Storm troopers are weaker than rebel troopers?

[raydude]

None of that matters, since we're discussing the fundamentals of applying the known statistics and limitations of technology into a wargame environment.

 

My point this whole time has been that the "known statistics and limitations of technology" are made up. There is no "known specs" on a laser blaster because laser blasters are made up.

 

Case in point: lightsabers. Up until the release of Episode 1 everyone thought they knew the specs of light sabers. They could slice through almost everything. What they DIDN'T know was that a light saber thrust into a metal door could MELT the material surrounding the light saber instead of simply cutting a small hole in the door.

 

Uh-uh-uh! We aren't commenting on command structures. We're commenting on technology!

We are commenting on the general effectiveness of troops in a fictional world by applying known principles of warfare in the real world.

 

You're forgetting about shields.

If they could have done a bombing run, they would have done so. Instead, they required surface units. There's a mass of that sort of discussion which went on over at the www.theforce.net forums.

Note that I mention the lack of rudimentary tactics. I was hoping you would spot the fact that they didn't even try flanking the rebel positions on the ground. Even the Tatooine map in EAW shows that you can hit the base from 2 directions and apply the basic fundamental tactic of "holding 'em by the nose and kicking them in the (censored)".

 

Where were the rebels meant to head to, anyway? Space? Definitely! That's part of what the assault was meant to accomplish: Drive them into space to get caught by the Star Destroyers ("Our first catch of the day!").  It failed because they didn't expect an ion cannon to be placed there.

 

Funny how you noted that radar would have detected the transports in the Episode 2 battle but neglect to mention that radar would have detected the ion cannon. No, not radar. Something better than radar. Like for example, digital surveillance imaging across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Something our satellites do now. At 1 meter per pixel resolution. So the big bad Empire with this futuristic technology would have not spotted a big round dome with a cylindrical tube pointing up into space? Btw, someone needs to talk to the guys arguing against Fog of War and show them that "realistically" the Empire can sometimes miss an Ion Cannon on a planet.

 

You are forgetting, however, the several AT-STs and speeder bikes which were zooming ahead and very probably strafing the forward lines. The AT-ATs get the screen exposure, but that's all. They were walking artillery, more than anything else.

 

Speeder bikes? What speeder bikes? Where in the movie were there speeder bikes? I admit I may have missed them but I would watch it again if you tell me they are there.

 

No, I don't think the AT-STs were strafing the front lines. At this point the Empire was still practicing combined arms as you can definitely see AT-STs matching speed with the AT-ATs instead of zooming ahead.

 

(A) How do we know the entire planet's surface is woodland?

The same reason we know that Tatooine's entire planet surface is sand. Lucas has this thing for creating worlds that are mostly one environment.

 

(B) Why is the AT-AT bad? It seems to be perfectly capable of walking around! Don't think it's going to care about crushing a few trees out of the way.

© It was probably being escorted. It's being used to ferry an extremely important prisoner around in a shell of tough armour. The AT-AT suffices and may well have been placed there as an interim measure (could have been destined for another world and was set down there temporarily, until the next barge arrives).

(D) Could also have been put there as part of a training mission for that sort of environment and jsut happened to be the only unit available to transport the prisoner to another place area.

(E) Note that when they know there could be trouble, they don't use the AT-AT! They use AT-STs then. They don't bring that thing over.

 

B) you pick the right unit for the right environment

C) When the real-world military packs up a large vehicle (like say a helicopter) for shipping, it disassembles it and makes it as compact as possible. When the real-world military ships the vehicle and has to off-load and transfer it to another transport it does not put it back together and take it out for a spin.

D) now you're just making stuff up. But that's good, because this is fiction and you can do that

E) Well that's good. Its not like they could have used it as a psychological weapon against koala bears who have never seen something that big before. Besides, if you recall (B), it either has no trouble walking around or it does.

If 1)it has NO trouble walking around then why didn't they bring it into the fight? Probably because 2)it DID have trouble walking around.

 

Did they think they'd have to be facing killer koala bears? No. When they figure it out, do they have any reason to think they have RPGs? No. Do they have any reason to believe the small tactical team they have been sent to round up have access to that weaponry? No. Do they find any on them? No.

There is a saying in the real-world military. "You fight like you train". So if you train to work as a combined arms team then you fight like a combined arms team. ALL THE TIME. Regardless of whether the enemy is in Iraq or on Endor. So, the Imperials fought like a disorganized band of soldiers. They must train like that.

