10 Most Incompetent Imperial Officers (Galactic Empire)

Did the rebellion win because of their skill and bravery or was it just the empire's lack of competence, especially in its officer corp?

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[theprofessional]

The funny thing is Thrawn would have destroyed the rebellion several times if his stupid colleagues didn’t ruin his plans.

[lordMartiya]

Nitpick on Piett's supposedly foolish action: he had moved the Executor, and the entire fleet, closer to the second Death Star because the Rebel cruisers were firing on the defenseless battlestation and tearing it apart (see the novelization). The only order Piett could have given was to put his fleet between the Rebels and the Death Star to force them to defend themselves against his fleet, even if that meant putting the Executor where the entire Rebel fleet could fire on his ship (as they promptly did, taking down the bridge shields and allowing the A-Wing to ram the bridge).
Ackbar, being the superior commander, had put him in a situation where he could only choose between two bad things, either letting the Rebels fire on the incomplete and unshielded Death Star, meaning they'd destroy it anyway in short order, or using his ships as shields, putting said ships in extreme danger but giving him a chance to save the station.

[rexlumontad]

Their incompetence explains a lot why the Rebels usually get away with everything they do in their fight against the Empire.

[stammigerberg]

puting Piett on the list is kind of unfair as he has proven himself to be more than capable of commanding larger vessels. As far as i know he didnt position the Executor over the death star, rather it was a direct order von Palpatine. So Piett had noch choice but to let his fleet stay passive the entire battle, so that palpatine could slowly destroy the rebel fleet with his new toy.

[isaackim]

Ezra, “This is Commander Brom Titus!”
Commander Titus, “Is this some kind of a joke?”
Ezra, “Uhhhh….Yes.”

[smnbee]

There are two ways to survive working directly under Vader.

1) Show no fear. Just respect. Occasionally offer an objective point of veiw to him when discussing a mission or task. He'll respect you, may even see you as potential command material.

2) Whatever role you have within the Empire, do your best work with it. If you specialise in Boarding Operations then plan, strategise and strike. Research, use the best men and lead by example.

[theredrexy]

Remember, most of the high ranking officers (Tarkin, Yuhlaren etc), were on the 1st death star when it blew up, the empire lost a good chunk of their best officers. This is shown in ESB when the one guy enters hyperspeed to fast and the rebels detect him. Small mistakes

[penguino]

Anyone else notice that one of the "officers" in the picture is the main villian in Indiana Jones and the crystal skull lol.

[garywilson]

Piett was a good admiral. He was no thrawn but piett is exactly the kind of officer that would keep thrawns plans successful rather than be the reason they failed

[rexlumontad]

Grand Admiral Thrawn the only competent Imperial: "I am surrounded by idiots."

[stars]

I’m onboard with all of these except maybe one. The issue of the Executor being too close to the Death Star might very well have been Palpy’s blunder rather than Piett’s

[theredrexy]

Fun Fact, the 1st guy that vader chokes in ESB comes from a family of navy officers, his parents paid money to send him off to the best Navy acadamies. In legends he was proven incompetent since the clone wars

[danielbeck]

I would disagree with Piett being on this list. Yes, he did technically move the fleet to engage the Rebel fleet, however I would point out he was under strict orders to prevent the Rebel fleet from escaping by the emperor using any and all means. Even looking back to some novelizations and even The Empire Strikes Back, Piett was far more competent than Kendel Ozell and other officers. Vader actually personally singled Piett out to join Death Squadron. And even after the failure of Bespin Piett was basically left still among the living whereas other officers for slightly lesser failures were outright killed even if it wasn't their fault. The novel surrounding the failure of Bespin when the Falcon escaped also made it clear Piett was fully expecting to be killed for his failure, but the fact he wasn't he figured that Vader's mind was elsewhere at that moment and if he were to interrupt those thoughts, he would certainly be dead. He even made it a point to approach Vader with respect and never with fear or in Ozell's case ignorance and smug. Piett had seen what that lead to and knew Vader was a force to be reckoned with, but like Piett himself Vader hated the general incompetence and corruption that was pervasive throughout the empire and many officers. Sharing this and the fact he was loyal to Vader and to Palpatine also made it clear he was still a reasonably competent admiral of Death Squadron and Vader knew this and had left Piett alive after Bespin.

[zeratul____]

Given how fast the competency of Officers dropped off a cliff after the Clone Wars ended and the Empire rose it is easy to blame the Empire for these terrible officers however it is likely many of them were already serving the Republic durring the Clone Wars and were simply kept in check by "good" influences like the Clones and Jedi.

However after the drastic shift of Order 66 and the near rapid replacement of the Clones drastically changed the "work culture" of the military. Clones would look out for each other as they saw themselves as brothers and the Jedi were taught to be paragons of good. While the Empire was made up of normal people who had no such connections and their training even reinforced the idea that they can only count on themselves.

This way of thinking pretty much infected the entire millitary to the point where many officers only have had the success they do through social manipulation and deception, without needing to be actually capable at their jobs, they just needed a higher up to THINK they were good Officers and get promotions through that. After thinking about it the thing that really crippled the Empire was a combination of Tarkins Doctrine and what the "culture" inside the Empire was like leading to incompetent Officers being everywhere.

Which come to think of it the infighting was what eventually killed the Sith, funny how history repeats and yet Palpatine couldn't see it comming.

[mortyjhones]

Piete was not incompertant he was unlucky..
he was killed by a broken thread when they where filiming flybys for the battle. An A wing packed with Blackpowder gide string snapped and the heavy model fell spinning out of controll into the Stardestroyer model and exsploded, wrecking the high detail model. so they wrote it in.

[TheOneWhoReportsForDuty]

Yogar Lyste can probably be forgiven on that theft as he did basically everything right. He left guards and clamped them down which is likely standard procedure. The thing is he forgot to account for the theft was done by protagonists.

[gasmaskalan]

Major Staz is a good person atleast
recognizing a low ranking solder in that enviroment means he cares for his men

[Dramatic_Gaming]

Incompetence always starts at the top and, hoo boy, incompetency just *flows* from Tarkin.

[tk-]

The ATAT wasn't tarkin doctrine, I have pointed this out before. The ATAT was a crappy republic walker that General Veers made into a decent vehicle. Tarkin thought that they were a waste of time, and he didn't like them. He only used them because the Emperor commanded him to use other strategies than his own (in effect).

[Squiddy-godu]

I love there’s 5 rebels characters in a row. Rebels really knew how to make the empire look like a bunch of incompetent idiots.