Tactical Stupidity in Science Fictions

[DodoBrd16]

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Our targeting systems cannot hit an object that is two meters across consistently. Even in the Gulf War, F117's did not generate that kind of accuracy, and with missiles it is far more difficult. The attack did not require the use of the Force, or Dodonna would never have sent the pilots to knock out the DS. He would have, instead, tried to evacuate what he could from Yavin. SW technology is at least 24,000 years more developed than our own, and possibly as much as 25,000 years older. Also, voice transmissions were garbled over the DS, and course correctional information is considerably more difficult to relay than voice transmissions. I have no idea where you got any of your information, as nearly all of it is incorrect.
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We have a Decent chance, with our current day targeting systems, to hit the vent.

The point I was trying to make is that, our current day technology is thousands of years behind that of the what the Rebels used. If we have a half butted chance of hitting that vent. Then the seriously more advanced technology of the Rebels should have had no problem getting the Torps into it.

And the jamming the Death star was putting out was most likely not that powerful, although the transmission were slightly garbled, they were still able to communicate with one another easily and the command center on Yavin was able to pick up their transmissions and transmit to the Rebel squadrons. So your telling me, with communications like that...powerful enough to get through the Death Stars jammers((If they were even up)) that they could not get a video link over a short distance, between fighter and torp?

And I appologize for any missunderstandings, I am not always the most coherent poster on the net.

[Sea Skimmer]

Quote.
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Our targeting systems cannot hit an object that is two meters across consistently. Even in the Gulf War, F117's did not generate that kind of accuracy, and with missiles it is far more difficult. The attack did not require the use of the Force, or Dodonna would never have sent the pilots to knock out the DS. He would have, instead, tried to evacuate what he could from Yavin. SW technology is at least 24,000 years more developed than our own, and possibly as much as 25,000 years older. Also, voice transmissions were garbled over the DS, and course correctional information is considerably more difficult to relay than voice transmissions. I have no idea where you got any of your information, as nearly all of it is incorrect.
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We have a Decent chance, with our current day targeting systems, to hit the vent.

No we don’t. We don’t have a weapon which can make a 72,000 g turn, and anything we drop downward into it would hit the sides and explode after under a meter, assuming we could get a weapon in, which would require several hundred bombs and missiles at the minimal.

[Akm72]

I agree that a fighter-to-torp communications link might've worked. But as neither the missile sensors or the fighter sensors could see the exhaust port, what would the point have been? Manually controlling a missile, traveling at hundreds of meters per second relative speed, to hit a 2 meter wide target is not going to be easy, and is probably going to be tougher than just launching the thing manually as they did.

[Patrick Degan]

RotJ: Okay, so Palpatine goes through this entire ruse in order to trap the Rebels, but let's them get so far as to actually infiltrate the shield bunker? Why? Once the assault team was within the shield's area of effect, old Palpy could have contained them at will. Defenses around the shield bunker? Non-existant. And where the frell was that damned AT-AT during the ground battle (Don't give me any crap about it not being able to maneuver through the forest, with that kind of firepower available, it could have blew through any foliage.) TIE Fighters or any air support? Nope, not there either. The entire ground battle should never have taken place.

This is another example of how Emperor Palpatine lost sight of his objectives, which were to win the war, by getting wrapped up in his little Skywalker Project instead. Setting up the ground battle was entirely for the purpose of adding to the psychological pressure upon Luke in the effort to turn him toward the Dark Side. But it would have been far better for there to have been no battle at Endor. Palpatine sacrifices his very real chance of crushing the Rebellion out of existence because of his obsession with the Skywalkers. I suspect incipient madness fueled by the Dark Side as the chief cause.

On the ground, however, the battle was lost by the commander of the shield bunker, who only had to keep buttoned up behind his blast doors. The Rebels would never have been able to crack their way into the bunker before the Rebel fleet was defeated, and they certainly could never have escaped the destruction of the sanctuary moon afterward once its utility value had expired.

