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We can gloat about shoddy tactics used in the SW universe (lol @ teh napoleonic linez, etc) but what are the genuinely decent ones used, be they from any obscure corner of the EU? Just for curiousity's sake.

Honestly, off hand, I really can't think of any. The problem is that no SWs author really gives it much thought or at least not logical thought, so whenever they decide to describe tactics in detail they always mess it up.

The characters that survive the EU with a reputation for good tactics in and out of universe are the ones that we are told are brilliant tacticians but are never shown being brilliant tacticians. Ackbar and Thrawn spring to mind, their campaigns being described is such broad terms that there isn't anything to nitpick to death.

I think that bad military tactics are inherent to sci-fi and fantasy literature as a whole. Right now the only sci-fi novel I can think of that doesn't fall prey to that is Ender's Game with the caveat that it's been a long time since I last read it so I don't have all the details fresh in my mind.

Well, I remember in one EU novel that Thrawn used Interdictor Cruisers that were sent ahead of his main fleet to allow his Star Destroyers to come out in a tight formation, rather than being a ways apart from each other.

The last I read this book was years ago so the details may still be fuzzy, and I don't think they ever explained why a tight formation is good, perhaps so that the enemy could't single out a singe ship as easily? All I know is that the New Republic forces in the area did not like it one bit.

Imperial528 wrote:Well, I remember in one EU novel that Thrawn used Interdictor Cruisers that were sent ahead of his main fleet to allow his Star Destroyers to come out in a tight formation, rather than being a ways apart from each other.

The last I read this book was years ago so the details may still be fuzzy, and I don't think they ever explained why a tight formation is good, perhaps so that the enemy could't single out a singe ship as easily? All I know is that the New Republic forces in the area did not like it one bit.

Good formations are normally good because they allow mutual support-but this is not something Star Wars has problems with. For a start, we have seen fleets emerging from hyperspace, and they don't get scattered hither and yon in Jedi, nor do the Republic forces at Geonosis have any problems slipping through the planet's defenses after emerging from hyperspace. That would seem to indicate that they maintained organization despite emerging VERY close to the planet's surface and having little time to assemble and shake out their transports afterwards. So either Zahn doesn't really know what he's talking about, or Thrawn has the most inept crop of navigators to ever flunk out of the Cadian academy on his ships.

Imperial528 wrote:Well, I remember in one EU novel that Thrawn used Interdictor Cruisers that were sent ahead of his main fleet to allow his Star Destroyers to come out in a tight formation, rather than being a ways apart from each other.

The last I read this book was years ago so the details may still be fuzzy, and I don't think they ever explained why a tight formation is good, perhaps so that the enemy could't single out a singe ship as easily? All I know is that the New Republic forces in the area did not like it one bit.

Thats the problem though, the authors don't put time into telling us why a tactic is good, they just tell us its good and have all the characters consider it good so we have to assume its good, even if to us it makes no sense of is ridiculously stupid.

One that springs to mind was sending in cloaked star destroyers under the shield canopy of a planet while it's planetary shield was down, then sending in a fleet of non-cloaked destroyers to attack, they raised the shields and the Destroyers timed their attacks so that when the turbolaser bolts hit the shield the cloaked Star Destroyers would fire along the same trajectories and destroy the shield generators and several other important instillations.

Word then spread of the Empire's Shield Penetrating Turbolasers.

A pretty nifty, if extremely convoluted and difficult to pull off, maneuver.

Best tactics? Overwhelming firepower. Pretty simple isn't it. I hope you weren't looking for cute tactics or something clever on a TV show. Real tactics would be... overwhelming firepower brought to bear on a target.

I wonder if that too isn't something that's beyond the SW strategists, at least as far as the visual media outings are concerned. Has anybody noticed how totally averse the military personal in those is to use orbital bombardment involving capships, even if it would be really, really, really approrpriate and useful? Superfriends Syndrome (failing to make full use of one's arsenal and abilities) is something that's in full effect there.

I think that actually has justification.
Keep in mind that in the SW universe word travels fast. And if a side in a war were to bombard a planet with high yield weaponry possibly incurring horrible environmental and otherwise collateral damage. That might become a great propaganda tool for their enemies. And even if you are extremely careful and there is no huge scale devastation, the image of turbolasers hitting the surface makes for great news reports.


Off the top of my head, the primary two examples of something like that being done are the one in KOTOR1 where Malak bombs Taris and the destruction of Alderan. Both cases are more or less a madman showing everyone just how evil he is.

Well, but at least the CIS is shown to be not above planetary genocide as seen in the Ryloth arc, but they don't rain death and destruction down from above either.

Keep in mind that the CIS was not necessarily geared up to win the war. For all we know, any and all tactical incompetence on their part, including having commanders that are little more than Bond villains might have been intentional.


Also, the problem with planetary bombardments is that you are scorching the ground you want to capture.
The CIS can replace the work force with slave droids. But they can't replace the landscape.

And, considering their other assets, the CIS were not really effective at genocide either. For all we know Palpatine could have chosen commanders who will commit wide scale acts of evil toward the local population, antagonizing the CIS and making him appear as the hero when the cavalry arrives. But not damage the planetary surface he one day wanted to rule.

Well, it's not like turbolasors can't be dialed down to a more managable level, can they? The main advantage is after all that you can fire upon the enemy without him having, short of a shield and heavy firebases, much way to retaliate. Artillery in general is rather sparingly used throughout the war (since it would pretty much a bane to those daredevil lead-from-the front Jedi I presume).
I also always smirked at how the CIS marched their whole army parade style at the republican positions on Malastare. Yup, they totally deserved getting a pseudo-Nuke dropped on them.

