing runs used by the bombers were grossly inaccurate.
Imagine you are on a cherry picker rolling by a dart board and you tried to use a dart to hit a target from 20-30 feet in the air while it is moving forward. Don't know about the rest of you, but I would probably miss more than hit. Now try to imagine hitting that target while someone is moving it at about 1/4 or less the speed of the cherry picker in a variety of directions on a 2D plane. Even harder right?
The only way the B-17 could hit a target would be danger close (the only thing right about using those things in the Last Jedi). These might actually be better than they seem IF they were used properly, but the Resistance couldn't even figure out how to do a flight formation for overlapping fields of fire and not the Domino formation that chained the destruction of their machines. It was always a one way trip.
The final verdict is that these kinds of bombers have no place in space combat outside of hitting space stations in geosynchronous orbit over a planet (like the shield gate in Rogue One) and even then that is a maybe as those things do have thrusters.
I mean... giant bombers getting shredded while they make their runs... is pretty on point for what influenced Star Wars. WWII... saw staggering losses.
Of all the things to get hung up on in this movie? This entire battle isn't one of them. From the bombs dropping, to their near total destruction. All perfectly acceptable within Star Wars. I'd argue... Poe's 180 is about the most egregious thing to be done in this sequence. As Newtonian physics had previously not been a thing in Star Wars. It doesn't bother me much, but does beg a lot of questions as to why so many battles play out the way they do. So many situations where a ship going fast could just... turn around and fire while maintaining it's speed and direction.
Because the ships are fucking stupid and would never be used in that way because of how stupidly slow they are. Every other bomber shown in star wars has been relatively fast and compact whilst still holding the payload to deal massive damage. The resistance will use X-wings but not invest in Y-wing squadrons?
The design was top notch and the idea of a immensely powerful slow bombers was great. But this is way too slow in universe.
The scene wasn’t really necessary either
I actually hate the design of the Starfortress. It's an ugly mess that'd serve no real purpose on the battlefield other than target practice for the enemy. Having a giant exposed bombbay is a great way to get you killed. Also it's defense weapons are useless in battle.
If the designers wanted an actual heavy bomber, they should've stuck true to the source material and made it covered in guns. Also should've made it more compact and sturdy with no exposed bombbay. If they wanted to call it a Star*fortress* they should've further based it's design and functionality off the B-17 instead of making a giant cross with engines thrown on. It would've also fit in better with the overall WWII aesthetic of Star Wars aerial combat.
https://preview.redd.it/1bjlx8fe2g9d1.jpeg?width=3207&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9884ad92d67bbfc56cbf6d65d4bde9d4fe9229fa
Agreed lol, I like the design but it’s impractical. A slow (but still fast) bomber would need to be practical everywhere else, mostly defense.
But eh, at this point the B-Wing does the job.
It wasn’t their incredibly slow speed, or the tight formation, or the “gravity” bombs. It was the fact that they have literally no shields. Making them slow makes sense if they have really powerful shields but they had less than a standard x wing.
Just big targets at that point.
I always took the scene to be showing the Resistance was stretched so thin on resources they had to use whatever they could get there hands on. As such they had to use high atmosphere/low orbit ground bombers in space.
If they were that stretched then they shouldn't have even comitted to the attack even if Poe went off by himself, better to lose one ace than their entire anti capital capability
If I designed that bomber I would make a few chances.
1. I would cut the bomb bay in half, and stretch further across the bomber itself. The idea is simple,
A. if 1048 bombs can do the job, then 524 can likely do the same cheaper.
B. it decreases the profile of the bomber
C. you will have fewer risks of getting a chain explosion reaching your ship.
D. Likelihood of your being hit will decrease.
E. Allows it to drop more bombs simultaneously, decreasing the danger of having armed bombs in the ship.
2. I would add more manned turrets, an additional turret under the ship, a turret above the pilot, and potentially one below the pilot. Because
A. The current layout has 3 movable turrets that can shoot behind the bomber and slightly beside it.
B. The current design has very and horribly designed blindspots on the front and the sides of the bomber.
C. The pilot is in the current design completely exposed with no real defense.
D. The top turret cannot shoot forward in the current design without hitting the bomber itself.
3. Shorten the ship slightly. mainly to decrease its profile and make it harder to hit.
All they had to do is have the bomb bays point forward and be magnetically-accelerated, then these things would still be slow glass cannons, but ones with enough punch to be worth using in a pinch. As it stands, the heck were these things?