ESB: Why use speeders when they had perfectly good X-Wings ready and standing by? X-Wings that according to the EU WERE effective against AT-AT's! Why were only beam weapons used? Why no Concussion missiles or Proton Torpedoes? They could have wiped out the Imperial assault with a handful of missiles. (Okay, I'll accept that they may have been in short supply, but even one proton torpedo would have gone a long way towards evening things up. For that matter, though, Why only have a handfull of AT-ATs and one or two AT-ST's attack. With the size of the fleet they had assembled, they could have had a much larger strike force and suffered far fewer casualties, plus it would have played more in line with the Imperial doctrine (Hit it with the biggest hammer possible.)

On the Rebel side: remember that this was the phase of the war when the Rebel Alliance was losing. Resources were stretched thin, and expending the arsenal of Echo Base would not only have accomplished nothing, it would have deducted overall from the materiél available to the Rebellion at that time. And since there is no point going all out to defend a base you're in the process of abandoning, you carry off everything that can be salvaged and used for the future. Risking X-wings in that battle would have been even more wasteful.

On the Imperial side: from what we see in TESB, the Imperial operation at Hoth was at least a two-stage plan; an initial spearhead landing intended to clear the way for the main force. The second-wave troops and mecha were no doubt standing by for Gen. Veers to destroy the shield generator and neutralise surface resistance. Extra caution may have been taken, as well, due to the imperative from Lord Vader to capture Han Solo, Leia, and any top-ranks among the Rebel forces.

STFC: Plot hole...The Borg have time travel capability, however they only used it as a last resort while they were sending their obligatory Borg Cube to attack Earth. Why use it then? Why not travel back in time in Borg Space, AND THEN attack precontact earth?

In the movie, the time-jump appeared to be a desperation move on the part of the Queen and her accompanying drones, made as they were abandoning ship and attempting to escape the Federation fleet at Earth. They may not have the capability to send anything larger than a scout craft through time, or they had to improvise the jump. For the Borg, it might have been a one-way proposition, with no means to return to the present.

In any case, the idea of wiping your enemies from existence by traveling into their past is sheer nonsense. If there are no alternate timelines, then any events a time traveler interacts with are merely those he is intended to interact with in order to shape the pattern of the future. The traveler won't alter the future because he didn't. If there are alternate timelines, then nothing a traveler does in any alternate timeline will have any effect upon the home universe. From that perspective, the traveler has simply vanished, never to return.

[DodoBrd16]

I'm trying to say, that our targeting systems have a decent chance of getting a bomb into that vent...

The point of my statments is that....if we have a decent chance of getting a bomb into that vent, then the Rebel alliance, with technology thousands of years beyond our own, should have had absolutely no problem putting that Torp into the Vent.

Thats the whole point.

Nothing, nothing less.

[DodoBrd16]

Idealy(sp) your targeting computer would.

but ya know, if your computer cant do it, its better then firing blind.

I wonder if, with a Video guidance system...R2 could have pulled it off?

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[Raxmei]

TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds"

They need to slow the cube down, so they beam over armed away teams to shoot stuff up. If they could beam weapons over, they should have sent some photon torpedoes instead, or maybe an antimatter storage pod. Those could have caused some damage.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

I wonder why the Imps didn't stun the Rebels in any conflict. It's a ring of blue whatever that spreads out, so you virtually can't miss even with Stormtrooper accuracy. Plus I wonder if the turbolasers on the ISD in the beginning of ANH were really turbolasers or ion cannons trying to disable the Tantive IV. We already know that ion cannons don't have to be blue. The Hoth ion cannon gun actually shot a red laser. Many believe for some strange reason that is was blue. So if it was red, than couldn't the green blasts be ion cannons? After all, they were trying to disable and not blow up the Tantive IV. If those weren't ion cannons, chalk up some more tactical stupidity.