 

They've told their vehicles to make a big show of force and patrol on a search and destroy mission profile through the immediate surrounding area. They're also going at a rate of speed which is faster than soldiers would be able to keep up with. There could also be soldiers escorting them, but ones who have been incapacitated and neutralised by the time we next see the vehicles on screen.

Real-world tanks can definitely go faster than a foot soldier. They don't, especially in a crowded environment like woods or urban terrain because combined arms says they work better together than separately. In the real world even our troops can get pinned down. Just recently a platoon on routine patrol in Iraq got pinned down by insurgents on all sides. They hunkered down into good defensive positions and called for reinforcements. They did not simply keep going like the AT-STs did.

 

Tell me, why would they have a reason to think that a wookie would be nearby, let alone show presence of mind to be allied to the little furry creatures and swing around on trees or even know how to operate one ofthose machines?

A hypothetical scenario: You are in an AT-ST, buttoned up. All hatches are closed. A furry creature shows up on your viewport. Do you a)ignore him and concentrate on the ground attack? or b)send one of your crew to investigate? There was no indication that the viewport had anything to do with targetting the guns. There was no gun reticle on the viewport, there was no heads up display. Yet they opened the hatch to deal with a creature that could not harm the AT-ST. Why?

 

Except that it's not in decline, as I showed above.

Not to my satisfaction, as in my riposte.

 

There is more politics involved, which will lead to some bad decisions. Look at Nazi Germany and what happened there as time went on. But Nazi Germany itself was still a formidable fighting machine. It just suffered from some time-critical strategic mistakes.

No. By 1944 Germany was reduced to pushing old men and kids into service. The garrison troops along the Atlantic wall were mostly made up of prisoners taken from the Eastern Front supervised by German officers. They would immediately surrender once their German supervisor died. Their fearless leader was losing confidence in his military generals and took it upon himself to direct the movements of divisions personally.

 

The quality of Imperial troops and their equipment, I say, shows no signs of being in decline. They might have got more arrogant, but were still more than capable of annihilating their opposition.

Episode IV. Luke, the nephew of low-middle class farmers, has a landspeeder. It looks like it goes pretty fast and has lasted quite a while. Yet the Empire, when searching for the droids, is never shown on anything that is remotely as fast as a landspeeder. They are either walking or on those lizard things. Why is the technologically advanced Empire searching for two "droids of importance" on foot when it can cover more ground with vehicles?

 

None of which alters the fact that they were also an elite group of soldiers who had received inappropriate orders based on political pressure, bad intelligence and even worse conclusions from it, which is what makes it an applicable analogy.

I agree that the force at the Battle for Mogadishu was an elite force that handled themselves superbly even against overwhelming odds and even when surrounded. I disagree that anyone would even think of comparing the pitiful Imperial troops on Endor with these guys.

Edited January 26, 2006 by raydude

[MastaSpoofa]

I had to register after reading this thread. Xenomorphine your post is VERY well thought out and i agree with you rather then with the people that are attempting to prove you wrong.

 

1.

Where were the rebels meant to head to, anyway? Space? Definitely! That's part of what the assault was meant to accomplish: Drive them into space to get caught by the Star Destroyers ("Our first catch of the day!").  It failed because they didn't expect an ion cannon to be placed there.

 

Funny how you noted that radar would have detected the transports in the Episode 2 battle but neglect to mention that radar would have detected the ion cannon. No, not radar. Something better than radar. Like for example, digital surveillance imaging across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Something our satellites do now. At 1 meter per pixel resolution. So the big bad Empire with this futuristic technology would have not spotted a big round dome with a cylindrical tube pointing up into space? Btw, someone needs to talk to the guys arguing against Fog of War and show them that "realistically" the Empire can sometimes miss an Ion Cannon on a planet.

 

first of all, the rebels have probably had the base on Hoth for at least a year. Hoth has ice storms every day. So if their first priority would be to set the defenses for the base (ion cannon, shield generator ect.) then it would be build quickly. the snow would have covered the cannon at least patartially to a point where it would be easily mistaken for part of the environment.