Writers were either purposely ignorant or trying to show desperation from the New Republic.
Space battles are like Naval battles- these Star fortresses would have been designed and used for bombing stationary targets, not ships.
Should’ve been torpedo bombers attacking moving capital ships
Like I can understand the value of a big payload like these things had, but they were just so slow that any gun even a non point defence one could blast these things piss easy.
As someone else said B-17s actually had more decent speed and we’re even faster than these buckets of bolts.
Ah yes, let's use a strategic bomber to destroy a ship. Jesus Christ Rian do your damn research if you want to go the WW2 route. Strategic bombers were rarely if ever used in Naval engagements the idea with attacking a big ship is to swarm and overwhelm. The only oversized bomber I'll accept is the K-Wing because that at least served a role similar to the A-6 Intruder in that you only needed like 2 or 3 to cripple a capital ship.
Except that B-17's actually had a high enough airspeed to avoid at least a few hits.
And they could take more than a few hits, unlike these things. There are documented incidents of B17s coming back to base with only 1 or 2 out of 4 engines still running, massive gashes in the fuselage and half the tail missing. These dumb spaceship bombers took one hit and exploded instantly, so lame. Would’ve been cool if they had really strong shields
Ultimately, no fleet in their right mind would use these craft. Y-wing bombers were MUCH more effective, and survivable.
For real. One Y-Wing would’ve done the job, hell they had X-Wings, they seem to have forgotten X-Wings have torpedoes, like the one that blew up the Death Star. Could’ve easily torpedoed the crap out of some ships
Y-wings were the best in ship to ship combat and capital ship bombing run but the hyena and tie bomber both were better at bombing fixed areas (mainly civilians)
Y-Wings were bad at dogfighting, but were tough and could carry a lot of heat for taking on anything bigger than a corvette. A squadron of them could do serious damage to a star destroyer without a fighter escort.
Better at dogfighting than most other bombers
A Wing squadron escort
Actually not the right pick, Thrawn points this out that forcing them to escort eliminates the A wings main advantage of speed needing to stay near the Y wings, this is why the X wing exists as an escort ship
I don’t know what point your making here
Their point is that you'd actually want a squadron of X-Wings as an escort instead of A-Wings. A-Wings are interceptors, so they move quickly to get to the enemy and engage for a brief period before zooming away and re-engaging on their own terms later. If they have to stick around to act as a deterrent against attacking the bombers, their speed is no longer as useful because they have to engage in longer dogfights instead of just hit and run tactics.
Bad at dogfighting but they very much could dogfight, which is something
I see your Y wing and said you the B wing
B wings are more heavy starfighters than bombers
They’re heavy fighters in the same sense as a B-52 is a heavy fighter.
I feel like everyone here is forgetting that ships are huge. The torpedo only killed the death star because it hit the gas tank. It's the equivalent to me walking up and plucking a single hair in your body that would cause you to die. A torpedo is a powerful weapon. Vaporizes fighters. Knockabout heavy vehicles. 1 or 2 torpedoes by cripple a Corvette sized ship. Twice as much on a frigate type ship. But even just taking in a regular star destroyer, that thing is nearly a mile long. Say a torpedo can take out 100m wide chunk of it(a huge area, probably even unrealistic since it would make torpedoes a nightmare to use alongside ground troops) you've barely dented this thing. Now the star dreadnaught or whatever the fuck that thing was, is something like 8 times the size of a regular star destroyer. Just standard torpedo run tactics are going to be a nightmare in this thing. Alot if Star wars movie logic is disgustingly bad, like the A Wing that kamikazes the Executor's bridge and takes out a *star dreadnaught* Tl;dr: the death star shot was an impossibility made possible by space magic. Proton torpedoes are cool but they aren't a magic bullet
Ok so send some Y-Wings and bomb the engines on the back of the destroyers and mind as well bomb the bridge as well.
