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Ok, I was watching Attack of the Clones yesterday, then I saw Return of the Jedi, some thing suddenly hit me.
In AOTC what is the reasoning behind those Acclamators not firing their weapons? Did they suddenly stop firing as they entered the planets atmoshpere, I would have thought the more logical thing to do is have the Acclamators shoot at the big sphere ships that tried leaving the battle (dont know their names) or shoot at equally sized targets while the ground troops engaged the other troops. So, I ask, what is the reason those ships arent shooting? Do the weapons not work when they have landed or something?

Any clarification would be appreciated

Shit, I forgot to add the other question, how big is the Death Star's reactor compared to some of the Federation spacestations (If this belongs in the SW vs ST section, then move it if needed, although I have no intention of this turning into a VS thread.)

Darth Ruinus wrote:Shit, I forgot to add the other question, how big is the Death Star's reactor compared to some of the Federation spacestations (If this belongs in the SW vs ST section, then move it if needed, although I have no intention of this turning into a VS thread.)

If you have two completely unrelated questions, it is better to make two different threads.

Well, they were in kind of a hurry to rescue Anakin, Obi-wan, Amidala and the rest of the Jedi in the arena.

Darth Servo wrote:Well, they were in kind of a hurry to rescue Anakin, Obi-wan, Amidala and the rest of the Jedi in the arena.

Which doesn't explai why they didn't fire at the core ships or hangars for the missle droids or whatever, thus saving massive amounts of trouble for almost no additional cost.

The reason stands that mutli-gigaton explosions in the atmosphere is not good when there are troops right below (that is the only reason why).

fusion wrote:The reason stands that mutli-gigaton explosions in the atmosphere is not good when there are troops right below (that is the only reason why).

Yeah, but, why not shoot first, THEN land the troops, they could have taken out any big stuff first, then used troops to take out the stragglers..

or, why not shoot with their weaker weapons?

because an orbital bombardment doesn't make a particularly impressive battle scene while troops and tanks are more exciting.

On a more serious note, the only reason I can think of is too much anti-air around the core ships. maybe they could get ground troops and gunships close enough, but a big floating cap ship would get knocked down. It's a weak excuse I know, but its the best I can come up with.

I thought they were busy trying to get orbital/air superiority, not sure where it's mentioned but I recall that a space battle is happening the whole time.

IIRC, there was suppost to be a battle up in orbit, some of the CIS ships were there for defense. The Acclamators had to fight through and land. So if all that was true, the troops ships would be more concerned with landing and having it's troops embark than opening fire so that they wouldn't get hit with their troops on board.

Or maybe not. *shrug*

Most likely they were in a rush to get their troops mobilized on the planet, while being trying to be stealthy[as not to endanger Obi wan and crew] and did not fire later as not to endanger ground troops[ or some Republic comandos trying to destroy underground droid production lines] but your guess is as good as mine.

I heard the explanation that the Republic did not wish to create an escalation in the conflict and therefore did not allow the use of the acclamator's weapons. But that makes no sense since the war is already escalating regardless.

Honestly, I think it's just something they didn't feel like doing for the scene. They already had SPHA-Ts on the ground, so they can't have been worried about firepower. None of the capital ships on either side fire during the scene, so it must have been a Lucas decision. Why, who knows.

In universe, maybe the core ships were diverting power to engines and shields. Maybe the brand-new Acclamators weren't armed yet.

Maybe someone was concerned that blasting a crater the size of Colorado might have a slight chance of utterly annihilating the people they are supposed to be rescuing.

I don't know, maybe trying to capture seperatist leaders/strategic plans might have had something to do with it?

Look at the Acclamators up close in the movies. They're lacking the broad-side-mounted dorsal guns and the heavy trench guns.

I'd guess those are "early" versions rushed into duty as transports, but not yet armed. Any other "armed" ships would probably have been busy up in space fending off the Separatist warships.

IIRC, in addition there was a bit in the novelization about the Republic not wanting any sort of orbital bombardment of the area because it would risk damaging the droid factories, which they wanted to capture to find out more about the threat, or something along those lines.

It's interesting when a Trektard talks about the multimegaton cannons on Slave 1 and the blasting of Obi Wan on the flight deck the almost reflexive answer with a sigh is "They can dial down the power you know." yet Acclamators HAVE to fire multi gigaton blasts?

YOu add to that the targetting capabilities of SW tech, one example I remember trotted out occassionally is blasting ships from light minutes out of the Coruscant system so dialed down weapons with great targettign couldn't have achieved precision attacks on Geonosis?

Darth Ruinus wrote:So, I ask, what is the reason those ships arent shooting? Do the weapons not work when they have landed or something?

I just watched that sequence again. The behavior of the Republic troops was logical. Pop out of hyperspace near the planet, enter the atmosphere and drop off your troops as quickly as possible. The Acclamators that landed did so behind a ridge so they didn't have line of sight to the Federation core ships (which makes sence since they are discharging troops and didn't want to be shot at). They then proceed back into orbit to protect reinforcements as well as establish a blockage to prevent any enemy from escaping (Poggle mentions how their communications were being jammed).

We also know that the Republic army quickly outnumbered the droid army so it didn't make sence to keep the Acclamators near the surface when the real battle is fought in space. You can't win a major ground battle if you lose the battle in space.

fusion wrote:The reason stands that mutli-gigaton explosions in the atmosphere is not good when there are troops right below (that is the only reason why).

They can scale down the weapons however:

and also the Acclamators and LAATs did take down the CIS fightercraft on the ground through bombardment and supposedly 'thousands; of Republic ships were engaging the CIS fleet in orbit

Aaron2 wrote:We also know that the Republic army quickly outnumbered the droid army

on the ground troops deployed no. The GAR was outnumbered 212,000 to ~2 million.

No one's talking about orbital bombardment, but heavy close-air support. One Acclamator could conceivably have done a lot of good.

If the transports were armed at this stage, it is possible that their crews were not sufficiently trained to be able to execute this without endangering troops. In contrast, by RotS they are using whole Star Destroyers as close-air support.

The Acclamator is transport and landing ship before a dedicated warship. Perhaps they were worried the CIS positions were prepared for low level warship attacks? They were heavily dug in, and it's not like they had a lot of exact intelligence on how well prepared the CIS was for a full attack. For all they knew, the hillsides and mountain ranges could have been covered with anti ship weapons a la Guns of Navarone.

Stravo wrote:It's interesting when a Trektard talks about the multimegaton cannons on Slave 1 and the blasting of Obi Wan on the flight deck the almost reflexive answer with a sigh is "They can dial down the power you know." yet Acclamators HAVE to fire multi gigaton blasts?

No, and no one has stated that they have to fire multi-gigaton blasts. Yet apparently there are around seven settings for weaponry per the RotS:ICS, and assuming that Acclamator weaponry has the same amount of settings (it would be an assumption as this info was for dedicated warships, which the Accy isn't) then it could easily be that the lower settings are still capable of damaging the factories.

The Republic also might of wanted to test thier new army against the CIS. This(though there might be some EU stuff that say's otherwise) was thier first real battle!

Bluewolf wrote:The Republic also might of wanted to test thier new army against the CIS. This(though there might be some EU stuff that say's otherwise) was thier first real battle!

Throwing such an expensive and vital asset as the Clone vanguard at Geonosis against an entrenched and vastly numerically superior opponent without the full benefit of available air support is a rather dangerous method of testing it, don't you think? Better to deploy combined arms as best you can in the first major engagement; if the army really needs testing on its own, without support (which doesn't make much sense, given the nature of "modern" warfare), one would do it in a smaller and less pivotal confrontation.