Metahive wrote:Well, it's not like turbolasors can't be dialed down to a more managable level, can they? The main advantage is after all that you can fire upon the enemy without him having, short of a shield and heavy firebases, much way to retaliate

There may (in my opinion should) be a limit on how far you can dial down a turbolaser. There's a lot of heavy equipment with minimum power settings as well as maximum ones, because it simply will not work physically if you try to run it at extremely low power.

If we're going for the generally used figures on SDN for turbolaser firepower, capital ship beam weapons in Star Wars are too big to be used for ground bombardment by about six to nine orders of magnitude, unless your objective is overall genocide. That's a big range for your weaponry to have to be tunable across.

I would be no more surprised to learn that it was impossible to do that from an engineering standpoint than I am to know that you can't do microsurgery with a backhoe.

I don't know how canonical it is, but one cutscene in the X-Wing game shows a bunch of Star Destroyers unleashing their firepower on a planetary rebel base. The scene after that shows imperial troops having captured the damaged base while also making prisoners. So if that counts then yes, turbolasers can be dialed down to a level where more remains than scorched earth.
BTW, it can of course be rationalized in many ways, but I think the real reason why artillery barrages of any kind are rather uncommon is simply that it doesn't vibe with the napoleonic/medieval hybrid combat aesthetic that's nurtured in the series.

Hold on--in the Ryloth arc, the Republic had orbital superiority, didn't they? The droid bombers were being launched from a hangar IIRC.

EDIT:And to the Imperial example, perhaps targeting and calibration has simply improved by that time.

Well, the Ryloth example was chosen to demonstrate that the CIS doesn't care about its "image", not because of orbital bombardment capabilities per se. But then again, the space was still contested, the Republic had not yet complete air superiority hence the bombers managing to wipe out a number of dwellings.
No matter what rationalization is put forward, I just call it lazy plotting for the sake of convenience. I hate Superfriends Syndrome and I hate having to rationalize it in order to make sense of the plot.

The 'outer rim sieges' seems to imply that they had the firepower to repel counter attack, and instead of bringing it to bear literally, they were using superior firepower to force the enemy in to surrender without wiping them out.

Metahive wrote:Well, the Ryloth example was chosen to demonstrate that the CIS doesn't care about its "image"

Oh yes it does. It just also happens to be evil.

Metahive wrote:Well, but at least the CIS is shown to be not above planetary genocide as seen in the Ryloth arc, but they don't rain death and destruction down from above either.

The Republic was launching a full planetary invasion of Ryloth, and was literally days away from taking the capital and driving the CIS off the planet. What makes you think they had anything other than those bomber squadrons anyways? It's likely that the Republic had already achieved orbital supremacy.

Knife wrote:Best tactics? Overwhelming firepower. Pretty simple isn't it. I hope you weren't looking for cute tactics or something clever on a TV show. Real tactics would be... overwhelming firepower brought to bear on a target.

So what about cases that might require nuclear level firepower on an inhabited planet (EG the Rebel's defense shield on Hoth)? I dont think you'd want to rely on "overwhelming firepower" then.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Knife wrote:Best tactics? Overwhelming firepower. Pretty simple isn't it. I hope you weren't looking for cute tactics or something clever on a TV show. Real tactics would be... overwhelming firepower brought to bear on a target.

So what about cases that might require nuclear level firepower on an inhabited planet (EG the Rebel's defense shield on Hoth)? I dont think you'd want to rely on "overwhelming firepower" then.

No, but to be fair, that was a snatch operation. The Imperials were hoping to take prisoners, Luke Skywalker specifically, which presents a particularly different case tactically. That said, a SSD and it's attendant SD's are more than enough fire power for the situation, and could have melted the planet around the theater shield.

Darksider wrote:The Republic was launching a full planetary invasion of Ryloth, and was literally days away from taking the capital and driving the CIS off the planet. What makes you think they had anything other than those bomber squadrons anyways? It's likely that the Republic had already achieved orbital supremacy.

Well, I repeat that I didn't bring up Ryloth as an example for a lack of orbital bombardment, I brought it up to show that the CIS is not particularly concerned about causing widespread destruction and collateral damage, I apologize if that has been unclear.

NecronLord wrote:Oh yes it does. It just also happens to be evil.

Yeah see! It would be nice if something like that made it into the series. Considering the CIS is constantly pulling shit that would make the Axis Powers proud (or rather green with envy) I really wonder how they avoid popular backlash. And o yeah, I think calling them evil would be insulting to evil people. You'd think that they erected a monopoly on every moral vice there is. Ì mean the Nazis at least thought they were working for some kind of greater good if a very warped one.

Palpatine deserves credit for at least gathering all that scum in one place and wiping it out.

Propaganda and popular perception of the war are things that defintely need to be adressed in the show...ah, a nerd can dream, can't he?

Metahive wrote:Yeah see! It would be nice if something like that made it into the series. Considering the CIS is constantly pulling shit that would make the Axis Powers proud (or rather green with envy) I really wonder how they avoid popular backlash. And o yeah, I think calling them evil would be insulting to evil people. You'd think that they erected a monopoly on every moral vice there is. Ì mean the Nazis at least thought they were working for some kind of greater good if a very warped one.

Palpatine deserves credit for at least gathering all that scum in one place and wiping it out.

Propaganda and popular perception of the war are things that defintely need to be adressed in the show...ah, a nerd can dream, can't he?

Actually isn't it cannon that this series is considered to be Republic propaganda, hence the nicer activities of the Separatists are not really shown.