    Also, Hoth's weather can easily block satellite images. Even in the demo in Hoth's planet information it says that the ice storms block people from knowing theres a ground base on it. they only found out hoth was the rebels secret planet because the probe happened to catch a clip of the generator. if they would have taken their "satellites" and done a scan of the planet the ice storms would have made the rebel base invisible to be put in basic terms. Or if i was to humor you raydude, the weather just happened to be particuarly good the day the probe arrived (and when they found han and luke). Why would the empire just deploy satellites? lol. i mean really, just deploy satellites that would take at least 15 minutes to get deployed in space, and ready to be used. another 5-10 minutes for them to scan the entire planet, and by then the rebels would be alerted, and allready ready to escape from Hoth. In ESB (empire strikes back) the admiral had came out of hyperspace too close to the planet. So the rebels were alerted of their presence. Vader killed the admiral for jumping too close, he wanted to jump a safe way's away from the planet and have a suprise attack. If he would have had his way im confident that he would have been able to swiftly create a suprise attack that would easily catch the rebels off gaurd, and defeat them without any of them escaping. In the demo, the ion cannon is a pain in the rear end, and accurate to the movie, they disable the ship. My disabled ship has an extremely low rate of fire (maby just my imagination but im allmost certain the rate of fire is decreased significantly.) and is basically a floating heap of junk. The ion cannons rate of fire is also extremely fast. So the rebels could exit the planet at any angle at any time because of it.

 

2. I actually think the AT-AT was suppose to clear an area around the landing pad so they could have more space to create an effective base to defend the shield generator on endor.

 

3. What, were the imperials supose to tell their squads "look for wookies swinging on the vines! i agree that AT-ST operator was stupid to tell his co-pilot to open the hatch and get him off there, i personally would have just taken out my pistol and shot the little teddybear in the face, but enough about what i would personally do  ;D It may just be possible that the AT-ST's were owning so much that victory seemed certain, so they decided to start a mopping up operation and kill the remaining ewoks. Only after the AT-ST was taken over did they relize that the rebels might have a chance to turn the tides, and by then it was too late to do anything. Along with the foot soldiers, victory assumed, therefore they decide to comb the area for ewoks.

 

3. Space battle above endor. I personally would agree that whoever the admiral was should have commenced the attack. After they destroyed the Executor i assume that the other star destroyers were allready commencing with the assault apon the rebel cruisers. I mean come on, if you were a captain of a ship and your main flagship was just destroyed, i'd be a little pissed, and yeah emperor is sayin he has somthing special planned, but if allied ships are being attacked, id commence the attack. Stupidity of the emperor allowed the rebels to snach away victory from the jaws of defeat. But, even with the deathstar destroyed the imperials could have EASILY have destroyed the small rebel fleet containing MAINLY nebulon-B frigates, im sure at least one or two were medical frigates, it even says in the movie one of the leaders of one of the fighter squadrons says "there heading for the medical frigate" (i think thats what he said, along that lines.) those frigates would have less firepower then their gunship bretheren. And from what i could see there were only 2 mon calimari cruisers with them. That is a Pathetic fleet. The blockade runners arnt and CANT take on imperial star destroyers, nor were they ment to. so lets wrap this area of my post up. Lets be generous and say 7 nebulon-B Frigates 2 were medical, so thats 5 combat equipped frigates. 2 mon calimari cruisers. A good match 1 on 1 for a star destroyer, but not an entire fleet + Super Star destroyers. and maby... 5 blockade runners. thats a fleet of 14 total ships. Their fighter support was basically destroyed in the skirmishing that happened prior to the fleets engagement. After the shield was Deactiveated, all remaining fighters went for the death star while the rebel fleet was left to take care of the imperial fleet. There were maby.... 20 total ships in the beginning for the imperials when they took on the rebel fighters, but there were around 20 imperial star destroyers, which carried around 10 squadrons... EACH! so thats 200 squads of fighters so here are the odd's 196 fighter squadrons+bombers vs 9 rebel frigates without fighter support. Now how could the rebels POSSIBLY defeat such odds? even a monkey could'nt screw that battle up. It wasnt the empires fault the battle was portrayed as a loss for the empire, it was lucas's fairy tale that the rebels somehow won. Military tactics were NOT a factor in this battle, other then the fact that they lost the 2nd deathstar because of the stupidity of the emperor and his attempt to turn luke to the darkside, they had won the battle EASILY, then they could deploy their ground forces to destroy the rest of the rebellion, and poof. Peace in the galaxy, clone the emperor wew alls back to normal.

