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In most Star Wars battles, the ships shoot lasers at each other.

In Rogue One and RotJ, however, ships physically colliding with other ships won battles. In Rogue One, a capital ship collided with the planetary shield, deactivating it.

When an opponent comes at you with a space fleet, why doesn't a space admiral take an unarmed, unmanned hunk of metal and hyperspace it right through the enemy? Why do they just mess about with little lasers?

Blackwood
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Clint Eastwood
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  • Related, possible duplicate: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/138226/51379 – Adamant Dec 29 '16 at 04:26
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    It’s quite unlikely that an object within hyperspace can damage an object outside of hyperspace, as detailed in the linked question. They’re basically in different places. It has to revert to ordinary space (probably not literally within the object), and it’s certainly limited with respect to the speed it can have when it does that. – Adamant Dec 29 '16 at 04:30
  • Also related: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/138223/64504 – Adamant Dec 29 '16 at 04:30
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    And also, they aren’t usually firing literal lasers at each other (despite the occasional misleading language). – Adamant Dec 29 '16 at 04:31
  • @Adamant Ships in Hyperspace can damage objects in real space, it is shown in the new trailer for Star Wars Rebels – Hyperdrive Enthusiast May 31 '17 at 14:24
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    Nice job predicting the plot of The Last Jedi! – pk_ Dec 21 '17 at 18:25
  • I haven't seen it yet! Don't spoil it for me! – Clint Eastwood Dec 21 '17 at 18:34
  • This is kinda of like asking why don't ships in the Star Wars universe go in reverse. Having this capability would be greatly beneficial in space battles. –  May 06 '20 at 20:07

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This is addressed, or rather handwaved, in Rise of Skywalker. The Holdo Maneuver is said to be a one-in-a-million long-shot. It was only possible because the Rebels had days to plan it out (and presumably perform the required hyperspace calculations) and because their enemy was stupid enough to put itself in a big long line directly behind the ship they were chasing.

Beaumont leaned forward. “We need to do some Holdo maneuvers,” he said. “Do some real damage.”

Before Poe could answer that they couldn’t afford to sacrifice anyone, Finn jumped in with “C’mon that move was one in a million. Fighters and freighters can take out their cannons if there are enough of us.”

Rise of Skywalker: Official Novelisation

Note that this is then subverted (a second time) at the end of Rise of Skywalker as we see a Star Destroyer cut in half in the sky above the Forest Moon of Endor, apparently the result of a freighter doing "a Holdo Maneuver" on them.

Holdo Maneuver: Above the Forest Moon of Endor a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer was split in two by a heavy freighter entering hyperspace on a collision course.

enter image description here

Valorum
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