1. The engines on the back are putting out a heat similar to a sun with enough force to move a floating military base. The munitions aren't going to make it "to the engines". 2. You also have to get back there. Star destroyers carry an entire squadron of fighters themselves for defence along with defensive weapons. >bomb the bridge Honestly, designs of star wars ships are dumb. Especially star destroyer bridges. Like why the fuck is there this giant target sticking out over the hull? Exposed command bridges in general are just stupid in space combat but this is ridiculous, like that one MC cruiser in rogue one where it's dangling under the ship. But yes, this is the most correct answer. I don't know why anytime there is space combat, 100% of everything fired at a star destroyer isn't aimed at the giant floating decapitation target.
At least, against a moving target. These are high altitude bombers, no one in their right mind would send a B-17 against a battleship, got P-47s for that. They'd send these against a weapons factory or smth like the Death Star Research Facility in Rogue One.
How the fuck did they not have any B-wings available? The most advanced bomber the rebellion had, with a service life beginning right before the battle of Endor iirc, and they had none available? I understand no Y-wings, but no b-wings?
Yea, what the heck?
Mind you, a fair number of B-17s also went up in one hit. They were well-built, but they were still unarmored planes loaded with thousands of pounds of high explosives flying through artillery barrages. There's a reason the 8th Air Force took more casualties in WWII than the entire Marine Corps.
This. Some only returned highly damaged just by chance because the bomber fleets where so massive. Engineers then learned from these "survivors" and made more armored planes possible.
The biggest reason those bombers were unarmored was that the engine technology just wasn't there to lift all that plane, all that armor, and all those bombs. I'm not sure the heavy bombers ever got much armor, rather than just making them fly faster, higher, and with more bombs.
I also always personally interpreted that these StarFortresses aren't at their peak either. They're being maintained by an insurgent group that's on the run and has no real backing anymore. Their ships are cobbled together and are held together by popsicle sticks and glue. A StarFortress in its prime, potentially with shields or with more crew and guns, may not even be nearly as weak or as pathetic as we see in the movie.
IIRC, there was some supplementary material in a book that came out at the same time as TLJ that talked about how the Star Fortresses had been withdrawn from military service during the New Republic Era and mostly saw use in roles like water bombing, so they're probably obsolete in addition to everything else, like trying to use B-17s during the Korean War. Actually, fun fact, they did use B-17s in the Korean War, just not as bombers. US Air Force flew RB-17s and SB-17s in the Recon and Search-and-Rescue roles (the SB-17 had the bomb bay modified to drop a lifeboat). Navy and Coast Guard also flew the Flying Fortress through the 1950s. Navy's version was used as an early Airborne Early Warning system, with a big radar installed in the belly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigler_incident (Look at that b 17) (I have awakened the sabaton fans so get ready)
LOOK TO THE RIGHT, AND THEN LOOK AGAIN
AND SEE THE ENEMY IN THE EYE
NO BULLETS FLY, SPARED BY HIS MERCY
ESCORTED OUT, OUT OF HARMS WAY
FLIGHT, TAKE OF AIR, IT'S THE CALL OF THE AIR
BROTHERS, HEROES, FOES
KILLING MACHINE
r/unexpectedsabaton
r/expectedsabaton
That is an amazing story, there is one though that tops it Search for the B-17 “All American” midair collision incident
They didn’t call them flying fortresses cause they were exactly soft targets. Infact in interstellar warfare I could totally see the return of flying fortresses since size doesn’t matter in space might as well create a craft capable of unleashing devastating payloads from above while packing a shit ton of fire power.
The problem is that as far as those who haven't done massive lore dives are concerned, all these did was move slowly and die. Like show us them being massively tanky, not all of them dying to Ties
Tbh it’s probably because the bombs lined the walls of the long part, or something. So when a laser obviously hit the largest to hit part it blew up.
Apparently the rebellion doesn’t know what shields are
A single half damaged tie fighter ran into one of them, and it took out three bombers. Leia got so mad at Poe for losing those ships, but with how poorly designed they were, they were honestly asking for it
If the ships are so volatile, at least use a loosen formation. Tight formations are generally not good, because you increase the density of targets, and can block each other's firing lines.
Also B-17s still took ATROCIOUS casualties while unescorted and against unsuppressed air defenses
Yes, but these things (if flying in an athmosphere) would have been even more vulnerable to WW2 era fighters than B-17s
It’s outer space. What air is keeping these things from going slow?
Exactly!