[Mr Bean]

I wonder why the Imps didn't stun the Rebels in any conflict. It's a ring of blue whatever that spreads out, so you virtually can't miss even with Stormtrooper accuracy. Plus I wonder if the turbolasers on the ISD in the beginning of ANH were really turbolasers or ion cannons trying to disable the Tantive IV. We already know that ion cannons don't have to be blue. The Hoth ion cannon gun actually shot a red laser. Many believe for some strange reason that is was blue. So if it was red, than couldn't the green blasts be ion cannons? After all, they were trying to disable and not blow up the Tantive IV. If those weren't ion cannons, chalk up some more tactical stupidity.

Two things, One Stun Blasts have Short Ranges(One of the books mentions this) Infact it seems the Stormy hit her at the extreme end of the range to knock her out, You see short-ranged Stun-blasts are nessary by Desgin becuase the ability to knock somone out at fifty feet would probably be quite fatal with-in ten feet

Second they where shooting with regualr Weapons Because they where trying to capture them but not a fly stocked and battle ready crewed ship that would have plently of time to set the ship to over-load

Now if you blew away the Command Deck, not only could you get a nearly intact ship but chances are you got a ship much less ready to fight the subsquent boarding action

[Darth Wong]

TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds"

They need to slow the cube down, so they beam over armed away teams to shoot stuff up. If they could beam weapons over, they should have sent some photon torpedoes instead, or maybe an antimatter storage pod. Those could have caused some damage.

Worse yet: they come under attack, they return fire, they lose their shields and take casualties, and they finally manage to damage the cube. So what do they do? Do they keep pouring it on and try to finish it off? Of course not! They immediately hold their fire, they have nice little boardroom meetings, and then they decide to beam over and satisfy their scientific curiosity! Holy shit, what a bunch of morons.

[Patrick Degan]

TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds"

They need to slow the cube down, so they beam over armed away teams to shoot stuff up. If they could beam weapons over, they should have sent some photon torpedoes instead, or maybe an antimatter storage pod. Those could have caused some damage.

Worse yet: they come under attack, they return fire, they lose their shields and take casualties, and they finally manage to damage the cube. So what do they do? Do they keep pouring it on and try to finish it off? Of course not! They immediately hold their fire, they have nice little boardroom meetings, and then they decide to beam over and satisfy their scientific curiosity! Holy shit, what a bunch of morons.

I believe you may be thinking more of "Q Who?" rather than "The Best Of Both Worlds", but yes, Picard's lacksadasical response to the Borg carving a chunk out of his own ship should have gotten his ass courtmartialed faster than it takes to recite the technobabble interpretation of the recipe for cafe au lait. "Q Who?" makes you seriously question just what it would take to activate the evidently dormant organ between Picard's ears and make him see his precious ship and crew are about to get diced in nasty ways and he has to GET THE FINGER OUT AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Two things, One Stun Blasts have Short Ranges(One of the books mentions this) Infact it seems the Stormy hit her at the extreme end of the range to knock her out, You see short-ranged Stun-blasts are nessary by Desgin becuase the ability to knock somone out at fifty feet would probably be quite fatal with-in ten feet

I thought she was a few feet away from the Stormies???

Second they where shooting with regualr Weapons Because they where trying to capture them but not a fly stocked and battle ready crewed ship that would have plently of time to set the ship to over-load

Wouldn't ion cannons neutralize all systems, thus neutralizing a possibility of self-destructing the ship?

