The reason for the deathstar

[Mr. Oragahn]

Is there ever a reason given for why they didn't just attack the Super-Laser?

Because they knew they had a chance to destroy the station. Destroying the SL would just postpone the laser and make matters worse.
Besides the Rebels didn't have enough forces to run both attacks.

The torpedoes missed by a wide margin, and that's not because they didn't turn sharp enough. They just didn't even enter the hole. Call that jamming or what you want, but clearly there's been like a huge deal of luck there.
Some say the Force.

It's stated it is a difficult shot, and canon does say there was jamming, but what makes you think the torpedo missed by a wide margin?

When you think they just had to fly forward, and they crossed like a kilometer at most, and that there was plenty of metal around to reflect any active signal, it's hard to imagine the torpedo not knowing where it was, especially when the computer said there was a lock.

We know it missed by a wide margin because the closest impact is a couple meters away from the mouth (you see it when Luke's torpedoes enter it), and the other impact is not even visible, and I'm not sure both torpedoes would have hit exactly the right same spot, but you never know.

When Luke fired, it seems he was a wee bit closer to the port, like a few hundred meters, but that would hardly explain the huge difference of accuracy between both, especially since Luke didn't count on the computer lock. I mean, I don't even know how Luke expected the torpedoes to lock onto anything.
What he did is just too close to "make a wish". Only the computer would know, in accorance to an eventually preprogrammed path, precisely when to fire the torpedoes based on readings of the environment.
Now, again, with the jamming, the computer was probably screwed.

But if Luke fired them without his own computer sending data to the torps, how the hell did the torps even know what to do? OK, say they had a preprogrammed path. How would the torpedoes know where they were if an X-wing's computer couldn't be accurate enough to know that.

And again, it's not like the shot was particularly hard, if you discount the jamming. The only thing that explains the crash of the first volley is the jamming. But then Luke's torpedoes would have known the same issue.

Which means the torpedoes were not scanning anything. They were totally programmed, and it's the fighter's computer which was to say when to fire. And the computer screwed up.
What the Force let Luke know was when to fire the torpedoes at the right moment, according to the coded path inside the torpedoes' systems.
The torpedoes were programmed to converge for x seconds after being fired from either side of the X-wing, it was very specific. And then, they'd turn sharply according to a specific set of coordinates and axises.

How, then, the first volley could miss that much is hard to explain, since again there wasn't any particular difference in the observed flight of both volleys. What could be explained is that the first volley didn't indeed turn, but:

1. As they were fired a bit too soon (again, that's the impression I get by looking at the video), they turned too soon.
2. Their ups and downs were initially screwed up by the computer, and instead of turning down into the shaft, they turned "down" towards the left wall and space.

This explanation avoids the need to argue that Ben used the Force to guide the torpedoes. But it still requires the Force to give an information of time for the firing and an information of position for the X-wing to be properly lined up with the shaft entrance.
Which means, somehow, that the Force, or something, read and understood the coded path.

[KirkSkyWalker]

More like prescience.
As for the torps "turning," this would require a compound-vector in which they first fired retro, and then turned toward the exhaust-port, thus proucing an arc as shown in the preliminary briefing-video on Yavin.
Wedge said this was impossible for a target 2 meters wide, using a comuter-- and doggone if that wasn't the truth! Luke did it using the Force, which allowed him to anticipate the right moment in advance.

[Praeothmin]

More like prescience.
Wedge said this was impossible for a target 2 meters wide, using a comuter-- and doggone if that wasn't the truth! Luke did it using the Force, which allowed him to anticipate the right moment in advance.