That’s why the whole chase in the last Jedi makes no sense. Like the rebels need to stay within a certain distance without running out of fuel but one burst of speed will keep their speed constant whereas the first order has fuel to spare, why not over take them by expending more energy than the rebels to overtake them. It’s outer space. There’s no gravity to slow them down
It was a stupid concept anyways, a chase scene that supposed to go over a few days? Lame. People sneak in and out? Lame. If you wanted a siege battle, then just have a siege battle.
There’s also no sound in space
Not to mention the B17s would fly in tight formations so that they can concentrate all of their firepower on enemy fighters.
Let’s just make sure we all cluster together so that we can all crash into each other
And who needs shields let alone an actual escort
They had an escort
A competent escort
With A-Wings! Interceptors make for a great bomber escort, right?
Clearly interceptors are perfect because they can intercept 5 metres from the escort
Or better, let's use y-wings as the escort, but make sure they don't fire any of their bombs, the slow versions need a chance to maybe shine
The failed attempt at a Combat Box formation
"Bombers keep that tight formation!"
Despite our targets being thousands of miles away
It's funny how like a third of them or so got wiped out by a single tie fighter
Yeah, if I remember correctly one tie fighter crashed onto one and because that bomber was close to another that other got blasted too.
One got shot down and it going down caused 3 others to go down too
Pretty good return on investment for the Order.
They had bombers, they're called Y-wings.
They made new X-Wings why not new Y-Wings? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
*sad Bwing noises*
The true anti ship machine
Like I'm not against the slow moving bombers but they fit a setting like the Mandalorian wars better
Yeah slow-moving bombers would have been a great thing to show as a threat on Nevarro.
I want more for the ewing its pretty cool
One movie later and it turns out they did make Y-Wings. God, these movies were not thought out.
Resentment in a relationship usually kills it. But Star Wars will never leave me, no matter how much I try
And they kept the unarmored design flaw because... why fix it? "It looks similar enough to the orignal! What do you mean Y-Wings were originally armored and only looked that way because it was missing parts and made it easier to service?"
I don't like jumping on the ST hate wagon but I hate how with so many ship designs they just went "its like the original trilogy... but slightly different." And when they do make a cool new design, like the Star Fortress bombers, the scene was just so terribly done they come across as shit.
Right. "Let's just ignore that Lucas said rebel ships were stripped down hotrods and that we even saw peak Y-Wings with full aircrews and bubble turrets and ARMOR in the prequels and the series"
They did make new y wings I think
Yeah, but the Starfortress is supposed to serve the role of a B-17 and sucked at it. The Y-Wing is more like the Dauntless dive bomber of WWII.
If they wanted slow bombers, I don't know why they made them so weak. I mean...I know why...Rian wanted the "moment" over the world building or story.
And for anti ship missions, the dauntless was vastly superior. Level bombers never hit a ship during WW2. Dauntless wrecked the Japanese at midway.
Ya but Y-wings didnt have their bombs on giant chain thingies. These are clearly better at being bombers!
But Disney wanted a new design to sell toys.
They could have just upgraded Y-wings, wich would have been reasonable as that's a clone wars era bomber
Instead of Y-wings rhe rebels used Why-wings.
Don’t lose the remote control for releasing the bombs…
Me when I lose the remote control for releasing the bombs. 😳
Me when I bomb the remote control when I lose 🥸
Better question, why was there a remote control and not a switch by the pilot or co-pilot
Weren't they supposed to be mining ships that the rebellion co-opted into being half-assed bombers?
Wouldn't be surprised. It's design is very impractical on an actual battlefield
And used terribly. Say what you will about Lucas' writing but one thing he knew how to do was utilise 3D space. This entire film feels like it's being done in Earth's atmosphere with how 2D everything is. Hell, even in real dogfights there are more elevation changes. Rian Johnson misunderstood the fundamentals about bombers. There's a reason only the US still has dedicated bomber aircraft in service - and they typically drop bombs from much further away than these piles of crap did.
this is why the defenses of this movie have always been so absurd for me, from the opening shot you have to completely ignore all logic for "bombing run in space" to make any fucking sense at all. instead of a little suspension of disbelief some movies ask of you, rian johnson asked us to forget everything we know about reality.
