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We saw in Ep. III that the clones on Kashyyyk were in camo. The Emperor's finest legion on the forest moon of Endor was not. Is there any explanation for this? Was it because the stormies were on temporary assignment on the surface? Was it because they were so confident that they'd win that they just didn't bother?

Order 66 wrote:We saw in Ep. III that the clones on Kashyyyk were in camo. The Emperor's finest legion on the forest moon of Endor was not. Is there any explanation for this? Was it because the stormies were on temporary assignment on the surface? Was it because they were so confident that they'd win that they just didn't bother?

The latter I’d expect. Remember, for a brutal dictatorship, ‘best troops’ doesn’t mean most competent at warfare. Its going to mean most ‘politically reliable’ whom may or may not be good at fighting.

Hitler for example had the SS whom where good at fighting and politically reliable, while Stalin purged and butchered his officer corps, destroying the fighting quality of his entire army, just to ensure that the few officers who where left where no political threat.

Weren't these troops that were supposed to be seen, and were used only to lure the rebles into a trap?
Besides, these guys were the best of the best, so who cares if their seen? they can beat anybody!

(except cute, angry furballs and some lucky rebels, of course! )

Edited for spelling. Hope you understand, ol' chap.

The troops in ROTS knew before going in they were there to fight in a ungle. The troops on Endor were assigned to a bunker.

The troops in ROTJ were definitely overconfident, as evidenced by the fact that they didn't even bother clearing the jungle around their base entrances. It's not that unreasonable, to be honest: they knew it was essentially impossible for the Rebels to land a large force on the planet, which was protected by a shield system. So the most you would see would be a few squad-sized raiding parties which try to sneak in by stowing away on one of the few transports which was headed to the planet rather than the station in orbit.

Their intel was actually dead-on accurate too; they were only attacked by a single squad, and could easily handle them. What they didn't expect was a bizarre ambush by the Ewoks after they had successfully captured and neutralized the entire Rebel landing party, and they ended up getting bush-whacked by vastly superior numbers because they only had a few dozen troops at the back entrance. Hell, they could have easily won that battle simply by being more ruthless and killing the prisoners instead of marching them outside alive.

In other words, if they lived up to the Rebels' portrayal of them as institutionally murderous from top to bottom, then they would have actually won that battle handily.

To be fair, there is a certain amount of incompetencee there, though. But that's mostly on Palpatine's part. (He was so obsessed with turning Skywalker that he let all reasonable tactical considerations go out the window. His orders to the Executor and its escorts being a prime example. Recall how shocked Piett's subordinate was that they were being held back?) Had he displayed a bit more sense and not let his ego get the better of him (remember, he was confident that everything would go according to how he foresaw it.) things might have turned out quite a bit differently (the Imps were still holding their own against the Ewoks despite all the disadvantages, IIRC.)

Reminds me of Hitler and the siege of Dunkirk.

Huge french forces (and some British "Auxilliaries") were driven into Dunkirk by the Panzerkorps. The city was completely sourrounded, and they tried to evacuate troops by ship to britain. Hitler, impressed of the results of stuka-bombing, decided that the tanks had to stop and that all fighting shall be done by the Divebombers. The first day went fine. Those Stukas sunk every boat trying to get in or out of the harbour, but then came bad weather, stukas couldn't fly, but Hitler didn't revoke his orders. About 2/3 of the troops were rescued. Had the tanks attacked, noone would have come out of this "Kessel" (Germans call such encirclement a "pot", because the encircled troops are "cooked alive")

Giant failure - all because Hittler liked to show off his most effective weapon.

Since GL had so many elements of the 3rd Reich in the Empire, maybe he had this episode in the back of his mind...

I do recall one of the Rogue Squadron books (Wraith Squadron- the book with a group of spec ops commandoes) talking about this, namely one of the characters commenting about standard stormtroopers (Not The Elites that Crix Madine once lead) using camouflage since they hadn't on Endor and on of the other characters replied "Yeah, but having their butts kicked by a bunch of teddy bears made them change their minds", while I understand that the Rogue S books are considered exceptionally low level canon, it's still a nice little dialogue

Darth Wong wrote: In other words, if they lived up to the Rebels' portrayal of them as institutionally murderous from top to bottom, then they would have actually won that battle handily.