 

3. This is more of a question then a reply, but to my knowledge i had heard that the imperials were mainly humans that were trained because of the fact that clones only lasted so long, so they disbanded the clone armies after the clone wars, and recruited human recruits for their armies. Apart from the 501st the rest were regular human beings.

 

In conclusion, Raydude i find your reply to Xenomorphine VERY wrong, but feel free to correct me. Btw, if i havent mentioned this before (been a long post so i forget and dont feel like scrolling up again  I had alot on my mind when i was reading this post, and just HAD to register for this particular post.  anyways im done talking. Start debating again  ;D

[Jmaster3265]

WOw too much quotes, how did you quote so many idk. I think there should be a limit to how long posts can be...

[MastaSpoofa]

This is a very intense discussion  ;D

[Dorkthehunter]

This is a very intense discussion  ;D

 

Good observation!!!(not) We all know that. Please don't make obvious statements like this or if you do, also add something that is benefiting the topic....like this:

 

It is obvious that the stormtroopers are weaker than the rebel troopers. They can be made free and the rebel troopers cannot. It's about balance more than realism, sorry to say it...

[raydude]

In conclusion, Raydude i find your reply to Xenomorphine VERY wrong, but feel free to correct me. Btw, if i havent mentioned this before (been a long post so i forget and dont feel like scrolling up again  I had alot on my mind when i was reading this post, and just HAD to register for this particular post.  anyways im done talking. Start debating again  ;D

 

I'm arguing from the standpoint of using real human history and trends that most historians see when studying real human history, and applying it to the humans in Star Wars. Star Wars IS fiction, but it is a fiction populated by humans with governments and organizations that have parallels in real human history. Saying that my arguments are wrong is like arguing that the US Civil War never happened.

 

Your counterpoints simply add speculation and you don't even attempt to address ALL of my points. Others ignore the current technology and military strategy of today. For example:

 

Regarding Hoth. You don't have to ONLY use satellite imagery. You could use finely tuned magnetometers to measure disturbances in the magnetic field. These disturbances would be caused by a high concentration of man-made objects. You could use X-Ray spectrometers that aren't affected by clouds at all. Ditto Gamma-Ray spectrometers.

 

As a real world case in point: Venus is obscured by clouds 24/7. Yet we were still able to get detailed information about the planet even before putting landers on the surface. If we can do it, why can't the Empire?

 

You also make the mistake of assuming that I mean for the Empire to deploy satellites. Just because I mentioned that our satellites have sensors doesn't mean I'm arguing for the Empire to deploy satellites. The Empire has these huge, kilometer long ships called ISDs. You'd think that somewhere in all that space they could fit every type of sensor and detector imaginable, so that the ISD itself can scan a planet.

 

Finally, you assume everything has to work serially, one after the other, rather than in parallel - with many things happening at the same time. For example, in the real world case of the 2nd Iraq War, the US military was conducting a buildup of men and supplies AT THE SAME TIME as the satellites and recon drones were doing surveillance of Iraq. Meanwhile, AT THE SAME TIME, the generals in charge of the invasion were planning how to conduct the attack.

 

Thus, for the invasion of Hoth, the Empire can scan AT THE SAME TIME as they are preparing for the ground assault. Meanwhile, AT THE SAME TIME, the ground commander can make plans for the assault and update them based on the most recent results of the scan when they become available.

 

Its not, as you say, 15 minutes to deploy satellites, then 5-10 minutes to scan, then 15 minutes to deploy, then 10 minutes to attack. Real world militaries, the good ones anyway, do things in parallel to save time and attack more quickly.  On the other hand, maybe you have a point. Maybe the Imperial military DOES work serially, and hence, is not really that good compared to real life.

[noian]

Strait to the point: It varies on the troops. They can be smart and take cover(and therefore win) or be dumb and not(and lose)

[Megajames]

i think this topic should be locked, people have made there point very well and it has served it's use

[MastaSpoofa]

Good observation!!!(not) We all know that. Please don't make obvious statements like this or if you do, also add something that is benefiting the topic....like this:

 

It is obvious that the stormtroopers are weaker than the rebel troopers. They can be made free and the rebel troopers cannot. It's about balance more than realism, sorry to say it...

 

how erm, are storm troopers free? Yes they cost 40 credits to produce but still  :  ;D