And again, you ignore the very fact that the mission was planned without the Force factoring in it, at all...
If this mission was impossible without the Force, as you claim but have yet to prove, then they would never have planned it, and would have more then likely used the 30 minutes they had to evacuate the most people they could in the timespan they had, just as they did on Hoth.
But they didn't, and the mission planning didn't even include asking: "Oh, by the way, anyone here strong in the Force? We're asking because this mission is impossible without the Force!"
So while this was indeed very difficult to do, verging on the impossible, it was possible.
The pilot that missed, while having his targetting scanner tell him to shoot, was also pursued by Vader and his pilots, so he was under a lot of pressure and fired while coming up, barely missing the target (2 meters off in this case isn't that big of a miss).
Plus, notice he didn't fire as soon as he had the "lock", he fired a bit after that lock was confirmed, giving him time to overshoot the target, and minimize his chances of hitting it...

As for the trajectory computing, it would have been easy to program in the missile since they had the DS's blueprints for the mission planning...

[KirkSkyWalker]

More like prescience.
Wedge said this was impossible for a target 2 meters wide, using a comuter-- and doggone if that wasn't the truth! Luke did it using the Force, which allowed him to anticipate the right moment in advance.

And again, you ignore the very fact that the mission was planned without the Force factoring in it, at all...

Sure, that’s why the briefing ended by saying “May the Force be with you.”

If this mission was impossible without the Force, as you claim but have yet to prove,

Sure, you want me to prove a negative while you ignore the positive.

then they would never have planned it,

So you’re saying that no one EVER plans ANYTHING which turns out to be impossible after the fact?
They didn’t know until they TRIED.
Consider the facts:
1. Wedge, one of the three best pilots of the saga, said it was impossible even using a computer.
2. Luke DIDN’T use a computer, he used the Force, when he succeeded.
3. The computer FAILED when Red Leader used it, since the computer wasn’t able to do it.
4. “Insanity” is defined as doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

So while this was indeed very difficult to do, verging on the impossible, it was possible.

NOT using a computer.

The pilot that missed, while having his targetting scanner tell him to shoot, was also pursued by Vader and his pilots, so he was under a lot of pressure and fired while coming up, barely missing the target (2 meters off in this case isn't that big of a miss).

So now his targeting-computer was subject to error because it was “under pressure?” I’ve heard everything.

Plus, notice he didn't fire as soon as he had the "lock", he fired a bit after that lock was confirmed, giving him time to overshoot the target, and minimize his chances of hitting it..

.
This back-seat driving is pointless. The computer toned, he fired, it missed—the computer blew it. Red Leader was obviously in the “window” since the computer was still toning.

As for the trajectory computing, it would have been easy to program in the missile since they had the DS's blueprints for the mission planning...

Obviously they did it as best they could, but it wasn’t accurate enough at that speed and range. They’re moving at the minimum speed and distance to avoid turbolasers, and the torpedo has to retro-fire and turn on a VERY short course into a 2-meter hole—sure, that’s “very easy” to program.
Murphy’s Law #2: nothing is as easy as it looks.

[Praeothmin]

Sure, that’s why the briefing ended by saying “May the Force be with you.”

So every time someone says "Good Luck for X", he/she means "I know you can't do it on your own, so I'll hope that luck allows you to do the impossible!"?
Funny, but saying "May the Force be with you!" in a Galaxy who no longer believes in it is like saying "Good luck" to someone who's going to do something tough.
Even in military operations, you'll hear these words uttered, yet I very sincerely doubt military planners say "Well, this mission is impossible unless someone is very, very lucky, but we'll do it anyways just in case the 1 in a million odds are with us!"...

So you’re saying that no one EVER plans ANYTHING which turns out to be impossible after the fact?

No, I'm saying no one plans impossible things, but there has been some highly difficult missions or undertakings planned that failed because they were highly difficult, even after much planning and calculations...
You know, the kind of missions requiring precise timing and action, the kind of mission that requires a pilot to fire immediately when his targetting scanner has a lock and not wait a few seconds before reacting...