The battle of Endor was almost spiny Victor-Ian-Steiner-Davion like in morality.

Now, capturing a rebel strike team in the process of demolishing your bunker? Okay. Good, especially since Vader seems interested in prisoners. Saying "hold up your hands or we shoot" while in the middle of a firefight, against two soldiers found planting explosives on sensitive military equipment and trying to re-infiltrate the bunker?

Can anybody say "stupid good guy" here?

For once, the back-story was actually helpful for explaining away the defeat of Endor. There was a division of roles between the stormtroopers and naval troopers for perimeter security, with naval troopers responsible for the installation itself while stormtroopers were responsible for the scout-bike patrols or aka, external security. During the ambush, the stormtroopers did what their mandate was, clear the enemy from the perimeter by going back out into the field, leaving the bunker security to the naval troopers. The command of the battle itself was left to some racist lieutant, assigned to backwater duty on Endor, who must have felt left out of the slaughter of alien bastards who dare threaten humans and thus, abandoned his primary charge and opened the bunker door.

On the whole subject of the Stormies loosing to a bunch of teddy bears and a few rebel commandos, play the Endor map on Battlefront II to get a good idea of what it would be like. It is a bitch trying to see most rebel units, and those little furry bastards if they are not right out in the open.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:On the whole subject of the Stormies loosing to a bunch of teddy bears and a few rebel commandos, play the Endor map on Battlefront II to get a good idea of what it would be like. It is a bitch trying to see most rebel units, and those little furry bastards if they are not right out in the open.

But there are also a ton more Rebels in the game.

LaCroix wrote: Giant failure - all because Hittler liked to show off his most effective weapon.

Actually there where very sound reasons to hold back the Panzers. The units where quite exhausted and short on supplies after the dash to the channel and needed time to refit. Remember, much of the French Army was still in the field and would have to be engaged as soon as the Dunkirk pocket was reduced.

In addition the British occupied prime defense positions, including multiple water obstacles and where very well supplied with anti tank weapon. Any mass armored attack under those conditions would have taken heavy losses, its fashionable to knock the 2 pounder anti tank gun but in 1940 it could easily destroy any German tank. And in any case, German infantry and some armored units did steadily force the British back throughout the evacuation, which only ended when the Germans where able to bring the beaches under direct fire.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:On the whole subject of the Stormies loosing to a bunch of teddy bears and a few rebel commandos, play the Endor map on Battlefront II to get a good idea of what it would be like. It is a bitch trying to see most rebel units, and those little furry bastards if they are not right out in the open.

That's why certain stormtroopers are equipped with sensor suites, as per SOTP.
We can see them make the mistakes.

PainRack wrote:Can anybody say "stupid good guy" here?

I'm surprised they were ever brought out. What's the point? Either execute them inside or intern them inside while ruthlessly interrogating them.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

PainRack wrote:Can anybody say "stupid good guy" here?

I'm surprised they were ever brought out. What's the point? Either execute them inside or intern them inside while ruthlessly interrogating them.

Maybe they were preparing transport to the landing platform to follow up on Vader's orders: "Conduct your search and bring his companions to me."

Vader was on the Death Star by that time (and the space battle had not yet started), so that may have been their motivation for bringing them outside the bunker.

Could it be that the Stormies were simply in standard garrison armor, rather than one specialized for jungle warfare? It seems to be pretty standard in modern militaries to have several types of uniforms for your troops in different situations, and we know their are many types of clone/stormtrooper armor, so either they all thought this assignment would be such a milkrun that they didn't bother to pack their camo armor or they didn't have time to change when the shooting started.

I agree. Plus it's not like this was expected to be sme huge battle like Kashyyk. They were just going to detain and transport a dozen Rebels to the Death Star, not fight a large scale operation in the jungle. You don't need camo armor to arrest a few terrorists.

It was an entire legion of troops commanded by Wilhelm Best. And yes, Wilhelm was an arrogant idiot...