Star Wars: Rebels

[Adam Reynolds]

Though I admit it would have been interesting to have him appear as a CIS officer in ROTS, it's not like he was all that brilliant in ROTJ(as I note above). So having him appear brilliant in the first while he was merely reasonably competent in the second wouldn't have fit exactly.

[Galvatron]

Granted, although it would have emphasized the hopelessness of their situation if even a brilliant commander felt it necessary to retreat.

[Thanas]

Man this show shits all over stormtroopers. The last episode had them be no more competent than the old droids from the clone wars with fancier army.

[Galvatron]

Yeah, it's hard to imagine those rebels on the Tantive IV and even the sand people being slaughtered by these stormtroopers.

[Rogue 9]

Man this show shits all over stormtroopers. The last episode had them be no more competent than the old droids from the clone wars with fancier army.

They're even poking fun at it in the previews for this week.

[Rogue 9]

So your gravity well projectors are turned up to eleven and pulling your escort ships into collision with you? Here's an idea: SHUT THE FUCKING THING OFF! Jesus.

[RogueIce]

Chopper may have sabotaged it further with a "cannot shut off" option. It's not unreasonable.

[Abacus]

Man this show shits all over stormtroopers. The last episode had them be no more competent than the old droids from the clone wars with fancier army.

Yup.

[Themightytom]

I feel like Ezra was a little upgunned in this episode, when did Luke ever clear an entire hall of storm troopers? Kanan was at least a trained from birth padawan, so we could infer that he was like the much better knights we saw in the PT, but Ezra?? How much time has passed here? i got the sense it was only a few months.

There have been some dangling threads piling up that are bothering me. When Ahsoka didn't accompany the team from the ghost to find Rex she said something like "I have to go check on some things." and when Hera sent Rex and Kanan after Ezra and Admiral Whomever, why was she all "You know this is the best way."

Wouldn't having the Ghost or some of the other rebels around as back up have made sense from a strategic perspective? That whole "rattle off procedure codes and bluff your way through" routine seems like a pretty shaky strategy so I feel like the inference is the rebel cell is working on a few projects at once.

[The Romulan Republic]

Man this show shits all over stormtroopers. The last episode had them be no more competent than the old droids from the clone wars with fancier army.

Yup.

To be fair, stormtroopers weren't all that great in the OT, either. Their's a reason stormtrooper accuracy or lack thereof got its own page on TV Tropes named after it.

The only stormtrooper forces that did well were the ones in A New Hope and the ones who stormed Hoth, and even then, it wasn't so much a case of them being brilliantly skilled as it was a case of them having an overwhelming advantage. Take the ones who stormed Leia's ship- they basically just charged into a narrow chokepoint, and only won because their enemies didn't have much more in the way of cover and they had the numbers to soak up a few casualties and keep coming. The main assets of stormtroopers appear to be numbers (the Empire will always have more men), discipline/loyalty (I don't think we ever see a stormtrooper panic, try to run, or betray the Empire in any way in the OT), and superior equipment. Not individual competency.

[Galvatron]

To be fair, compared to a Jedi knight and a battle-hardened war veteran ARC trooper who was bred and trained to be an ultimate warrior, the average stormtrooper probably seems like a pussy. To the average civilian or rebel grunt, I imagine they're pretty scary.

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh yeah. They're definitely a step above most of the opposition, for the reasons I listed.

They're just not super elites, whatever Kenobi may have said in A New Hope.

Edit: Actually, I can see at least one possible exception to that- the speeder bike troopers on Endor. They were kind of awesome, going toe to toe with Luke and Leia. At least until the Ewoks started outsmarting them.

And I suppose the 501st. might qualify as "elite", though I don't know if its canon any more.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm... has the 501st. appeared in the show yet?

It would be interesting if they kept running into incompetent stormtroopers, and then one day they find themselves up against the 501st. and promptly get their asses handed to them. It would be a cool shock, like when Tarkin showed up and had the Inquisitor cut those guys' heads off last season, which to me was basically the moment when it was "Damn, this isn't just a kid's show any more."

[Galvatron]

Wookieepedia has a canon section for the 501st, so I assume they still exist. Whether or not they measure up to their old EU wankery remains to be seen, I think.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/501st_Legion/Canon

[Purple]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Everything about the stormtroopers makes me think that they are political troops before anything else. As in that they are selected and trained first and foremost for loyalty to the Emperor and Empire with actual combat performance coming in second. That would explain why they repeatedly show bad accuracy, combat tactics and generally lackluster performance and yet they newer break, run or surrender. And it would also explain why they are feared. An individual stormtrooper might not be the best fighter. But he is well equipped, armed and fully willing to burn down your village, women and children included if that's what the Emperor wills. This sort of thing would make perfect sense too given the conditions the empire is in (revolt suppression and not a war) and the fact that Palpatine is a power hungry evil wizard who likes to rule by fear. And it would make sense thematically given that the Empire is meant to remind of Nazi Germany and the stormtroopers would than by relation be the SS.