1. Wedge, one of the three best pilots of the saga, said it was impossible even using a computer.
2. Luke DIDN’T use a computer, he used the Force, when he succeeded.
3. The computer FAILED when Red Leader used it, since the computer wasn’t able to do it.
4. “Insanity” is defined as doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

1-Wedge didn't do anything extraordinary in the movie, it is the EU that made him one of the greats. Do you believe the EU is canon now?
2-Luke didn't try with the Force at first because he also believed it was doable with the computer.
And as Lucky mentioned, when Luke was saying "We used to shoot womprats", that means he wasn't alone, and unless you want to argue that all the pilots (which inlcuded Biggs) were Force users, then this means that the mission was possible, and not just by Force users.
3-The computer didn't fail, Red Leader failed to fire as soon as his computer told him to.

NOT using a computer.

The simulations and calculations said it was, so why don't you prove it wasn't?
It's easy to say "It can't be done without the Force" by starting from the conclusion of the events, but the facts remain they did plan the attack, they did believe it was possible, and they did not say "Yes, it's possible if you have the Force".

So now his targeting-computer was subject to error because it was “under pressure?” I’ve heard everything.

No, Red Leader was, as he is the one who reacted too late when his computer told him to shoot...
The computer toned, Red leader didn't react immediately, so when he did fire he missed.
As they said in the planning session, the timing had to be precise.
So perhaps there was a calculation mistake on the computer that allowed it to tone too long, but the fact is, Red leader didn't react immediately when his computer told him, and he overshot the exaust port.
Had he fired at the tone as he was supposed to, his missiles would likely have hit home...

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

No, Red Leader was, as he is the one who reacted too late when his computer told him to shoot...
The computer toned, Red leader didn't react immediately, so when he did fire he missed.
As they said in the planning session, the timing had to be precise.
So perhaps there was a calculation mistake on the computer that allowed it to tone too long, but the fact is, Red leader didn't react immediately when his computer told him, and he overshot the exaust port.
Had he fired at the tone as he was supposed to, his missiles would likely have hit home...

His delay in firing always annoyed me.

Because of the particular circumstances of the trench run you do have a very good point.

Because he delayed firing he was way way closer to the exhaust than he would have been if he had fired right away, this means the torp had a much steeper turn to make than it would have had if it had not been for that delay.

Luke may or may not have needed to use the force as he was flying down the trench at "full thottle to keep the fighters off his back" (yea cos that worked well.....) but the fact is that the first dude going at a slower speed screwed up by delaying taking the shot.

[Mike DiCenso]

The whole assault on the exaust port and the trench was poorly planned and executed. One group of X-wings would have taken out the trench guns long before the first run was made instead of flying pell-mell all over the place randomly attacking whatever looked good. When Gold Leader made his run, Red Leader with his group would have been ready to take up a defensive formation to prevent exactly the kind of thing Vader and his wingmen did by dropping in on TIEs trying to stop the Y-wings and shooting or distracing them. Of course, if there had been an intelligent use of tactics, Luke "Mary Sue" Skywalker would not have been able to show off his Force powers, and become the Rebellions big Number One Hero.
-Mike

[KirkSkyWalker]

The whole assault on the exaust port and the trench was poorly planned and executed. One group of X-wings would have taken out the trench guns long before the first run was made instead of flying pell-mell all over the place randomly attacking whatever looked good. When Gold Leader made his run, Red Leader with his group would have been ready to take up a defensive formation to prevent exactly the kind of thing Vader and his wingmen did by dropping in on TIEs trying to stop the Y-wings and shooting or distracing them. Of course, if there had been an intelligent use of tactics, Luke "Mary Sue" Skywalker would not have been able to show off his Force powers, and become the Rebellions big Number One Hero.
-Mike

You think "Luke" was a Mary Sue moniker for George LUCAS? "Luke" can be short for "Lucas," after all, rather than simply named afer St. Luke.
You cunning sleuth, I never realized that connection! Bravo!