Now if you blew away the Command Deck, not only could you get a nearly intact ship but chances are you got a ship much less ready to fight the subsquent boarding action

If they blew away the command deck, they wouldn't have been able to question any high-ranking members. And it is apparant that Captain Antilles was a high-ranking member, who would most likely have been on the command deck. And you never see them firing at the command deck at all. In fact, it's quite impossible to aim at the command deck as it is in the front of the ship. Without blowing off the entire bow, you can't destroy the command deck alone from the ISD's angle. You see that the ship is generally intact. I don't seem to recall any parts of the ship blown off. I bet some of the green blasts were ion cannons. Otherwise, the Tantive IV would have kept firing. But they stopped firing when they were caught in the tractor beams and were being "towed" into the docking bay. Why they wouldn't fire into the docking bay and tear shit up on the ISD is beyond me, if they had their weapons systems intact. And if a turbolaser knocked out the shields and then fired at the Tantive IV, wouldn't the thing be all burned up and shit? Wouldn't you see some form of damage? Like blown off turrets or fried engines or the sensor dishes destroyed? I don't recall ever seeing any of that. So I think the ISD's blasts were both tubolasers and ion cannons.

[Defiant]

B5: Why did President Clark send his entire fleet to meet Sheridan at Mars? By doing so, he left Earth to be defended only by a few weapon's platforms. A static defense satellite is nothing compared to a mobile capship with a human crew.

[Mr Bean]

I thought she was a few feet away from the Stormies???

Thus the point I was making, Stun is Short Range only since we know(Not ranges but the mecanisim that it uses) it over-loads the central nervious system and basicly makes to go into total lock along with random flaling and you fall down.

Wouldn't ion cannons neutralize all systems, thus neutralizing a possibility of self-destructing the ship?

Do you have any idea how easy it is to set a reactior to overload? With Nuclear Reactors its easy enough to just throw a metal bar at the U-238(sp?) and could completly #^^!$!$ things up

And second Ion damage is quite reparable, Only takes an hour or so to get a ship back into working, flying condition(TTBH Dengar getting shot up)

If they blew away the command deck, they wouldn't have been able to question any high-ranking members. And it is apparant that Captain Antilles was a high-ranking member, who would most likely have been on the command deck. And you never see them firing at the command deck at all. In fact, it's quite impossible to aim at the command deck as it is in the front of the ship. Without blowing off the entire bow, you can't destroy the command deck alone from the ISD's angle. You see that the ship is generally intact. I don't seem to recall any parts of the ship blown off. I bet some of the green blasts were ion cannons. Otherwise, the Tantive IV would have kept firing. But they stopped firing when they were caught in the tractor beams and were being "towed" into the docking bay. Why they wouldn't fire into the docking bay and tear shit up on the ISD is beyond me, if they had their weapons systems intact. And if a turbolaser knocked out the shields and then fired at the Tantive IV, wouldn't the thing be all burned up and shit? Wouldn't you see some form of damage? Like blown off turrets or fried engines or the sensor dishes destroyed? I don't recall ever seeing any of that. So I think the ISD's blasts were both tubolasers and ion cannons.

If you watch the movie(It helps you hear the main reactor core had been hit that shut down everything, no life-support, no engines, No nothing because there is not power...

[Patrick Degan]

B5: Why did President Clark send his entire fleet to meet Sheridan at Mars? By doing so, he left Earth to be defended only by a few weapon's platforms. A static defense satellite is nothing compared to a mobile capship with a human crew.

Actually, it was a strategically prudent move. If Sheridan had simply bypassed Mars, he would have put himself in the very disadvantageous position of attacking Earth with a large enemy battlefleet in his rear which could jump in and trap his force between the planet and the oncoming warships. To quote Gen. Lefcourt, "it's the same as fighting with your back to the sea". It is always a cardinal error to bypass a powerful enemy formation which can move to where you are attacking and force you to fight on two fronts simultaneously.

Sheridan had no choice but to attack Lefcourt's fleet at Mars first. Clark evidently counted on the Liberation Fleet taking on heavy casualties before being able to move on to Earth, which would make it more vulnerable to the defence platform network, and also to buy time for Clark to set up his doomsday programme in the event of impending defeat. A reduced Liberation Fleet could not have prevented all the defence platforms from firing on the Earth, and millions would have died on the surface in Clark's insane, suicidal Götterdamerung.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

You see short-ranged Stun-blasts are nessary by Desgin becuase the ability to knock somone out at fifty feet would probably be quite fatal with-in ten feet

If she was only a few feet away, she would be dead. Thus, I question if this information is valid.

