T.I.E. Fighters === Rebel Squadron A (RS A)
...they could have had this...
RS D === RS C === RS B === T.I.E. Fighters === RS A
Do it like a conveyor belt, and whoever survives A's bombing run loops back to the back of the line, with a reserve squadron running interference to cover them. The above configuration (counting the reserve) would allow for 12 fighters allocated, which would leave 18 fighters to otherwise divert the attention of the Imperials. Just keep it up until somebody manages to fire their proton torpedoes into the exhaust duct and voila!
The point is that instead of the incredible man-wasting tactics of the Rebels and the guaranteed high casualty rates, they have better tactics and better survivability in the squadrons. Vader and his crew couldn't have picked off the squadrons if backups were right on their tails.
Instead, they send them down one squadron at a time, with the other Rebel fliers just apparently holding their dicks while their buds are getting wasted.
Of course, this lets Luke get to play the hero, but it's impossible to believe the Rebels could even have survived as long as they had in the face of such rotten battle tactics.
I mean, in "Empire Strikes Back," they use trench warfare against the superior armor of the AT-ATs on Hoth. WTF is that all about? Oh, I know -- high casualty rates again. The poor bastards in the trenches get absolutely slaughtered. Now, you could speciously argue that they are doing a delaying tactic to buy time (with their lives) for the transports. But the infantry's presence on the battlefield doesn't so much as slow the AT-ATs down. What's more, it's demonstrated by Luke (both in a speeder and on foot) that grapple guns and grenades apparently work marvelously to dispatch AT-ATs, so the Rebels were likely better off charging the AT-ATs on foot with grapple guns rather than futilely blasting them with weapons that are immediately shown not to work (which calls to mind whether the Rebels have faced AT-ATs before, which, in all likelihood, they have). Again, bad, bad tactics yielding extraordinarily high battlefield losses.
*shaking head*
I don't mind a role being established for the heroes of the story, but not at the expense of tactics with the groups in question. At least make the tactics good.
Don't even get me going about "Lord of the Rings," how the Uruks (an army built expressly to deal with cavalry, hence the pikes they carry) get wasted in battle.