But he was too much of a bumbling dope-- how could he be a Mary Sue?
He looked more like all the other "Chosen" types to me: Frodo, Neo, Harry Potter etc., i.e. a neophyte who gets saved by his friends and mentors.

[KirkSkyWalker]

Sure, that’s why the briefing ended by saying “May the Force be with you.”

So every time someone says "Good Luck for X", he/she means "I know you can't do it on your own, so I'll hope that luck allows you to do the impossible!"?.

No-- but that's just a figure of speech.

OTOH if I said "May God be with you" then it would mean that, since it means that nothing is possible without God's will.

Funny, but saying "May the Force be with you!" in a Galaxy who no longer believes in it is like saying "Good luck" to someone who's going to do something tough.

Not among the rebels.

So you’re saying that no one EVER plans ANYTHING which turns out to be impossible after the fact?

No, I'm saying no one plans impossible things, but there has been some highly difficult missions or undertakings planned that failed because they were highly difficult, even after much planning and calculations...

That doesn't mean that this one was do-able. The fact remains that it FAILED as planned. You may dwell forever on blaming human error, but the point is that it only wworked using the Force-- meanwhile your claim claim that it "could have" worked, is a negative hypothesis you can never prove.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The pilot that missed, while having his targetting scanner tell him to shoot, was also pursued by Vader and his pilots, so he was under a lot of pressure and fired while coming up, barely missing the target (2 meters off in this case isn't that big of a miss).

I beg to differ.
It's an awful miss. Those are guided projectiles. They are maneuverable, they have computers, sensor reading, and they had to cover a very small distance.
Let's be clear.
Statistically, if such a miss was acceptable or logical, then yes, there was literally no chance that any pilot would pick the golden ticket that day.

No, the reality is that they couldn't do better, they knew it was near impossible, that the jamming so close to the station would be true shit, and they didn't have much crafts to boot, and only a few of them had torpedoes at all.

Plus, notice he didn't fire as soon as he had the "lock", he fired a bit after that lock was confirmed, giving him time to overshoot the target, and minimize his chances of hitting it...

I doubt it. If anything, a computer should be able to adapt the path according to the position of the X-wing the moment the torps were fired.
Otherwise, it's quite a silly plan to count on droid-like reflexes to get the torps fired the moment the lock is confirmed. If anything, they'd had let the computers or droids fire them instantly, to avoid such an issue.

The reason imho why the lock didn't come earlier was because they were too far for the computer to get a lock through the jamming.
Getting closer would actually not make things worse.

It would be very dumb from the Rebels to rigidly program the torps so they would have to be fired strictly between 980 and 900 meters from the exhaust shaft entrance, for example.

No, in fact, the program would need a degree of flexibility. What it would need to know is that the approaching trajectory and final descent were right, so a turn could be applied based on the distance obtained from the computer feed and the moment the torps were fired.

And firing too late wouldn't explain why the torps hit off axis on the left and perhaps somewhere else, instead of just behind the hole, but still on axis forthwise.

As for the trajectory computing, it would have been easy to program in the missile since they had the DS's blueprints for the mission planning...

Which obviously makes the idea that Rebel pilots would have no flexibility in their firing range all the less likely.

Notice, however, that I'd don't agree with KSW here. May the Force be with you was just a testament of the huge odds against them, not the fact that they all believed only the Force would do it. That's a bit absurd.

On the other hand, Vader's commentary really gives weight to the idea that something of consequence was going on there that we couldn't see.

The whole assault on the exaust port and the trench was poorly planned and executed. One group of X-wings would have taken out the trench guns long before the first run was made instead of flying pell-mell all over the place randomly attacking whatever looked good. When Gold Leader made his run, Red Leader with his group would have been ready to take up a defensive formation to prevent exactly the kind of thing Vader and his wingmen did by dropping in on TIEs trying to stop the Y-wings and shooting or distracing them. Of course, if there had been an intelligent use of tactics, Luke "Mary Sue" Skywalker would not have been able to show off his Force powers, and become the Rebellions big Number One Hero.
-Mike

Yes, I don't get the whole messing around, blasting random stuff and so on. I mean, if there were fighters already there to blast towers, why not just get in the trench instead and run?
Try to draw enemy fire? What the hell? Those who had the torps were already there. TIE fighters weren't even scrambled.