Do you have any idea how easy it is to set a reactior to overload? With Nuclear Reactors its easy enough to just throw a metal bar at the U-238(sp?) and could completly #^^!$!$ things up

I somewhat doubt it is as simple to do in SW. And the Tantive IV was desperately trying to escape. Plus, they wouldn't just blow themselves up with the information onboard. That is why they jettisoned the lifepod. And why didn't the Imperials blow up the lifepod even if it had no life in it??? And isn't that another implication that the Empire is evil for even thinking about shooting up LIFEPODS?!?! Unless....they were ion cannons. And stupid enough not to adequately give its men orders for such situations?

And second Ion damage is quite reparable, Only takes an hour or so to get a ship back into working, flying condition(TTBH Dengar getting shot up)

The Rebels didn't have an hour. The Rebels had absolutely no time to make repairs.

If you watch the movie(It helps you hear the main reactor core had been hit that shut down everything, no life-support, no engines, No nothing because there is not power...

It could have been hit by an ion cannon. Duh.

[Guardsman Bass]

RotJ: Why did they ask for permission to land, get it, then land miles away from the shield generator platform? They could have put a set of hidden proton torpedo launchers on the shuttle, landed on the landing platform that was next to the shield generator, and "fire in the hole!" Knowing Palpy, he wouldn't have sensed them, and Vader wanted to get Luke, so he may have let it by.

[Mr Bean]

If she was only a few feet away, she would be dead. Thus, I question if this information is valid.

And I was explaing, We KNOW its short-ranged because we KNOW the principle it works on and we KNOW how far away Leia was from the Stormys

Its very simple principle, Any method of short-circuting(And its descripted just like that, a massive surge to your system) your nerves will with enough power, cook you inside out and stop your heart, thus the nessity of such systems being short ranged otherwise you will Barbaque somone at less than a set distance away
Or to put it another way, A hit on the head will at some power do nothing but rase a bump, with more power it will knock you uncousius, with more power it will smash in your scull, get the idea on why Stun settings are short ranged?

I somewhat doubt it is as simple to do in SW. And the Tantive IV was desperately trying to escape. Plus, they wouldn't just blow themselves up with the information onboard. That is why they jettisoned the lifepod. And why didn't the Imperials blow up the lifepod even if it had no life in it??? And isn't that another implication that the Empire is evil for even thinking about shooting up LIFEPODS?!?! Unless....they were ion cannons . And stupid enough not to adequately give its men orders for such situations

Novel has them opening fire with TURBO-Lasers and furthermore if they are in the ships computer an Ion cannon stands a good chance of destroying them

And SECONDLY how we know it was because the Core was going to overload

Ship Fires on the IV, KABOOM, The spot labled in Cross sections- THE REACTOR CORE is blasted away, Zip to 3P0 saying oh no the've shut down the centeral reactor(The part that got slaged in the previous shot) and during the time the lights flicker indicating a switch to a diffrent power-source and imdeitly after the explosion the ship stops firing

This is how we know the Core was damaged was going to over-load they shut it down and the ship had no power to fight back or even move

The Rebels didn't have an hour. The Rebels had absolutely no time to make repairs.

One Man manged to fix the ship by himself in an hour, How fast do you think 300 Rebels with tools on hand could?

And in case you forgot Vadar had(EU says) Eight ships and twenty dead transports, He simply can't spare the man-power to mop up all the Transports AND Case after Solo with every ship resisting to the last man

[Rhadamanthus]

In SW, most ships actually have a bridge that is centrally located. On ISD's, the bridge is in the most protected area of the ship, covered easily by most of the ship's weapons. I don't see this as being stupid.

