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"The rebels are alerted to our presence, Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed to close to the system."

Why was Ozzel wrong in doing this??? Seems to me the best tactic was to come out of hyperspace practically on top of the rebel base giving them less chance to react properly. If Ozzel came out of lightspeed at the edge of the sytem surely the rebels would be able to detect a fleet of Stardestroyers and a Super Stardestroyer sneeking up on them.

Riekan says that with all the meteor activity it would be difficult to spot approaching ships, but surely you'd be able to detect a fleet of Star Destroyers no matter what...

Also, coming out of light speed too close to Hoth meant the Imperial ships couldn't surround the planet. They're all on one side, and some good guys were allowed to escape.

From what distance can an Imperial Star Destroyer launch a planetary bombardment? I mean, it would make sense to me to drop out of hyperspace far away from the system & blow it to shit before the rebels even knew anything was hitting them. It would seem the plan was a bombardment of some sort, since Gen. Veers noted that the shield was strong enough to deflect any bombardment... possibly?

I always figured that Vader wanted to come out of hyperspace out of sensor range and from there formulate a plan. Where it's a commando team to knock out the shield generator with light air support or else a full scale planetary bombardment, it doesn't really matter. Coming out of hyperspace as close to the planet as they did more or less forced the Empire into combat with the Rebels for they, the Empire, had really set up an attack formation or plan of any kind, thereby allowing the Rebels to mount a defense strong enough to evacuate the base.

Had the Imperial armada succeeded in this, the Rebels would've been dealt a crushing blow (likely the deaths of leading officers and personell such as Leia, Han, Riekann and others) along with Vader capturing Luke to bring him before the Emperor. Ozzel coming out of hyperspace that close to Hoth shot any chance of those things happening straight to hell and the Imperials could only do mop up while taking some losses of their own.

I might've executed the guy too.

I think you guys are right about this. The further out the Emperial fleet arrived, the wider the net they could cast against the rebels, thereby trapping them in the Hoth system.

It's just like when you try to catch an animal. If you run behind it, it will stay ahead of you and you'll constantly be chasing its tail. However, if you get several people and surround the animal at a distance, you can then move in slowly on the wily little critter and snatch 'em good.

Sorry to use country witicisms, but it makes sense.

Any bombardement would have focused on the shield generator, after which they could land all their troops much closer to the base and disable the transports more easily. With their presence detected and the shield up, they would have to switch to plan B and have a much harder time stopping the transports. That´s why Vader was so pissed off and killed Ozzel.