Surely, they weren't near any trench, but why lose so much time over the surface when they closed the distance with the DS so fast beforehand?
The Y-wings obviously did well.
It seems they wanted to clear a path for the Y-wings, letting the X-wings defend them since they could engage TIE fighters. Since Y-wings were not so good, they decided to use them for the bombing, and therefore had them used for the first run.

If anything, they certainly were too cautious, too shy.
They were probably so terrified of not getting any fighter close enough to the shaft that they preferred to split functions. The problem is that the Y-wings then flew unprotected as the X-wings were stuck up there with other fighters.

[Lucky]

The pilot that missed, while having his targetting scanner tell him to shoot, was also pursued by Vader and his pilots, so he was under a lot of pressure and fired while coming up, barely missing the target (2 meters off in this case isn't that big of a miss).

I beg to differ.
It's an awful miss. Those are guided projectiles. They are maneuverable, they have computers, sensor reading, and they had to cover a very small distance.
Let's be clear.
Statistically, if such a miss was acceptable or logical, then yes, there was literally no chance that any pilot would pick the golden ticket that day.

No, the reality is that they couldn't do better, they knew it was near impossible, that the jamming so close to the station would be true shit, and they didn't have much crafts to boot, and only a few of them had torpedoes at all.

The target is two meters wide, and the missed shot was off by a few meters wasn't it? That doesn't sound that bad, and one person missing once by no means would imply the shot was impossible.

At the very least the shot is within the capabilities of the equipment, or they never would have tried it. What we are lead to believe is that the Rebels could have possibly taken hundreds or more of shots, and missed, but that is far from impossible.

[Praeothmin]

No-- but that's just a figure of speech.

OTOH if I said "May God be with you" then it would mean that, since it means that nothing is possible without God's will.

What?
It doesn't work that way my friend, it is either one or the other.
Saying "May God be with you" is the same as saying "Godspeed", just another figure of speech, the same as "Good Luck" or "May the Force be with you"...
At the time of ANH, the Force was all but forgotten, as Han's and the Imperial officer's comment indicated:

Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress...

That doesn't mean that this one was do-able. The fact remains that it FAILED as planned. You may dwell forever on blaming human error, but the point is that it only wworked using the Force-- meanwhile your claim claim that it "could have" worked, is a negative hypothesis you can never prove.

This means exactly that it was possible, if somewhat difficult, as stated twice in the movie:

Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. But the approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Wedge didn't believe it was possible, but the Rebel Generals did, so while it was tough, it was doable.

Also, this:

Commander #1: We've analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?
Governor Tarkin: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.

Again, chances of success are slim, but they do exist, a belief shared not only by the Rebel command, but by Imperial staff as well...

And Mr. Oragahn, let me re-iterate that the fighters are not going in a fully straight line, they were being pursued by enemy fighters and Red 5's wingman was destroyed just before Red 5 fired the missiles.
Although I did-reqatch the scene last night and he only fired less then 1 second after his computer beeped.
So while the shot was very difficult, it was possible, simply not neccessarily on the first pass...
And again, the Rebels never planned to leave the base or evacuate anyone as they did on Hoth.
Why did they not try it if their only plan had no chance of success?
They did say the DS was surrounded by a powerful magnetic shield.
That magnetic shield could have acted as a jamming device, which could account for the near-miss of the first missile volley...

All in all, I still do not believe the attack could only succeed with the Force or that the Rebels included Force sensitivity in their plans.
They believed it could succeed, the Imperial officer believed it could succeed, neither knew about Luke's Force abilities, so the fact that Luke succeeded with the Force only shows he was strong with it, not that he would have failed without it...