Hmmm, too bad they didn't carry that over to the SSD, so stray A-wings couldn't send it pinwheeling into nearby space stations

[Master of Ossus]

In SW, most ships actually have a bridge that is centrally located. On ISD's, the bridge is in the most protected area of the ship, covered easily by most of the ship's weapons. I don't see this as being stupid.

Hmmm, too bad they didn't carry that over to the SSD, so stray A-wings couldn't send it pinwheeling into nearby space stations

Actually, the bridge of an SSD is also very well protected. The ship was merely overwhelmed, and its shields knocked out by a sustained bombardment.

[Enlightenment]

Actually, it was a strategically prudent move. If Sheridan had simply bypassed Mars, he would have put himself in the very disadvantageous position of attacking Earth with a large enemy battlefleet in his rear which could jump in and trap his force between the planet and the oncoming warships.

The 2D concepts of 'surrounded' and 'trapped' don't apply in 3D space, particularly not in universes where directionally unrestricted FTL drives are allowed. If Sheridan's fleet found itself tactically boxed by forces on two sides it would be a very simple matter to jump out to a position where all the enemy groups are along one axis.

This is a fairly minor mistake, however, compared to Sheridan's stupid idea of trying to contain the Centauri rather than waging a scorched earth campaign against their strategic assets and population centers in order to deny them the ability to fight. In adopting a containment strategy he made the cardinal mistake of warfare: he gave the initiative to the enemy. For a supposed genius he really had no clue about how to fight a war.

[Lord of the Farce]

And I was explaing, We KNOW its short-ranged because we KNOW the principle it works on and we KNOW how far away Leia was from the Stormys

Its very simple principle, Any method of short-circuting(And its descripted just like that, a massive surge to your system) your nerves will with enough power, cook you inside out and stop your heart, thus the nessity of such systems being short ranged otherwise you will Barbaque somone at less than a set distance away
Or to put it another way, A hit on the head will at some power do nothing but rase a bump, with more power it will knock you uncousius, with more power it will smash in your scull, get the idea on why Stun settings are short ranged?[/quote]

Or in other words, if you accidentally shoot someone a few feet away with the power required to stun someone at long range, you might as well have strapped them into an electric chair and flipped the switch.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Lord of the Farce brings up a very good point. If blasters and such have different power levels, why not for stun? Why wouldn't stun have different power levels for different ranges?

The ISD wasn't taking on all of those ships when it was going after the Tantive IV. Two or three shots from ion cannons, and hell, why not continually shoot it with ion cannons even if it did stop to prevent repairs, would have ended it much more quickly. There wouldn't have been any wasted turbolaser ammunition (if it exists), there would have been less damage to the ISD, and the Rebels would have had a reduced chance of escaping. So it is clear then, based on evidence supplied by Mr. Bean and from ANH, that whoever had authority over tactics (either Vader or the captain) was incompetent.

[Darth Wong]

The ISD wasn't taking on all of those ships when it was going after the Tantive IV. Two or three shots from ion cannons, and hell, why not continually shoot it with ion cannons even if it did stop to prevent repairs, would have ended it much more quickly. There wouldn't have been any wasted turbolaser ammunition (if it exists), there would have been less damage to the ISD, and the Rebels would have had a reduced chance of escaping. So it is clear then, based on evidence supplied by Mr. Bean and from ANH, that whoever had authority over tactics (either Vader or the captain) was incompetent.

Only if we assume that the WEG description of ion cannon function (from which all official descriptions are derived) is completely correct. If, on the other hand, we go with the canon TESB novelization and visuals (which indicate both physical damage and shield interaction), ion cannons are not that much different in impact from turbolasers. In fact, they may even carry a penalty in terms of controllability, since the effect shoots uncontrollably all over the place, and they want to confine the damage to the aft section to avoid destroying the bridge and killing high-ranking officers or passengers.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Wouldn't you agree that ship-mounted ion cannons would be significantly less powerful than the one seen on Hoth? And why not change the power levels so that a few low-powered shots would not risk destroying the plans or key personnel?