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Most people on this board are aware that the Vong have several major weakness, such as horrible armor for their ships, lousy sensors, and
weapons that are very weak compared to turbolasers. However, none are as big, yet none are so subtle, than the disipline problem. What disipline problem, you ask? The Vong warriors have all the traits of good warriors: they are fearless, they will take any order without question, and they will fight fanatically for their 'gods'.
All good and dandy, right? Wrong.
Each of these traits is admirable in a warrior but not all three ar once.Anyone who has read Destiny's Way will know of what I speak. Fearlessness means recklessness, which is fatal in battle. Total obedience means that no matter how suicidal a mission seems and how pointless it seems, the warrior will not dare question orders. Which leads to more fatalities.
And fianlly, fighting fantically will cause even more recklessness, since the warriors are not afirad to die, which means they will waste thousands of warriors to a simple thing. Also, it makes them very predictable. Any thoughs?
(And please don't point out this was said in Destiny's Way, I mentioned this earlier and intended to reproduce it for the sake of debate.)

Total obediance is a required trait in any military orginisation.

As long as the Vong aren't running out of soldiers, does it matter?

Frank Hipper wrote:Total obediance is a required trait in any military orginisation.

Not to the point of being suicidal, it doesn't. Plus, soldiers today can point out other tactical solutions other than the one presented. Vong can't do that.

Sardaukar wrote:As long as the Vong aren't running out of soldiers, does it matter?

Umm.. ya. Because the way the war with the NR is going right now, they're gonna have to get some new strats, or they're gonna have a serious personnel depletion.

Lord Sauron-Tyranus-Vader wrote:

Frank Hipper wrote:Total obediance is a required trait in any military orginisation.

Not to the point of being suicidal, it doesn't. Plus, soldiers today can point out other tactical solutions other than the one presented. Vong can't do that.

Yes, look at the WWII Japanese. They fought attrition, but they would of ran out of troops sooner or later.

Sardaukar wrote:As long as the Vong aren't running out of soldiers, does it matter?

No, but they are running out of soldiers, so it does matter.

I didn't know they were running out of soldiers. I haven't been reading the NJO. I stopped at Agents of Chaos.

Let me sum up the YV situation then. The relative ease with which they've taken NR territory has stretched out their forces; they have too much to defend. Shimrra actually rebuked Warmaster Tsavong Lah for proposing an offensive because of the number of soldiers it would require, soldiers that they don't have.

Obedience in any military is a good thing, but you also need inventiveness and a desire to save your own neck. Without the desire for self-preservation, you need a source of replacement troops, otherwise you'll run out of soldiers. With the droid army this isn't a problem, since battle droids can be manufactured in massive amounts.

Sardaukar wrote:I didn't know they were running out of soldiers. I haven't been reading the NJO. I stopped at Agents of Chaos.

I gave up after Star by Star but it's becoming an issue. They loose massivley even with sucess. They're warrior code is destructive and they never had the numbers advantage. Sheer attrition will grind them down sooner or later.

And this is against the New "Pansified" Republic the Empire could have crushed them through sheer numbers if nothing else.

God damn the Vong are stupid. The NJO is probably only meant to average out the Forces of the NR, IR, YV etc, so we can have a stupid Star Trek like situation.

Eww, never saw the Trek like aspect before. That could be pretty shitty. For the most part, the Vong are losing warriors fast. Total obedience is one thing, stupidity is another. Basically the only good to come of DW was Shimrra's announcement. They are losing warriors in large numbers and this is fucking them over now. The closest they had to someone not being fanatical to the orders of stupidity was Tsavong Lah's father Czulkang or something. He's gone now, and Tsavong too. He was being a fucking moron. (personally DW I have ranted about before sucks because most of the characters do not act in any way they do in other books. ) I've probably repeated what was said a few times, but oh well. The NJO seems to be coming together showing the Vong are actually fuqed up and that it was all just ignorance and politics on the NRs side that allowed them in so far.

Blind obedience is not good for an SW battle. The situation is so fluid that rigid discipline may be counterproductive. Of course, discipline is needed, but so is innovation. Thus, the blind obedience would be ungood.

Stormbringer wrote:

Sardaukar wrote:I didn't know they were running out of soldiers. I haven't been reading the NJO. I stopped at Agents of Chaos.

I gave up after Star by Star but it's becoming an issue. They loose massivley even with sucess. They're warrior code is destructive and they never had the numbers advantage. Sheer attrition will grind them down sooner or later.

And this is against the New "Pansified" Republic the Empire could have crushed them through sheer numbers if nothing else.

That's what I've been saying all along.

We also already saw the Vongs weakness in battle due to their obedience and religion in Rebel Dawn or Stand ( i cant remember if it was when Lando was taking or defending Borelies) anways Lando used his YV droids to fight the Vong . Once the Vong releized thier attackers were driods, saying they were better than the Vong and in Vongish language the Vong gave up thier positons and let themselves be picked off due to thier obiedience and follow of their religion.

It was Rebel Dream. Ah, that Series was on of the best of NJO.

The Vong gave in to there anger like Luke did in ESB and lost heavily