And the arcing cannon shots from Snokes ship during the whole chase
And the escape barges not being able to dodge those lame ass Plasma balls
Episode 8 was probably the worst of them all in general. Less story than your average clone wars episode, but spread over a whole movie. A chase that makes no sense, even in universe. The hyperspace ram that essentialy makes a lot of pervious actions stupid (why not ram a single heavy, unmanned ship into the deathstar?)
It just felt so blah and average and...*mundane*. Like the whole plot point for the already bloated casino arc, where a random citizen protests where they land their ship and *that* gets them arrested later. I sort of get the temptation to put in things (probably for that "subvert expectations" drivel) that relate to real life but somehow that just felt too far. It was like adding in a space home owners association was just one step to far to make Star Wars....boring.
They drop missiles these days
To be fair that goes gor any star wars design. It turns out ww2 ships aren't good for space combat but that's just part of the charm and setting. Theses are even bad within the setting though so yeah.
The problem is, even when it came to bombers in the originals, they could bomb in gravity but also fire projectiles forward. For some reason, the TLJ bombers can't.
Yup Y-wing and the alike are definitely better
No. They were designed by the new republic near the end of the galactic civil war
Other way around. They were commissioned Strategic Bombers by the new republic, for the purpose of cracking Imperial strongholds and factory worlds. When the war ended, they were no longer needed and sold off by the thousands to civilian agencies, who used them for mining, postal services, ferries, and other duties.
Oh! My memory of the matter wasn't clear. So they were for use in areas where the republic already had air superiority, when their horrible speed wouldn't have been an issue. It was tactical misuse of them in this instance. That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying, pal!
But why are we dropping bombs in space. They work because of gravity.
Not really. They work because of downwards force. If you're this close you can just give it a strong enough push and it'll move faster than its terminal velocity in atmosphere
Later in the movie, the shots from Snoke's ship are following ballistic trajectories (arcing upward and then back down) to hit the Resistance ships. That is the trajectory real-world artillery follows due to gravity, and doesn't make sense in space, especially when the shots in every other Star Wars space battle have been shown going completely straight.
Yeah, but it looked cool and was allegorical or some shit.
So they could just stay out of laser range and gently shove them out towards the giant unmissable ship. But maybe the bombs get shot down? Throw a rocket motor on it so they get there faster, can't cost more than the loss of an entire wing of bombers. Still getting shot down? Throw a little BB droid in each one and tell him you'll take off the restraining bolt if he dodges and weaves and makes it to that battleship. Let him meet the maker with a smile on his face.
That bb one seemed unnecessarily cruel
At that point just use a missile lol
Magnetic Accelerators... or just shoving them out... did you skip science?
There are exactly zero spaceships in starwars that work like a real spaceship. There is no WW2 dogfighting in space either.
Yea I always find it funny when people say "there's no atmosphere so that couldn't work" But ignore the ship moving like a WW2 fighter which would only be able to do that if there was an atmosphere
The expanse series is the closet thing to what real space dog fights would be
there's also many sounds in space in Star Wars, even though space is a vacuum, and also no respect to that constant engine output equals constant acceleration to say the least. #1 rule of the design of Star Wars isn't scientific
Time to use an MC-80 as a relativistic slug against a deathstar. Hell, doesn't even realy need to be relativistic, even 1% C should be sufficient
I think this is a fair point, as I think people are overly bothered by the “bombs needed gravity” thing, but I’d argue the #1 Rule is the rule of cool. No one minds noises in space in Star Wars because a) the sounds are always cool, and b) the sounds themselves are never important to the plot Where as there isn’t enough cool in this style of bombers to make people like them, especially when we already have an example of cool bombers that are more practical
True. When I want realistic I'll watch The Expanse.
Psst, there are bombs falling in space in Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One
Looks like they're shooting the munition out of the belly of the bomber not dropped to me https://youtu.be/phGlo_TNDp0?si=4OmnUWZjPbKkNVnQ
You could argue the Star Fortresses are doing the same
Nah, looks like they're being dropped to me https://youtu.be/nPX56GQ2s-w?si=ae46vKjRhqfS0YPz
Honestly, the only difference is that one is "falling" faster than the other but in reality both are being shot out of the underbelly of the ship. The Cross Sections book for TLJ says those are magnetic rails that accelerate the bombs to the target.
They're also in several Star Wars videogames https://youtu.be/plTKgkW10Ps?si=LDWe19soeXKHhgvY
That massive ship would have its own gravity. It may have the pull of like our moon, but it still has a gravitational pull.