[Mr. Oragahn]

The pilot that missed, while having his targetting scanner tell him to shoot, was also pursued by Vader and his pilots, so he was under a lot of pressure and fired while coming up, barely missing the target (2 meters off in this case isn't that big of a miss).

I beg to differ.
It's an awful miss. Those are guided projectiles. They are maneuverable, they have computers, sensor reading, and they had to cover a very small distance.
Let's be clear.
Statistically, if such a miss was acceptable or logical, then yes, there was literally no chance that any pilot would pick the golden ticket that day.

No, the reality is that they couldn't do better, they knew it was near impossible, that the jamming so close to the station would be true shit, and they didn't have much crafts to boot, and only a few of them had torpedoes at all.

The target is two meters wide, and the missed shot was off by a few meters wasn't it? That doesn't sound that bad, and one person missing once by no means would imply the shot was impossible.

At the very least the shot is within the capabilities of the equipment, or they never would have tried it. What we are lead to believe is that the Rebels could have possibly taken hundreds or more of shots, and missed, but that is far from impossible.

Fired on a straight line, a few kilometers away (really, you can't push it much more than that, and I generally think they were under one kilometer away from the target), with guidance systems in constant work, there is just no way the target could be missed so much and be considered an acceptable industrial standard for the model.
You also don't have air drag.
When you compare that to the specs of the current Excalibur system for example (for which the claimed accuracy is quite in line with this popularized test firing), the specs for the proton torpedo would be truly bad.
However, the accuracy of the Excalibur (just like the accuracy of highly advanced guidance systems) would bomb with appropriate jamming.

Force or not, Luke would have never stood a chance to hit so nicely and cleanly if the torpedoes were meant to be used against such large targets that drifts of several meters were commonly acceptable. He would have simply failed utterly, with the chance of one torpedo miss destroying the other of the pair, or pushing it off course.

[Mr. Oragahn]

And Mr. Oragahn, let me re-iterate that the fighters are not going in a fully straight line, they were being pursued by enemy fighters and Red 5's wingman was destroyed just before Red 5 fired the missiles.

When the torps are fired, the crafts are flying straight ahead. The only moment when you see them drifting is for example when an X-wing of a pair gets destroyed and one goes up, but stays in the trench. It never happened when the torps were fired. So other than that, the flight was more than clear enough.
Besides, the point is that computers should have no issue to adjust the path according to the craft's position.

The only reason why missiles would miss so hard is if the computer made adjustments based on false readings, and eventually if the warheads themselves were still using sensor guidance.
What I think Luke did is really placed his fighter in the best position and didn't let the computer make changes to the path. Meaning that the path was already coded by default. Frankly I can't see how it can be something else: the torpdoes could have never known when to turn, or known that they had to turn at all. They would have flew straight ahead.

Although I did-reqatch the scene last night and he only fired less then 1 second after his computer beeped.
So while the shot was very difficult, it was possible, simply not neccessarily on the first pass...

A second pass doesn't mean anything to a torpedo. There's only one pass.
Eventually a second pass would mean something if, for example, Red leader had sent data to Luke's computer and the computer would have, somehow, managed to find a solution to the completely borked path.

And again, the Rebels never planned to leave the base or evacuate anyone as they did on Hoth.
Why did they not try it if their only plan had no chance of success?
They did say the DS was surrounded by a powerful magnetic shield.
That magnetic shield could have acted as a jamming device, which could account for the near-miss of the first missile volley...

Under such conditions, what you call a near miss, I call a disastrous miss.
Chances simply were slim.
The question would be what kind of torpedoes those were. Were they meant to be used against small crafts and fighters, in which case they'd be very fine tuned, or were they meant to be used against larger targets, in which case a drift of a few meters wouldn't matter much?
The Technical Journal giving them a yield of near a kiloton each would tend to mean those torpedoes were meant for large targets.
Therefore, logically, chances of a proper strike against such a small profile would be very, very hard.
Some would say impossible.

