Total offense. The Evacuation of D’Qar and the destruction of the Dreadnought would’ve gone more smoothly and the vast majority of The Resistance Fleet, including Cobalt Squadron, including Paige Tico would STILL be alive if they just used Y-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings instead of the useless ass Resistance Bombers we got. But because Rian Johnson wanted Poe to be demonized throughout the film and wanted The Resistance to be in ruins by the end of the movie, we just had to have those useless ships.
The bombers chosen for the Evacuation of D’Qar are a goddamn liability. MG-100 StarFortress SF-17 or The Resistance Heavy Bombers is just bad. It makes no sense. The Resistance has updated X-Wings, so why wouldn’t they have Y-Wings, B-Wings, and A-Wings? They are more effective and less of a liability.
It only took ONE of those abysmally conceived bombers to destroy the dreadnought, and I’m pretty sure it started blowing up after only one or two bombs.
Y-Wings would have been way more effective than those new ships, which basically all just flew around until they were shot down one after the other and accomplished nothing. Like, only one of them even achieved what they set out to do… Pitiful. Y-Wings are fighter/bombers, they would have destroyed the Dreadnought with no casualties whatsoever.
Y-Wings upgraded with new proton bombs would’ve got the job done, but that would’ve been overkill. They are the ships that beat the Malevolence and cut through the Ryloth blockade like butter, after all.
They pack a punch with proper support, and they can at least outrun the explosives they drop.
Before anyone tells me the Y-Wings, are outdated technology hasn’t radically advanced in Star Wars for thousands of years. The Y-Wing is relatively young compared to most other ship designs. The A-Wing is conceptually older, being a derivative of the old Aethersprite Jedi Starfighter that was in use before the Clone Wars, just like how the X-Wing is a derivative of the ARC-170 and Z-95 Headhunter, and the B-Wing was probably inspired by the V-19 Torrent, and everyone knows the Star Destroyers haven’t changed at all for probably thousands of years. There’s no reason why it couldn’t have just been refined and improved upon like every other starship in the universe has been. Hell a fan even came up with a concept for Resistance Y-Wings. Just shows you Fans put more thought into the Resistance than Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm.
If we go with the assumption that they were outdated and ineffective, then there were far better replacements than some slow bombers made of paper. For example, B-Wings, which were supposed to be their replacement in Return of the Jedi and were brand new at the time, and K-Wings, which were a replacement for both of them in Legends, both would’ve been very viable options. A B-Wing was made during the Galactic Civil War for the sole purpose of destroying Imperial capital ships. It was updated before the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens as it is revealed in the official Star Wars: The Last Jedi visual dictionary that B-wing Mark 2 cockpits were used on the Resistance transports that brought Leia’s camp to Crait. Seeing that they are fairly new and have received upgrades, the B-wings would have been a better choice for the heroes to use in taking on the First Order.
They also wouldn’t have broken the “small, fast, and maneuverable” tenet of the Rebel/Resistance design philosophy.
Anyway, the Resistance still didn’t need any specialized bomber. All the Resistance needed to do was replicate what they did to Starkiller Base in the last movie.
The dreadnought’s “point-defense” turrets aren’t fast enough to target one X-Wing (lol, what a stupid movie), so there’s no reason why a squadron of X-Wings can’t just bombard the weak spot with enough proton torpedoes until the dreadnought gives up. It’d probably just take one or two, as well. Instead, we got a glass cannon sent to destroy another glass cannon, with no trace of escorting ships or other noticeable strategy beyond “FIRE EVERYTHING!!!”