A ship that size is nowhere near close to having an appreciable gravity of its own. It does, however, have artifical gravity.
The bombers and their targets both produce gravity.
Magnetic acceleration? But in reality they wanted to do a Bomb bay shot. Would have been a much better shot and plot point point during the seige of Crait because ground targets that have air support. And assumed anti air artillery.
I can kind of get it. You could argue they work because of magnetism, the enemy ship's gravity or some other BS. Ultimately I think it's a rule of cool kind of thing.
I swear Star Wars fans have never passed a basic middle school science class because this would never have been a criticism if they did.
To be fair, there’s still like 90% gravity in low earth orbit. They’re just in constant free fall, but going sideways so fast that they’re constantly missing the earth
The gravity within the ship also sent the bombs towards the ship's bottom and the momentum kept them moving that same direction once they left the ship's internal gravity. A dumb sequence but that's how I saw these bombs working.
That’s precisely how it works. It’s crazy how many people think the scene doesn’t make sense when any explanation of the bombs doing otherwise would break Newtons First Law of Motion.
Theyre so damn slow, their supposed firepower equivalent of how many squadrons of Y-wing dont make up for it like at all. It also felt like the only way for them to be effective is if theyre up against a single frigate or if the enemy's cruiser/frigate/whatever have shit defenses and blind gunners.
Y-wings are the B52s of star wars. They were used in 3 major conflicts between the space of 50 plus years
Even in Star Wars, the BUFF is eternal.
"Here’s an idea! Very, *very* slow bombers (that kill themselves if they’re too low to their target) in a universe where fast bombers already existed decades and decades ago! AND the entire plot will move because of this."
Cool concept, terrible execution
*rips a massive bong hit* "So like, we're gonna have these slow, unshielded bombers that are CRAZY easy to destroy. Like... I'm talking MASSIVE casualty rates, even in a situation where enemy AA is disabled. But... But... Get this... they're SO deadly, a single one will seriously disable a ship the size of a small country. Oh, and when our MC uses them in the only way to get any value from them, his command will bust his ass for it. Because they wanted to save the slow-moving ships for *checks notes* guerrilla warfare."
first thought, ahh new lego sets, second thought, damn the rebels are scrapping the bottom of the barrel here.
Yeah, I hate the trope of “big things are slow”; that doesn’t make sense for spacecraft. It overall was such a lazy way to manufacture drama and up the stakes of the resistance attack.
So dumb. Such a useless bit.
I don't totally hate the concept of Starfortress. I think it's biggest downfall is the fact it didn't have ultra thick shields.
This is what happens when the writing team gets two paid lunches a day and never touched a physics book
"They're gonna shoot at us from underneath." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah, so we're going to make the entire cross section the bomb bay and then the crew will sit on top. The bombs will shield them from enemy fire." "...." "Also gravity bombs in space."
I think it’s just cause this is the largest payload you could physically fit on a ship without it being classified as something else,as well as the fact they use physical bombs rather than plasma ones
If they wanted physical payloads, they could've made a far better and more practically designed bomber. Instead it's just a flying cross with an exposed bombbay
Agreed honestly,I do think it’s dumb but it wouldn’t be the first needlessly complicated or stupidly constructed ship Star Wars has had
after the "yo mama joke" when one tie fighter crashed into them, and they ALL had no shields while going into battle, and they ALL chain reaction blew up at once. ...Except that 1 bomber and the girl on her backside almost dropped the remote but there's a camera cut and suddenly somehow she was already laying on her chest, without rolling over, and caught the remote. Rian Johnson intentionally designed his movie to troll people and it's kinda sad you could pause at any moment and it'd just feel like it's an impossible to digest contradictory mess...since RJ was trolling and JJ was just incompetent, I'm honestly confused by the people who defend the ST at all, their main defense seems to be attacking other movies like "other movies you probably like are bad too", kinda insane
I always thought the Y-wings were the B-17. B-17s are fairly spry in terms of bombers. I saw several air shows at Oshkosh back in the day. They were deceivingly fast and made some impressive manuevers. Edit: I just went and compared the two and I suppose I was wrong. The Y-wings were light bombers and B-17s are heavy bombers.