Of course the generals aren't going to say "guys, this is our last chance, we're not ready to flee, so you got to succeed, but this plan has literally no chance to stick. It's a suicide mission. May the Force be with you."
They had to motivate their men, even if it meant lying about the odds.

Solo and Antiless knew better.
Solo came back because of emotion. Logic would have dictacted him to flee as far as possible.

Frankly, with what I see, the odds would really require like a thousand, if not a million of ships fighters taking their chances before it would work once.
The Force would greatly even the odds.
The fact that Vader sensed something about the Force that protected Luke's fighter is literally baffling in fact. How could the Force matter at all in acquiring the fighter? After all, Vader obviously used his own fighter's computer to lock on the target, despite the atrocious jamming acting against all ships (the Rebel fighters' silhouettes kept going up and down, left and right, even when the crafts flew straight). What would the Force have to do with that?
Not to say that in the trench, the field generators were also adding a lot of physical disturbances.

All in all, I still do not believe the attack could only succeed with the Force or that the Rebels included Force sensitivity in their plans.
They believed it could succeed, the Imperial officer believed it could succeed, neither knew about Luke's Force abilities, so the fact that Luke succeeded with the Force only shows he was strong with it, not that he would have failed without it...

The point is rather clear:
A young rebel pilot (Wedge) says that it's impossible (possibly knowing the computer won't get the necessary fine reading). Red Leader uses his computer and utterly misses (that's the empirical part of the argument).
Then Luke arrives, doesn't use the computer, everybody goes WTF?, he fires, the torps fly neatly into the hole, and voila.
Heh.

It is rather easy to say it's a miracle.
Even more, when we have the proof that the Force was involved.
I think the movie solidly conveys the idea that Luke had to count on the Force to get the precise reading and timing that the sensors and computer couldn't provide.

Now the question is who's going to get his face blue before the other... ^^

Extra: have anyone provided an explanation as to why they never directly attacked the North pole (...), plunged and fired their torps straight at the hole without bothering with some silly 90° turn?
The shaft was only ray-shielded, it wouldn't never stop particles, no matter the trajectory. Once inside the field, the fighters would just have to dive onto the target and turn after firing their torpedoes.

[Praeothmin]

I've re-watched the scene last night, and nowhere did I see the "utter miss" you keep mentioning.
We see Red 5 fire, the torpedoes going towards the port, Red leader coming up saying "it didn't go in, it impacted on the surface!".
The Torpedoes could well have impacted right at the lip of that 2 meter port, making a very, very close miss.
Where do you see the impacts and where is it mentioned they missed by more then 2 meters?

And I never said Luke didn't use the Force to achieve success, I simply stated that it does not mean the act was impossible.
As Mike said, and you just also realized, it would have been far more efficient if the ships had flown in a direct line.
By going through the trench, they added difficulty to an already tough mission.
Again, Rebel Command and Imperial officers alike thought it was possible, so I fail to see why I should not believe them, in light of their actions.

The fact the Rebels didn't even try to evacuate means a lot.
Not ready to evacuate?
All you need to do to evacuate 20 important people is to push them on a ship, take off in the ship and go somewhere else.
30 minutes is more then enough time to do that, yet they never even tried.
"Oh yeah guys? It's impossible to do, but just to maintain appearances because if we tried to escape now we'd have to leave our porn behind and we find that unacceptable, we will not try to evacuate the base even though we know the plan is impossible without Force powers. Would anyone here have them, perchance?"
I am the only one to realize how dumb this is?

Yes, the day was saved by a whiny kid with the Force, in the end, because it was easier and yielded the best possible chances of success.
Yes, the Force is better then targetting computers in certain instances.
But NO, the mission was not impossible without the Force, just very very difficult...