Star Wars: Magazine Analyzes Vader's Poor Battle Plan at Hoth

If there were history books written about the Galactic Empire's struggle with Rebel forces in the Star Wars trilogy, one of they key moments in time would be a battle at Hoth, when Darth Vader personally oversaw a small-scale battle which saw nearly every key Rebel player escape just a short time before their decisive victory at Endor. Those history books, says Wired reporter Spencer Ackerman in a new report, would not be particularly kind to Vader. Noting that Vader brought insufficient spacecraft to properly blockade the planet and then landed his troops far enough away to allow the rebels to defend themselves rather than be overwhelmed, the article goes on to list any number of ways that the Empire could have won that battle and, in all likelihood, the war. "A smarter plan would have been to launch TIE fighters against Echo Base — since aircraft and spacecraft can get past that Rebel enemy shield — to lure the Rebels into an evacuation from Hoth through their shield's chokepoint. Concentrating the Imperial Star Destroyers there would lead the Rebellion into a massacre," Ackerman wrote. Of course, unless Vader's decision not to kill Luke Skywalker was reversed, it likely would not have changed the ultimate outcome. After all, by the end of The Empire Strikes Back, they had Skywalker, Solo and Leia in their grasp at Cloud City and failed to capitalize on that important strategic advantage.