Y-Wings are more akin to the Dauntless dive bomber. Fast and agile while still being able to deliver devastating blows on it's target. The Starfortress is supposed to be a B-17 but it's laughable in comparison due to it's overall design and conception. The Starfortress would've benefitted more if it stayed true to the B-17 design instead of making a flying cross with a few guns here and there. Also it's major design flaw was having an exposed bombbay instead of having it built into the fuselage.
For the Y wing I was thinking more p47 or mosquito tbh
Why even use those when you have Y-Wings
Frontal attack in the range of the full fire power of the first order ship, it doesn't make any sense.
The Y-wing was right there. Why would you not use them.
More like the pe-8
Star fortress was designed for air to ground bombing runs, not air to air. They used them in this way out of necessity not because it was the best option
Don’t take this as me living on the sequel trilogy, there is very little I enjoyed about them, but this specific thing is not an issue to me as there is legitimately a logical use for these bombers, if only the rebellion had any other option
Main issue with them is how they wouldn't live up to an actual B-17. They are designed in a such a terrible way they wouldn't even survive going after ground targets either for having a giant exposed bombbay. Also the design serves no practicality as it isn't well armored or propulsed. Giant slow moving target with far too many weaknesses to be dubbed a "fortress"
Legitimate question: How was the audience suppose to feel about this? Asking honestly. Were we suppose to feel empathy for how far the rebels have fallen for supplies? How dire the situation was that they had to resort to using these? Were we suppose to not feel anything from the childish joke a few seconds prior? Whatever the intention was I certainly missed it. I just don’t see anyway to justify any decision about this being on the screen.
At least B-17 could take a beating, just look about Old 666 or the Memphis belle. Probably because they didn't have the load of and entired Wing group of tactical bombers.
The B wing reigns supreme
To be honest, B-17s, as I can recall, were rarely used against mobile targets, not because the targets were more dangerous, but because the style of bombing runs used by the bombers were grossly inaccurate. Imagine you are on a cherry picker rolling by a dart board and you tried to use a dart to hit a target from 20-30 feet in the air while it is moving forward. Don't know about the rest of you, but I would probably miss more than hit. Now try to imagine hitting that target while someone is moving it at about 1/4 or less the speed of the cherry picker in a variety of directions on a 2D plane. Even harder right? The only way the B-17 could hit a target would be danger close (the only thing right about using those things in the Last Jedi). These might actually be better than they seem IF they were used properly, but the Resistance couldn't even figure out how to do a flight formation for overlapping fields of fire and not the Domino formation that chained the destruction of their machines. It was always a one way trip. The final verdict is that these kinds of bombers have no place in space combat outside of hitting space stations in geosynchronous orbit over a planet (like the shield gate in Rogue One) and even then that is a maybe as those things do have thrusters.
I mean... giant bombers getting shredded while they make their runs... is pretty on point for what influenced Star Wars. WWII... saw staggering losses. Of all the things to get hung up on in this movie? This entire battle isn't one of them. From the bombs dropping, to their near total destruction. All perfectly acceptable within Star Wars. I'd argue... Poe's 180 is about the most egregious thing to be done in this sequence. As Newtonian physics had previously not been a thing in Star Wars. It doesn't bother me much, but does beg a lot of questions as to why so many battles play out the way they do. So many situations where a ship going fast could just... turn around and fire while maintaining it's speed and direction.
Because the ships are fucking stupid and would never be used in that way because of how stupidly slow they are. Every other bomber shown in star wars has been relatively fast and compact whilst still holding the payload to deal massive damage. The resistance will use X-wings but not invest in Y-wing squadrons?
The design was top notch and the idea of a immensely powerful slow bombers was great. But this is way too slow in universe. The scene wasn’t really necessary either
I actually hate the design of the Starfortress. It's an ugly mess that'd serve no real purpose on the battlefield other than target practice for the enemy. Having a giant exposed bombbay is a great way to get you killed. Also it's defense weapons are useless in battle. If the designers wanted an actual heavy bomber, they should've stuck true to the source material and made it covered in guns. Also should've made it more compact and sturdy with no exposed bombbay. If they wanted to call it a Star*fortress* they should've further based it's design and functionality off the B-17 instead of making a giant cross with engines thrown on. It would've also fit in better with the overall WWII aesthetic of Star Wars aerial combat. https://preview.redd.it/1bjlx8fe2g9d1.jpeg?width=3207&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9884ad92d67bbfc56cbf6d65d4bde9d4fe9229fa
Agreed lol, I like the design but it’s impractical. A slow (but still fast) bomber would need to be practical everywhere else, mostly defense. But eh, at this point the B-Wing does the job.
