Sometimes Lucas overdid the ‘doohickey fails to work as expected’ sight gag, as when the Death Star supercannon fails to go off on the first trigger pull at Alderaan. But his hot rod experience gave him a visceral sense for the running gag of the Millenium Falcon, which is both a hunk of rusty junk and the hottest hot-rodded hot rod ever. And having it down for maintenance when a surprise attack hits emphasizes the surprise of the attack.

A devastating ground defeat at the Battalion level? What would that matter against an Empire that holds 10,000 worlds in its sway?

No. Once discovered, escape was the Rebel’s overwhelming strategic and operational objective.

Emphasising the ground battle would only give the Empire more time to amass it’s blockade. As it was, only Vader’s immediate task force was present. A few hours and that force would be doubled, then tripled, until escape was impossible.

Vader’s anger at the proximate hyperspace emergence was understandable. He wanted time to establish a secure cordon without alerting the rebels. His hand was forced into a premature ground assault. Such was his haste that, additional archive material shows, several AT-ATs were lost trying to force the moraine north-east of the Nev Ice Flow, before attacking South along the ice-flow itself.

The criticism of the actual ground battle is also unreasonable. Radio and video logs clearly show Rebel landspeeder pilots describing side-attacks on AT-AT armour as being futile. Indeed, even the heavier P-Tower guns were useless. It is true that Cmdr Skywalker was not a trained air co-ordinator, but was well respected and tactically creative with the (successful) tow-cable technique. It is also not commonly realised he was still recovering from injuries sustained in an earlier Wampa attack and was not at his best.

This criticism is entirely misplaced at the operational level, and ignores the strategic imperatives of the Rebel situation.