[The Romulan Republic]

That makes some sense.

The Empire is a totalitarian regime with no real outside rival and at least initially, no major internal military threat. From Palpatine's perspective, loyal troops who won't turn on him and will crush dissent might be more important than troops who are good at winning battles.

[NecronLord]

Yeah, it's hard to imagine those rebels on the Tantive IV and even the sand people being slaughtered by these stormtroopers.

The rebels on the Tantive IV were terribly ill equipped and may not even have been soldiers.

Try imagining that assault if the rebels from hoth had been guarding the corridor with one or more cable fed HMGs putting a couple of hundred rounds a minute into the single door the stormtroopers come in through supported by their full size assault-rifle looking blasters. It'd be a bloodbath for the stormtroopers. There's in fact no evidence that the rebels were anything but the actual crew of a consular ship.

I can easily imagine the guys who only have single-fire pistols/carbines being killed by these guys. The Hoth rebels, who are by all appearances actual soldiers would be expected to give a far better account of themselves, as would the Endor commandos, obviously.

[Typhonis 1]

Storm troopers were very accurate if Vader didn't order them to miss the protags. Think about it they wanted them to escape but it had to look real ...and killing them before they could escape and reveal where the base was, was stupid. Imagine being the trooper whom hit Han or Leia, how would Vader have reacted to the plan going South like that?

Meanwhile the storming of Leia's ship shows how good they are.

[Crazedwraith]

Yeah except for all the way through the prison break and subsequent escapades before Vader could have possibly come up with that plan.

[Rogue 9]

When, exactly, do you think they hid the tracking device on the Falcon? That had to be the plan before Vader left to confront Kenobi at the very least, because the Falcon made it's escape before he got back to Tarkin to talk about the plan.

[Crazedwraith]

The plan had at the very least had to be after the prison break or they'd be no reason to suspect the Falcon would be going somewhere useful to track it do.

[Purple]

Storm troopers were very accurate if Vader didn't order them to miss the protags. Think about it they wanted them to escape but it had to look real ...and killing them before they could escape and reveal where the base was, was stupid. Imagine being the trooper whom hit Han or Leia, how would Vader have reacted to the plan going South like that?

Evidence of this? Do we have a scene with Vader ordering his storm troopers to miss? Or any indication at all? We don't so it's all speculation. For all we know Vader had not even intended any stormtroopers to be in the hangar and he just got lucky that those that were ended up being bad shots.

Meanwhile the storming of Leia's ship shows how good they are.

Blindly walking into enemy fire until the enemy runs out of bullets... In a situation where a grenade would have done the job. Or a flash grenade. Or just automatic suppressive fire through that door. Or any of the many better tactics.

[Typhonis 1]

R2 and 3P0 crossing the hallway while the stormtroopers were filling it with blaster fire and neither were shot out of hand? The fact they were hitting their targets ? Also it was a choke point but they still managed to take it and enter the ship.

The fact Tarkin mentions this plan of Vader's had better work. Remember Stortroopers have radios built into their helmets. The Death star had not only Stormtroopers but other Imperial personel if they didn't want the Falcon to escape they had other means to stop it. Like a few hundred TIE fighters.

Besides, shooting in combat isn't like a firing range. In combat the other side is returning fire.

[Purple]

R2 and 3P0 crossing the hallway while the stormtroopers were filling it with blaster fire and neither were shot out of hand?

And that's somehow a good thing for the stormtroopers? When something is walking through your line of fire and you have no reason not to hit it how is not hitting it a good thing?

The fact they were hitting their targets ?

At that range and under those conditions that's not a huge feat.

Also it was a choke point but they still managed to take it and enter the ship.

By piling it up with their own dead. That's not good tactics. The situation could have been resolved through the use of a single flash grenade or regular hand grenade, some smoke or really any of the other thing a modern squad of infantry has on hand. Or hell just by using one of those deployable machine guns we know they have (we see one later in the same movie).

The fact Tarkin mentions this plan of Vader's had better work. Remember Stortroopers have radios built into their helmets. The Death star had not only Stormtroopers but other Imperial personel if they didn't want the Falcon to escape they had other means to stop it. Like a few hundred TIE fighters.

That actually underlines my point. If Vader had wanted to make it convincing why don't we see the hangar full of stormtroopers giving chase or anything like that? Instead we see several guys bumbling into the scene through a closing door into an empty hangar. It's rather clear that Vaders plan involved clearing the way for them on purpose and that these guys almost messed it up.

Besides, shooting in combat isn't like a firing range. In combat the other side is returning fire.

All the more motivation for a trained soldier to hit things.

[FaxModem1]

There might be a conscious choice for the effectiveness of Stormtroopers, aside from needing politically loyal soldiers. The Clone Wars were a rather devastating conflict, and the last thing you want as a dictator of a galaxy is for your own military to destroy all the planets in your place. That's what Death Stars and BDZs are for.