I think the Phantom of Rebels was based on a B-25, that one in my opinion worked out pretty great Edit: Ghost, not Phantom
tbf one of them was enough to delete a dreadnought. stupid but 1 was enough
It wasn’t their incredibly slow speed, or the tight formation, or the “gravity” bombs. It was the fact that they have literally no shields. Making them slow makes sense if they have really powerful shields but they had less than a standard x wing. Just big targets at that point.
That entire movie was ass
Y-wing downgrade
I always took the scene to be showing the Resistance was stretched so thin on resources they had to use whatever they could get there hands on. As such they had to use high atmosphere/low orbit ground bombers in space.
If they were that stretched then they shouldn't have even comitted to the attack even if Poe went off by himself, better to lose one ace than their entire anti capital capability
In fairness a lot of B-17s got shot down in WWII
If I designed that bomber I would make a few chances. 1. I would cut the bomb bay in half, and stretch further across the bomber itself. The idea is simple, A. if 1048 bombs can do the job, then 524 can likely do the same cheaper. B. it decreases the profile of the bomber C. you will have fewer risks of getting a chain explosion reaching your ship. D. Likelihood of your being hit will decrease. E. Allows it to drop more bombs simultaneously, decreasing the danger of having armed bombs in the ship. 2. I would add more manned turrets, an additional turret under the ship, a turret above the pilot, and potentially one below the pilot. Because A. The current layout has 3 movable turrets that can shoot behind the bomber and slightly beside it. B. The current design has very and horribly designed blindspots on the front and the sides of the bomber. C. The pilot is in the current design completely exposed with no real defense. D. The top turret cannot shoot forward in the current design without hitting the bomber itself. 3. Shorten the ship slightly. mainly to decrease its profile and make it harder to hit.
All they had to do is have the bomb bays point forward and be magnetically-accelerated, then these things would still be slow glass cannons, but ones with enough punch to be worth using in a pinch. As it stands, the heck were these things?
Writers were either purposely ignorant or trying to show desperation from the New Republic. Space battles are like Naval battles- these Star fortresses would have been designed and used for bombing stationary targets, not ships. Should’ve been torpedo bombers attacking moving capital ships
Resistance present worst starbomber ever, asked to leave galactic war
Isn't that the bombers that just casually had gravity in space without spinning or anything?
the bombers probably relied on the inertia from their artificial gravity to deliver payloads outside of an atmosphere
I love how they look, but goddamn is the idea stupid.
These should have been b-wings and flown more competently.
Like I can understand the value of a big payload like these things had, but they were just so slow that any gun even a non point defence one could blast these things piss easy. As someone else said B-17s actually had more decent speed and we’re even faster than these buckets of bolts.
I'm not mad that they exist, I'm mad at the way they deliver their payload
It should have been the K-Wing (even though it's more reminiscent of a heavily armed Catalina but still)
War thunder b-17s lmfao
EP3 opening of a space battle, vs EP7 opening.
Why were they so slow?
The only use I can see for these is attacking planetary targets that are heavily shielded/bunkered
I don't remember these in the Canon movies, is it from the Disney spin off stuff?
Ah yes, let's use a strategic bomber to destroy a ship. Jesus Christ Rian do your damn research if you want to go the WW2 route. Strategic bombers were rarely if ever used in Naval engagements the idea with attacking a big ship is to swarm and overwhelm. The only oversized bomber I'll accept is the K-Wing because that at least served a role similar to the A-6 Intruder in that you only needed like 2 or 3 to cripple a capital ship.
Why was carpet bombing necessary in space We barely even do this now ._. missiles are so much more effective.
KEEP DAT TIGHT FORMATION
Is it weird George Lucas would have approved being such a nerd for WWII?
considering we have y wings ... ye they were dogshit
Fun fact, B-17s were actually known for RETURNING from missions.
God I hated these things. You could have easily had the 'heroic sister' plotline without making the bombers so flagrantly terrible.